Jeff Bezos was tonight making final preparations for his blast off into space on Tuesday.
The former Amazon boss and his crew were going through 14 hours of preflight training.
Bezos, 57, will go into orbit with his brother Mark, 53, 18-year-old physics student Oliver Daemon and Wally Funk, 82.
No other similar mission has ever had such inexperienced people on board.
Engineers have conducted 15 test flights of the New Shepard rocket, all without a crew.
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Bezos said: “We’ve been practising full missions in New Shepard’s training simulator.
"Can’t wait for lift-off.
“We’ll be building a road to space for the next generation to do amazing things and those amazing things will improve things here on earth.”
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His space company Blue Origin’s chief engineer Chris Jaeger added: “The vehicles are ready to fly.
"There are no engineering or technical issues.”
Bezos, the world’s richest man, claimed the “real goal” was to establish reusable rockets to take people to space often.
The crew will blast off over the West Texas desert and fly more than 62 miles into orbit, which is considered the demarcating line of space.
It will beat Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flight, which reached 53.3 miles on July 11.
Oliver will become the youngest person in space.
His dad placed the undisclosed second highest bid to join the mission.
Oliver got the spot after the £20.25 million winning bidder postponed.
Wally was part of the “Mercury 13” group of women who went through similar astronaut training as the males on the Mercury 7 mission in 1959.
They never made it to space, but Wally will now be the oldest person there.
Observer Alan Turner said of the crew: “It truly is a bunch of space misfits.
"Good luck to them I say.”
