Oliver Daemen, 18, Becomes The First Teenager To Go To Space

(RTTNews) - Dutch Teenager Oliver Daemen is set to become the first teenager to go to space when he will board the Blue Origin flight with Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos and Wally Funk on July 20. Wally Funk will also become the oldest person to achieve the feat at the age of 82.

Daemen is also going to be the first paying customer after the company announced that instead of the winner of the auction who agreed to pay $28 million, he will get to join Bezos and co. The company has not revealed the price of Daemen's ticket.

Daemen took a year off from his studies after completing high school to obtain his private pilot's license. Oliver is the son of millionaire Josh Daemen, who is the founder and CEO of Somerset Capital Partners in the Netherlands. Oliver is set to join the University of Utrecht in September.

CEO of Blue Origin Bob Smith said, "We thank the auction winner for their generous support of Club for the Future and are honored to welcome Oliver to fly with us on New Shepard. This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space."

On the other hand, Wally Funk, a flight instructor, and former pilot was one of the members of Mercury 13, who passed all the physiological tests in the 1960s but failed to fly.

Until now, the record for the youngest person in space was held by Germon Titov at 25, while the oldest person to go to space was John Glenn at 77.