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

New Yorkers are not amused.

Or they’re too busy dodging bullets and knife attacks in the famous centre of Manhattan’s tourist and, more recently, shooting attraction.

Either way, they didn’t seem to care too much about Bezos and his big rocket. Check it out at Independent TV.

Press secretary Jen Psaki celebrated today’s launch as a symbol of what makes the United States great.

“This is a moment of American exceptionalism, that how we see it,” she said.

“It will be the ingenuity of all of our commercial partners to help us continue advancing to the next stage of our nation’s exploration, and investments in space create jobs, can improve life here on Earth.”

Jeff Bezos has thanked Amazon employees and customers for paying for his trip to space, writes Andrew Griffin.

In a press conference after the launch, Mr Bezos thanked those staff for helping him amass enough money that he was able to shoot himself to space in a rocket.

“I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this,” he said to laughs from the crowd.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It’s very appreciated.”

Jeff Bezos is best known as the richest person on Earth, worth an estimated $202.7bn. As of Tuesday morning, he became the richest person ever to leave Earth as a newly minted commercial astronaut.

Using a conventional rocket with a space capsule atop it, Blue Origin launches and lands vertically, with the whole trip taking just 11 minutes from liftoff to landing.

In that 11 minutes fulfilling his dream of going to space, Mr Bezos, who has stepped aside from running Amazon in favour of pursuing this passion, continued to add to his personal fortune.

Oliver O’Connell calculates how much he made during the flight.

ormer mayor, one-time presidential candidate, Transportation secretary — future space traveler?

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he was excited to see Jeff Bezos’ blast-off into space Tuesday, describing space travel as a clear trend for the future. It’s a trip he would love to take himself, even if he doesn’t think it will happen in the foreseeable future.

“I would go up in a heartbeat. I think it’s such exciting stuff,” the 39-year-old Buttigieg told the Economic Club of Washington D.C. But the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who likes to say he has audacity to do bold things, allowed, “I don’t think the airfare or spacefare, whatever you would call it, is going to be in my budget anytime soon.”

“I’m certainly watching that and some of the others with great interest.” - Associated Press

Former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has joined her progressive comrades, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Corey Bush, in denouncing Jeff Bezos for flying to space with money that could have been spent on their political preferences.

“It’s time for Jeff Bezos to take care of business right here on Earth and pay his fair share in taxes,” she said in a tweet.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Democrat congressman Earl Blumeanauer, on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, announced a plan to tax commercial space flights for tourists that aren’t used for science.

“Space exploration isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy," Blumenauer said in a statement to The Hill. "Just as normal Americans pay taxes when they buy airline tickets, billionaires who fly into space to produce nothing of scientific value should do the same, and then some."

Jeff Bezos may have been one of the first but he won’t be the last into Space on his rocket-looking rocket.

Blue Origin's director for astronaut and orbital sales, Ariane Cornell, said on Tuesday the company planned two more launches with paying customers. And the waiting list is already growing for the next flight, which could come as soon as September.

"Since the auction on June 12, I've had the good pleasure of speaking on the phone with many of the participants from the auction, who now have been quickly filling up seats for the next several launches," Cornell said on Tuesday, via Space.com. "Sales are open, everybody!"

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife, novelist MacKenzie Scott, share four children – three sons and one daughter.

The pair adopted their daughter from China. The offspring of the wealthiest man in the world prefer to stay out of the limelight, no easy feat with the attention their father gets.

However, there is relatively little known information about Mr Bezos’s children.

Jade Bremner take a look at who they are.

Shortly after touching down from a trip into space, billionaire Jeff Bezos wasn’t done making headlines – at a post-flight press conference, he announced a new $100 million philanthropic award.

The new philanthropic initiative is dubbed the “Courage and Civility Award”, which Mr Bezos said “recognised leaders who aim high, and who pursue solutions with courage and who always do so with civility”.

Van Jones, political commentator on CNN and co-founder of Dream Corps, was one of two recipients of the “Courage and Civility Award”.

Helen Elfer has more.