Jeff Bezos has met with Blue Origin's New Shepherd rocket crew the day before its launch into space.
Following hot on the heels of Richard Branson's space flight this weekend, the 57-year-old Amazon founder appeared in a series of interviews with his Blue Origin crewmates 24 hours before their scheduled lift-off from West Texas.
Bezos shared a number of images and videos of himself socializing with the crew on his official Instagram.
Uploading a picture of himself, his brother Mark Bezos, and his fellow passengers Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen, Bezos wrote to his 3 million followers on the platform:
"Had a great dinner with the crew last night. West Texas is beautiful!"
Bezos also shared a video of himself interacting with the crew, showing them training in preparation for their July 20 launch, and wrote: "We've been practicing full missions in New Shepard’s training simulator. Can't wait for liftoff."
Funk, aged 82, was one of the so-called 'Mercury 13', a group of women who received privately funded astronaut training in the 1960s, but who were ultimately prevented from ever doing into space.
She made aviation history by becoming the first female US military flight instructor and the first female air safety investigator for the National Transport Safety Board.
Meanwhile, Daemen joined the crew when the former winner of an auction for a place on the flight was forced to drop out due to prior commitments.
At 18 years old, this will make him the youngest person to ever travel into space.
Commenting on his cosmic initiative in an interview with CNN, Bezos stated: "We'll be building a road to space for the next generation to do amazing things and those amazing things will improve things here on earth."
He continued: "I could have done this flight as CEO of Amazon and it would have been fine. We really believe this flight is safe. I did have friends say: 'why not wait for the second or third flight, why do you have to go now?'
"But we know the vehicle is safe and if it's not safe for me then it's not safe for anyone. But we've taken this one step at a time, our mascot is the tortoise... we are ready."
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