Jeff Bezos "not really nervous" about space launch with Blue Origin crew: "I'm excited"
Jeff Bezos, along with his Blue Origin crew members, can't wait to be onboard the company's first passenger flight to space Tuesday morning.
"I'm excited," Bezos said on "CBS This Morning" Monday. "People keep asking me if I'm nervous. I'm not really nervous. I'm excited. I'm curious. I want to know what we're going to learn."
Asked by "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King how he wasn't nervous, the Amazon founder said, "We've been training. This vehicle's ready. This crew is ready. This team is amazing. We just feel really good about it."
Aviation pioneer Wally Funk, who is joining Bezos on the flight, told King, "none of us are nervous." Funk, who started preparing for spaceflight in the 1960s only to be barred from NASA's all-male astronaut corps at the time, will become the oldest person to go to space at the age of 82.
Bezos will also be joined by his brother Mark Bezos and 18-year-old Dutch student Oliver Daemen.
"I think the excitement just overtakes the nervousness," said Daemen, who will become the youngest person to go to space.
The Blue Origin flight comes a little more than a week after billionaire Richard Branson went to space in his company Virgin Galactic's spaceplane. Blue Origin's rocket and crew capsule, called New Shepard, is expected to reach a slightly higher altitude than Branson's spaceplane did, but the flight will be shorter, lasting about 10 minutes. It will take off from a launch site near Van Horn, Texas.
Bezos said the rocket will be in zero gravity for about four minutes.
"We get to get out of our seats, unstrap, float around, look at the thin limb of the Earth's atmosphere," Bezos said. "I'm excited to see that. I think we all are. So the views are going to be terrific. The zero-G will be an unusual experience that you really can't get in any good way on Earth. We're excited about it."
Experiencing zero gravity is what Funk is most looking forward to. "When I'm up in space and able to do somersaults and tumble and do anything that I've wanted to do," she said.
Mark Bezos said he's most excited for liftoff.
"Just the rumble of the engine and that acceleration. I just can't wait to see what that's going to feel like," he said. "And not going to lie, I'm going to be pretty excited when I hear those parachutes open too."
CBS News will provide a Special Report of the Blue Origin launch, which is currently scheduled for 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday. CBSN will also have continuing coverage.