Eighteen-year-old Dutchman Oliver Daemen will be allowed to go into space next week with Jeff Bezos, the richest person on our planet, on a commercial flight. It is the first manned flight from Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin. That company announced the name of Daemen on Thursday.
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The Dutchman who just graduated from high school can take the place of the anonymous person who had bid about 28 million dollars for the first commercial space ticket. He canceled due to ‘planning conflicts’: the bidder’s agenda was apparently too full for a space trip.
Eighteen-year-old Olivier is the son of Joes Daemen, the CEO of investment company Somerset Capital Partners BV. How much father Daemen paid for the space ticket has not (yet) been disclosed.
Olivier Daemen, who obtained his private pilot license during a sabbatical year in 2020, plans to study physics and innovation management at Utrecht University from September. In a video on Twitter, he says he is super happy and has been dreaming about this all his life. According to Blue Origin, “Olivier represents a new generation of people who will help us build a path to space.”
Youngest and oldest ever
When the craft leaves the atmosphere, Daemen will be the youngest astronaut ever. He is also the fourth born Dutchman to ever have been in space, after Lodewijk van den Berg, Wubbo Ockels and André Kuipers.
Also on board is, in addition to Jeff Bezos’ brother Mark, Wally Funk. At 82 years old, she becomes the oldest human ever in space.
The flight, which launches in Texas next Tuesday, will take about half an hour and will take the space tourists to the edge of space where they will be weightless for about three minutes before returning their capsule to ground level.
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