Oliver Daemen (18) will fly to space in place of the $28M winning bidder

[TaylorSwift 162,446]

Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin revealed that 18-year-old Oliver Daemen will fly in place of the still anonymous $28 million winning bidder of last month’s public auction.

Oliver will fly to the edge of space with Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, and legendary aerospace pioneer Wally Funk on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket scheduled to launch on July 20.

Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk represent the youngest and oldest astronauts to travel to space.

Oliver Daemen is the son of Joes Daemen, the CEO of Dutch private equity firm Somerset Capital Partners, who paid for the seat and chose to fly Oliver instead.
The winner of Blue Origin’s auction, who has asked to remain anonymous at this time, has chosen to fly on a future New Shepard mission due to scheduling conflicts. 

source source

[Aglaya 8,505]

So it wasn’t Gaga after all SC MV cancelled

[weed 78,940]

Imagine spending $28M on a ticket and you have "scheduling conflicts"... 

[tomsches 17,550]

I don't care about any of that space travelling stuff. Spend those millions on children that are starving at the moment.

[littlepotter 76,612]

So glad Gaga isn't a part of this 

[Gagz4Gaga 7,278]

Inb4 it explodes and Amazon crashes into $0 stock market value 

[jimmytimestep 2,937]

25 minutes ago, tomsches said:

I don't care about any of that space travelling stuff. Spend those millions on children that are starving at the moment.

Literally this

Imagine the problems that could have been changed in our world with the money spent on that one ticket 

[FATCAT 60,888]

8 minutes ago, jimmytimestep said:

Literally this

Imagine the problems that could have been changed in our world with the money spent on that one ticket 

Not that 28 Million isn't a ton of money, but it's not exactly world-level problem solving money. It's "fix a bridge" level money.

[imnotyourbabe10 6,120]

So bummed that the existential beauty of space has turned into a capitalist rat race. 

[bionic 50,111]

I'd love to be this wealthy

[WorldPeaceTreaty 177]

[TaylorSwift 162,446]

1 hour ago, tomsches said:

Spend those millions on children that are starving at the moment.

with high level of corruption everywhere these kids would just get small percentage of this sum

[jimmytimestep 2,937]

30 minutes ago, FATCAT said:

Not that 28 Million isn't a ton of money, but it's not exactly world-level problem solving money. It's "fix a bridge" level money.

fair, but like - 28 million does a lot for a food bank and that trickle down helps a lot of ppl

[uo111 5,282]

Astronaut has a meaning and this 18 year old kid is not one.