Bezos' Blue Origin to make history with unpiloted civilian space flight

FILE PHOTO: Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos addresses the media about the New Shepard rocket booster and Crew Capsule mockup at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Isaiah J. Downing/File Photo

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Jeff Bezos may have been beaten to space by rival Richard Branson, but the billionaire American businessman is poised to make history next week aboard what would be the world's first unpiloted suborbital flight with an all-civilian crew.

Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon.com Inc, is due to be part of a four-person crew for a planned 11-minute ride to the edge of space on Tuesday inside his company Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft, another milestone in the nascent and potentially lucrative space tourism sector.