In pics: How Jeff Bezos, world's richest man, fulfilled his childhood dream with maiden spaceflight

Washington, July 20: Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut a reality as he soared into space on his company's New Shepard spacecraft on Tuesday.

Named after America''s first astronaut, Blue Origin''s New Shepard rocket soared from remote West Texas on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date chosen by Bezos for its historical significance. He held fast to it, even as Virgin Galactic''s Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico in the race for space tourist dollars and beat him to space by nine days.

Best day ever, says Jeff Bezos

"Best day ever!" Bezos said when the capsule touched down on the desert floor at the end of the 10-minute flight. He was accompanied by his brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas - the youngest and oldest to ever fly in space.

10 minutes flight to space

In a 10 minutes trip to space, the Blue Origin reached an altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers), more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) higher than Branson's July 11 ride. The 60-foot (18-meter) booster accelerated to Mach 3 or three times the speed of sound to get the capsule high enough, before separating and landing upright.

Only 600 people have reached space

Fewer than 600 people have reached the edge of space or beyond. Until Tuesday, the youngest was 25-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov and the oldest at 77 was Mercury-turned-shuttle astronaut John Glenn.

Both Bezos and Branson want to drastically increase those overall numbers, as does SpaceX''s Elon Musk, who''s skipping brief space hops and sending his private clients straight to orbit for tens of millions apiece, with the first flight coming up in September.

What next?

As the New Shepard spacecraft successful journey to space has opened many opportunities, the company is now set to conduct two more crew flights by the end of this year as tickets go for sale. "We have built the system to go on forever and take hundreds and thousands of astronauts into space," company has said.

Second billionaire to go into space

On Tuesday,Jeff Bezos became the second billionaire to go into space after Sir Richard Branson, who flew to the edge of the space on July 11 in his company, Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 flight.

Image credits: PTI