Meet Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teen flying to space with Jeff Bezos after his hedge fund dad paid millions for the ticket of a lifetime
- The 18-year-old will join Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and aviator Wally Funk on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20
- Oliver posed with Formula One racer Max Verstappen on Instagram, loves snorkelling and surfing, and has been ‘fascinated by space since he was four’
When Oliver Daemen blasts off on July 20, he’ll be making history as the youngest person to travel to space.
Daemen, who is currently 18, is Blue Origin’s first paying customer: he bid for the seat at an auction last month, ultimately losing out to an anonymous bidder who paid US$28 million for the opportunity. But Daemen is flying in that passenger’s place after “scheduling conflicts” arose, Blue Origin said in a blog post on Thursday, July 15.
In a video posted to Twitter, Daemen said he’s “super excited” to go into space.
“I’ve been dreaming about this all my life,” he said. “I am super excited to experience zero-g and see the world from above.”
According to Dutch news service RTL Nieuws, Daemen has already left for Texas, where New Shepard will launch, to complete astronaut training ahead of lift-off on Tuesday.
So who is Oliver Daemen and how did he become a passenger on the highly anticipated space flight? Here’s what we know so far.