Blue Origin: Dutch teen to join Jeff Bezos as youngest person in space

Flying Dutchman: Oliver Daemen will become the youngest person into space. Photo / Supplied

The winner of an auction for Blue Origin's first seat into space is an 18 year old from the Netherlands.

Most astronauts need a minimum of a doctorate degree in a STEM subject or years' of experience flying experimental aircraft.

Freshly out of high school, Oliver Daemen is yet to begin his studies back in Holland.
After a mystery bidder paid $40m for Blue Origin's auctioned seat, there has been much speculation as to who would be joining Bezos in the cockpit. It has since been revealed that the winning bid belonged to Somerset Capital Partners CEO Joes Daemen, Oliver's father.

The private space programme said that Joes could not make the flight "due to scheduling conflicts" reported NPR. So, his teenage son will be flying in his place.

The Netherlander said that he had spend most of his eighteen years "dreaming about this".
The Blue Origin programme said they were grateful to have the Dutchman "as our first customer to mark the beginning of commercial operations".

The flight scheduled for Tuesday will now be carrying the youngest person into orbit, and the oldest. 82-year-old Wally Funk was older than Oliver currently is, when she first trained as an astronaut in the early 1960s.

Welcome to the crew, Oliver! We’re grateful to have you as our first customer to mark the beginning of commercial operations. #NSFirstHumanFlight https://t.co/gwZ6qBOFpi pic.twitter.com/SuOwxe2353

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 15, 2021

Joining Daemen and Funk will be Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark aboard the spacecraft named the New Shepard.

Oliver - or at least Oliver's father - will be the only passenger paying full freight.

The flying Dutchman is a keen amateur pilot and is working to obtain his licence, after returning to earth, to take up a place at the University of Utrecht.

The space flight won't count far towards his flying hours.

Lasting not longer than 11 minutes the joyride to the edge of space works out at roughly $3.64 million a minute.