Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Oliver Daemen became the youngest person to reach space last 20 July when he traveled to the edge of space with Jeff Bezos aboard the New Shepard rocket . There the young Dutchman confessed to the founder of Amazon that he had never made a purchase on his website .
The young man from 18 years, he told Reuters in an interview after returning to the Netherlands, that during his space journey he told the owner of Blue Origin “that he had never really bought something on Amazon ”. According to Daemen, Bezos responded by saying “Oh wow, I’ve heard someone say that for a long time.”
The fact that Daemen did not buy anything on the e-commerce giant’s site is not of the utmost importance, after the company increased its presence in the Netherlands and the e-commerce site was launched in its Dutch version in March 2020 and offers close to 100 millions of products, including several local retailers.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, Daemen assured that Bezos, who is the richest person on the planet , had turned out to be ” a very sociable and pleasant person in real life ”. He also assured that the knowledge that Bezos has about the Blue Origin rockets “is impressive” and that the space company is a project in which he is very involved.
Before traveling to the edge of space, Daemen trained with the rest of the crew for two days and lived with Mark, Bezos’s brother, as well as the aviator Wally Funk of 82 year who became the oldest person in travel to space .
The young man got his seat on the first manned flight of Blue Origin after the seat winner, a person who offered $ 28 million dollars , abandoned the trip due to a problem with his schedule.
Although the space company has not disclosed the cost of Daemen’s seat, it did confirm that the teenager’s father, Joes Daemen, CEO of ca private capital, he was the one who paid for his son’s seat.
Related: How much pollution was generated by the New Shepard rocket that took Jeff Bezos to the edge of space
Space travel is perhaps the door for Daemen to work as a Blue Origin intern in the future as he will start studying Physics at Utrecht University in the fall.
“The company told me that I can always come back even to do an internship. And it is a possibility that I must contemplate “, said the young Dutchman.
Daemen dreamed since he was a child to be able to go to space for what he got his pilot’s license who does not rule out traveling to the stars again. “ If it were up to me, it certainly wouldn’t be the last time I go to space “.
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