Jeff Bezos Thanks Amazon Employees After Space Flight: "You guys paid for this" "My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded."
By Emily Rella
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The billionaire space race hit another milestone on July 20 when Jeff Bezos made it to space and back in a 10-minute-long flight in the first-ever human flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket Ship.
You can watch a replay of Bezos' flight and information about the journey here.
Upon his landing, Bezos and his crew (brother Mark Bezos, astronaut Wally Funk and high-school graduate Oliver Daemen) spoke to the press about their flight and experience of being over 60 miles above Earth's ground.
"My expectations were high and they were dramatically exceeded … The most profound piece of it for me was looking out at the earth and looking at the earth's atmosphere," Bezos gushed to the crowd in Texas. "Every astronaut, everybody who's been up into space, they say this, that it changes them and they look at it and they're kind of amazed and awestruck by the Earth and its beauty. But also by its fragility, and I can vouch for that."
Related: Jeff Bezos Makes History in Successful Space Flight
He then went on to talk about the Earth and how space exploration could be key for future generations to understand how the environment is being damaged and how imperative it is to make an effort to maintain it.
"Big things start small, but you can tell when you're onto something. And this is important. We're working to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build the future and we need to do that," Bezos explained. "We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth … the whole point is this is the only good planet in this Solar System. We've sent robotic probes to all of them — this is the only good one, I promise you. We have to take care of it … this is how it starts."
Bezos also took the time to thank his team at Amazon and all Amazon customers for helping essentially fund the trip through their work and purchases.
Related: Jeff Bezos Kicked Off Space Tourism Onboard Blue Origin
"I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for this," he joked. "Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and every employee thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It's very appreciated."
Watch the full press conference with the crew below.
