World News for Students of English

27-07-2021 07:00

Jeff Bezos, the richest man on Earth, visited space on Tuesday. He and three other crew members soared about 107 kilometers above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

A historic unpiloted sub-orbital flight helped to inaugurate a new era of private commercial space tourism.  The trip to the edge of space lasted about 10 minutes and 20 seconds, including a few minutes of weightlessness. The crew included his brother Mark, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneering female aviator, and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch physics student.

Bezos, who recently stepped down as Amazon’s CEO, thanked employees and customers of the company that he founded, saying that their hard work and Amazon purchases had made his space flight possible. His words sparked criticism, with some politicians saying that Amazon abused its market power to hurt small businesses. They also said Bezos should have spent the money to pay his workers fairly and protect their health.

Difficult words: sub-orbital (having a flight path that’s less than one complete orbit of Earth), inaugurate (to introduce) pioneering (a first person to do something).

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