Dylan Taylor, a Denver aerospace executive, is set to travel to space Thursday aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft.

The multimillionaire, philanthropist and angel investor said visiting space has been his lifelong dream.

“I’ve been fascinated with space pretty much my whole life,” Taylor said in an interview with The Denver Gazette. “I didn’t think I’d be able to go, honestly, and if so I thought it would be pretty far in the future. I’m pleasantly surprised it’s happening as early as it is.”

Taylor, chief executive and chairman of Voyager Space, will join “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley (daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American in space) on the flight, which will launch from a spaceport in West Texas.

Taylor participated in an auction this spring for one of the seats on the spacecraft. Although he was outbid, company officials contacted him soon after.

“It took me about 5 milliseconds to say ‘yes,’” Taylor said.

He signed a nondisclosure agreement with Blue Origin, so he couldn’t discuss how much he paid for his ticket to space. He is donating the amount of the flight to four charities.

“We’re not all self-absorbed,” he said of millionaires buying tickets to space. “I’m one of the ones that believes that space helps us address problems on Earth. With different perspectives, we’ll look to the future together.”

The trip will last less than 30 minutes. The spacecraft will travel just above the Karman line, which separates Earth’s atmosphere from outer space.

“This mission furthers the company’s vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth,” according to a statement from Blue Origin, which was founded by e-commerce magnate Jeff Bezos.

“I didn’t decide to do this on a whim,” Taylor said. “I really thought through it, talked with the team here, the board and the rest of the company to make sure everyone was supportive — including my wife.”

Voyager Space owns Nanoracks, which has been awarded a $160 million NASA contract to help build and operate a space station that will replace the International Space Station. Lockheed Martin will collaborate on the project.

On Nov. 22, Voyager announced it purchased a majority stake in Space Mirco, an electronics manufacturing company that builds on-board satellite computers. Taylor founded Voyager in 2019 and it has about 500 employees, a third of whom are in Denver, he said.

“We get confused sometimes as a holding company,” he said. “We’re not. We’re really a space exploration company. The difference is the way we’ve grown, which is primarily through acquisition. … We want to service the most important parts of the (space) market going forward.”