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At the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos speaks to the media about the New Shepard rocket booster and Crew Capsule prototype. 5th of April, 2017. Isaiah J. Downing/Reuters WASHINGTON/SEATTLE, July 12 (Reuters) – On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) accepted a Blue Origin license to send humans into space using the New Shepard launch system. On July 20, former Amazon.com (AMZN.O) CEO Jeff Bezos will fly to the edge of space on Blue Origin’s first crewed mission. Blue Origin’s FAA license is active through August, and the company is authorized to execute these missions from its Launch Site One facility in Texas, according to the agency. During a test flight, Blue Origin was needed to verify that its launch vehicle’s hardware and software functioned safely, and the FAA validated that it met legal standards. Blue Origin’s journey will take place just over a week after Virgin Galactic, a space tourism rival, successfully carried a crew to the edge of space, including its founder, British billionaire Richard Branson. In what has become known as the “billionaire space race,” Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, as well as rival billionaire Elon Musk’s space company, are seeking to usher in a new age of routine commercial civilian space flight. Developing what UBS, a Swiss investment bank, predicts would be a $3 billion yearly space tourism sector in a decade will require proving rocket flight is safe for the general population. David Shepardson and Eric M. Johnson contributed reporting, while Sandra Maler and Stephen Coates edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

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