Jeff Bezos space launch: Latest updates as Amazon founder launched into space on Blue Origin rocket

The new space travellers are finally here, and the press conference has begun.

It’s something a lot of people say should have happened 60 years ago – but Wally Funk is the last of the four to be given her astronaut wings. It’s greeted with applause and cheers far bigger than the other three passengers.

Jeff Bezos begins by giving thanks: “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer – because you guys paid for all this.”

(A lot of people might argue that Mr Bezos, as the richest man ever to exist, could pay some of that back to those employees...)

He also thanked the people involved in the mission and the town of Van Horn, which Blue Origin has adopted as its home.

We’re seeing some clips from the cameras inside the cabin, as the passengers float around weightless and share skittles.

Wally Funk, who has been weightless before, says she wished she had a bit more time in space, and space in the cabin.

Asked why Blue Origin chose the vertical takeoff and landing architecture, Bezos explains that it is “practice”. It would make no sense to use it for sub-orbital space tourism, he says, because it’s “overkill”.

Instead, it is a practice run for when Blue Origin looks to go above low-Earth orbit – and to other bodies beyond that, such as the Moon, he says.

That’s all in contrast to Virgin Galactic, which uses a spaceplane that is more straightforward for suborbital flights but doesn’t have the same capacity for going higher.

Caling it a “philanthropic initiative”, Jeff Bezos says he is launching a new award. He criticises people who question people’s “character or motives” rather than questioning their ideas.

Instead we should “question ideas”, he says. Ad hominem attacks “don’t work” – they’ve been around for a long time but have been amplified by social media, he says.

“But we do have role models,” he says.

He will be giving $100 million to an awardee who can then give it to the non-profits of their choice.

This time, there are two winners.

The first is Van Jones. He says he will be giving the money to “grassroots” people to help them “connect with the geniuses who have disrupted the space industry” and other things – and using that to “disrupt poverty”.

The second is José Andrés, the chef and humanitarian. He says is “honoured”, and “really grateful for this award”, and seems to be on the edge of tears as he speaks.

Here’s our full story on Mr Bezos’s announcement.

Today, Jeff Bezos slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God – in a rocket that looked especially offensive for the job, writes Andrew Naughtie for Independent Voices.

“New Shepard, the semi-reusable craft that blasted Bezos and his co-passengers just beyond the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere, wasn’t just phallic: it was practically a sculpture of an erect penis. The tweets wrote themselves, from the gobsmacked to the smirking to the downright joyous to deft renderings of the rocket as, well, exactly what it looked like.”

While today’s space flight could be considered a milestone moment for innovation and progress, trawling Twitter would suggest it’s a symbol for the worst excesses of the current moment.

Here are some of the most bosoted voices criticising the launch.