"Not Really Nervous": Billionaire Jeff Bezos Girds For Inaugural Space Flight

The world's richest person and three crewmates are due to fly from a desert site in West Texas on an 11-minute trip to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard.

American billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos said on Monday he is excited and curious but not very nervous on the eve of taking part in his company Blue Origin's inaugural suborbital flight alongside the oldest and youngest people ever bound for space. The world's richest person and three crewmates are due to fly from a desert site in West Texas on an 11-minute trip to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard, a 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters) and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo. The flight represents an important milestone in the establishment of the space tourism industry. Bezos did a round of televised interviews ahead of the launch, set for around 8 a.m. CDT (1300 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One facility some 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural Texas town of Van Horn. "People keep asking 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," Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc, told the "CBS This Morning" program.