'Best day ever' -billionaire Bezos flies to space

Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, soared about 66.5 miles (107 km) above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth.

This report produced by Chris Dignam.

Jeff Bezos, the richest man on Earth, became the richest man to visit space on Tuesday, after he and three other crew members soared more than 66 miles high aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, a historic unpiloted, suborbital flight that helps to inaugurate a new era of private commercial space tourism.

BEZOS: "Best day ever!" The 57-year-old American billionaire emerged from the space capsule after safely touching down in the Texas desert wearing a blue flight suit and a cowboy hat.

Bezos exchanged hugs with his crew, which included his brother Mark, 82-year-old pioneering female aviator Wally Funk and teenaged physics student Oliver Daemen, Blue Origin's first paying customer, who - at 18 years old - was too young to legally partake in the champagne that was sprayed after the successful mission, which made Funk and Daemen the oldest and youngest people to reach space.

The trip to the edge of space lasted about 10 minutes and 20 seconds, including a few minutes of weightlessness - Blue Origin's first crewed flight to space.

The flight comes nine days after British billionaire Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism company Virgin Galactic's successful inaugural suborbital flight.