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Jeff Bezos Went To Space In A Cowboy Hat, But All Anyone Can Talk About Is The, Um, Shape Of His Rocket

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos achieved his lifelong dream of crushing all unions, I mean, heading into space on Tuesday morning aboard the Blue Origin rocket. The world’s richest man was joined by three other people, including his brother, Mark, and 82-year-old former-test pilot Wally Funk, who has a great name and an even better story.

It was the “first unpiloted suborbital flight with an all-civilian crew,” NBC News reports:

Bezos launched at around 9:11 a.m. ET Tuesday from a site in the west Texas desert southeast of El Paso. After liftoff, the New Shepard rocket accelerated toward space at three times the speed of sound. At an altitude of 250,000 feet, the capsule separated, taking Bezos and his crew to the edge of space. The craft then descended under parachutes and landed again in the Texas desert. The entire flight lasted roughly 10 minutes.

“Best day ever,” Bezos said when he returned to the ground.

It was also the “best day ever” on Twitter. People were not celebrating a cowboy-hat wearing billionaire taking a joy ride 60 miles into the sky, but they did enjoy making Austin Powers jokes about the phallic shape of the rocket ship. If that sounds like a juvenile way to spend the morning, first off, you’re wrong. The more Austin Powers references in the world, the better. Also, it’s a distraction from thinking about how Bezos and Richard Branson have somehow made space boring.

Today, we are all Clint Howard.

It wasn’t just an Austin Powers reference, however:

(Via NBC News)