Oliver Daemen (born 20 August 2002) is a Dutch

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

who flew as part of the 20 July 2021,

sub-orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

Blue Origin NS-16 Blue Origin NS-16 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin which flew on 20 July 2021. The mission was the sixteenth flight of the company's New Shepard integrated launch vehicle and spacecraft, and its first crewed flight ...

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in or ...

. At the time of his flight he was 18 years old, and is the youngest person, first teenager, and first person born in the 21st century to travel to space. Daemen is a licensed pilot.

Life and career

Daemen was born in

Oisterwijk Oisterwijk () is a municipality and a city in the south of the Netherlands. Population centres * Haaren * Heukelom * Moergestel *Oisterwijk Topography ''Dutch topographic map of the municipality of Oisterwijk, 2021'' Transportation * Railwa ...

, Netherlands. He attended the Odulphuslyceum in Tilburg and obtained his high school diploma in 2020. He is enrolled at

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

where he started his studies in Science and Innovation Management in September 2021. Daemen's

seat on the

New Shepard New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and vertical land ...

rocket was secured through an auction, making him

Blue Origin Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Am ...

's first customer (i.e. a person whose flight was not paid for by Blue Origin) and the 8th person to privately fund their non-professional spaceflight. Initially a different person (who initially remained anonymous but was later announced to have been

Justin Sun Justin Sun ( Chinese: 孙宇晨; pinyin: Sūn Yǔchén; born July 30, 1990) is a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the founder of Tron (founded July 2017), a blockchain DAO ecosystem. Sun is the Permanent Repre ...

) had actually won the auction with a $28 million winning bid for the one available seat on NS-16. However, Sun decided to take a future flight, and

chose the youngest person from the auction. On 20 July 2021, Daemen became the youngest person to fly in space at 18, succeeding

Gherman Titov Gherman Stepanovich Titov (russian: Герман Степанович Титов; 11 September 1935 – 20 September 2000) was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Y ...

's multi-orbital record at the age of 25 in 1961.

References

2002 births Living people New Shepard passengers People from Oisterwijk People who have flown in suborbital spaceflight Space tourists {{astronaut-stub

Life and career

See also

References