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.
The entire internet watching Jeff Bezos fly into space. pic.twitter.com/3g7bxjNETM
— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 20, 2021
Life is Austin Powers now. pic.twitter.com/G4MPEd0XWv
— Karl’s farm hand (@MotherofPups) July 20, 2021
That’s a bloody penis!!
Even Dr Evil from Austin Powers was more subtle than that… pic.twitter.com/JnFANLviJL
— El
(@ReturnOfTheEl_) July 20, 2021
Austin Powers did it before. pic.twitter.com/Kekt6VO93Y
— aхel ĸυѕcнevaтzĸy (@AxelKuschevatzk) July 20, 2021
It wasn’t just an Austin Powers reference, however:
Jeff Bezos is a coward and a nerd for not also giving his dick-rocket a nutsack.
— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) July 20, 2021
The one, true Blue Origin. pic.twitter.com/Ul8RL9R2X6
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) July 20, 2021
Oh look a giant dick is getting launched into space. Also a rocket. pic.twitter.com/eZzGKviyiR
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) July 20, 2021
If you were making a black comedy about self-glorifying billionaire assholes, and you had a “space race” where no one actually went to space, and one of the rockets looked THIS MUCH like a giant, overcompensating penis- you’d say “nah, too on the nose.” pic.twitter.com/4OdThRDSCB
— SPIRAL CURSE DEMARCO (@Clarknova1) July 20, 2021
BREAKING: Giant penis launches into space pic.twitter.com/V8ZuBPzVjq
— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) July 20, 2021
pro tip: if you can afford to blast yourself into space on your very own stupid dick-shaped rocket, you can afford to give your workers bathroom breaks. so let’s fucking go already
— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) July 20, 2021
(Via NBC News)