Jeff Bezos – Amazon founder to take first human space flight with his space company, Blue Origin

Amazon founder- Jeff Bezos is to travel to space in July, as one of the first passengers aboard Blue Origin, his space-travel firm.

Bezos announced through Instagram that he will be one of the first passengers aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard spaceship, which will launch from West Texas on July 20th. Mark Bezos who is Mr. Bezos' brother, will also be on joining the Amazon founder, according to post.

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The launch date is strategically decided as Bezos will be stepping down from his position of Chief executive of his behemoth company – Amazon Inc.

Along with Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., Blue Origin is one of many high-profile space-tourism enterprises in this industry.

Blue Origin is auctioning off a seat on its New Shepard rocket for the July 20th launch, which will be an 11-minute flight to suborbital space at an altitude of around 100 kilometres. This will enable its passengers to experience microgravity.

Last month, Blue Origin announced that it had received more than 5,200 bids from 136 nations in the first round of the auction but did not reveal the top bid.

As per Blue Origin's website, the current top offer in the ongoing second round of auction was $2.8 million. The procedure will go through till June 10th and will be followed by a live online auction on June 12th where is will be finalised.

The revenues of the seat will go to Blue Origin's non-profit - Club for the Future, which supports math and science education, and will be the sole seat purchasable on the flight.

Mr. Bezos, who is stepping down as Amazon's CEO on July 5th, has poured a huge amount of money into Blue Origin, investing as much as $1 billion over the years. Andy Jassy is set to take over as CEO, while Mr. Bezos, who currently serves as Amazon's chairman, will take on the role of executive chairman.