VAN HORN, Texas—Jeff Bezos and three passengers reached the edge of space and safely returned Tuesday morning after a flight of just over 10 minutes that the billionaire businessman hopes will kick-start an expansive new era for human space travel.
The Amazon.com Inc. founder and his fellow passengers were launched at 9:12 a.m. ET to the edge of space from a remote West Texas site and enjoyed a few minutes of weightlessness aboard the rocket-powered New Shepard spacecraft developed by his company Blue Origin LLC.
The vessel’s crew capsule floated down under its three parachutes to a spot in the desert, a few minutes after the reusable booster returned—following two sonic booms and blackening the pad as it landed.
“It felt so serene and peaceful, and the floating…it’s a very pleasurable experience,” Mr. Bezos, 57 years old, said of weightlessness at a press conference after his flight.
“What we’re doing is the first step of something big,” he said, comparing the current stage of private space flight with the barnstorming phase that helped foster commercial aviation. “Big things start small,” he said, adding he did something similar with Amazon about three decades ago.
