Teenager to fly into space with Jeff Bezos

An 18-year-old is to become the youngest person to fly to space when he joins Jeff Bezos on the primary human flight by his space company on 20 July.

Oliver Daemen will fly in situ of an anonymous $28m (£20m) winning bidder of a public auction.

The winner of the auction couldn’t fly the mission “due to scheduling conflicts”, Mr Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin said.

The teenager is that the son of Somerset Capital Partners CEO Joes Daemen.

Mr Daemen had secured a seat on the second flight but was moved up to the primary when the winning bidder pulled out, Blue Origin said. He then chose to instead fly his son, who may be a physics student.

He will join 82-year-old Wally Funk, who will become the oldest ever person in space. Mr Bezos and his brother Mark will structure the remainder of the passengers on the New Shepard rocket.

The previous winner of the auction has remained anonymous, whilst the launch edged closer, and therefore the nature of the “conflicts” which led to their withdrawal haven’t been disclosed.

Blue Origin haven’t said what proportion Mr Daeman’s ticket cost.

It said the flight will fulfil a lifelong dream for the teenager, “who has been fascinated by space, the Moon and rockets since he was four”.

The company plans to launch its passengers quite 100km (62 miles) above the surface , allowing them to experience microgravity.

The capsule will then return to Earth using parachutes on a visit expected to last about 10 minutes.

He created Blue Origin in 2000 and announced last month that he and his brother would start the flight – describing it as something he had wanted to try to to “all my life”.

The flight comes after billionaire Sir Richard Branson successfully reached the sting of space on board his Virgin Galactic rocket plane last week.