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Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/will-sir-richard-come-out-of-the-blue-and-beat-bezos-into-space/ [arstechnica.com]

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said [arstechnica.com] on Monday he would fly on the first human spaceflight of his company's New Shepard spacecraft. This mission will launch from Blue Origin's spaceport in West Texas on July 20, which is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969.

With this timeline, Bezos seemed almost certain to beat his suborbital space tourism rival, Sir Richard Branson, into space. Setting aside whether Branson's VSS Unity vehicle reaches space—its maximum altitude is just below the Kármán line, or 100 km—this is nonetheless a meaningful milestone.

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