Meanwhile in Space: Jeff Bezos to Take First Blue Origin Flight Next Month, Earth Scrambling to Create No-Return Policy

Ah, to be the richest man in the world and have nothing better to do than launch yourself into space. So goes life for Jeff Bezos, the Amazon bazillionaire with too much free time on his hands. Bezos announced his impending July 20 departure from Earth in a video posted on Instagram yesterday.

 

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A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend,” he captioned the post with the hashtag #GradatimFerociter, which means “step by step, ferociously” (for those who didn’t major in Latin).

The flight comes just two weeks after Bezos is scheduled to resign as CEO of Amazon. It will be Blue Origin’s first crewed flight; though the spaceship can carry up to six people, so far it sounds like Bezos, his younger brother Mark, and one lucky public auction winner will be the only passengers. (In case you got your hopes up to be the third wheel, the bidding at the time of this writing was upwards of $2.8 million. So, yeah, no. Sit this one out, slugger.)

If all goes as planned, this trip will also make Bezos the first billionaire space entrepreneur to actually make it into orbit, beating out Elon Musk of SpaceX and Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic.

“To see the Earth from space, it changes you,” Bezos said in the cheesy Instagram video.

Yeah, yeah whatever. We just hope that while he’s up in the air, we Earthlings can figure out some kind of no-return policy because honestly? This planet has had enough of him.

Cover Photo: @jeffbezos (Instagram)

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