![]() All told, future passengers will spend a total of about 10 minutes in the air and climb to more than 60 miles above Earth.īlue Origin's ticket prices have been the subject of speculation for years. The capsule is designed to detach from the rocket near its peak, climbing more than 60 miles high and spending a few minutes suspended in weightlessness before parachuting back to Earth. New Shepard consists of two reusable pieces - a small, dome-shaped capsule with gaping rectangular windows, and a 60-foot-tall rocket booster that blasts the capsule at up to three times the speed of sound as it hurtles toward outer space. New Shepard, a fully autonomous spacecraft that can carry up to six people, has taken more than a dozen automated test flights with the cabin empty at Blue Origin's facilities in Texas, nearly all of which have gone as expected. Passengers must also be able to fasten and unfasten their seat harness in less than 15 seconds, spend up to an hour and a half strapped into the capsule with the hatch closed, and withstand up to 5.5G in force during descent.īlue Origin was founded 21 years ago by Amazon billionaire, and the world's richest person, Jeff Bezos. The auctioned seat will be the only seat for sale to the public on this first flight, with the other seats filled by those selected by Blue Origin.Īccording to the company's website, there are a few limitations on who can take a New Shepard flight: Everyone must be 18 years or older, be in good enough physical shape to climb seven flights of stairs in a minute and a half, be between 5'0" and 6'4" in height and between 110 pounds and 223 pounds in weight. It's not clear how much the ticket is expected to fetch, nor did Blue Origin say who else will be on the first flight or how much they paid for their seats. The proceeds from the auction will be donated to Club for the Future, a youth-focused foundation meant to inspire kids to study science and technology. An unsealed round of bidding will begin May 19, and finally a live auction on June 12 will conclude the contest. The first round of bidding will run from May 5 to 19, and the bids will be sealed, meaning nobody will be able to see how much other people offered. Blue Origin - after spending more than six years developing its space tourism rocket, New Shepard - has finally set a date for its first commercial passenger mission, July 20, and announced that one of the first passengers will be the winner of an online auction.Īnyone can place a bid on the company's website, according to a tweet posted Wednesday morning. However, one Blue Origin employee with first-hand knowledge of the pricing plan said the company will start selling tickets in the range of about $200,000 to $300,000.Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-backed space tourism venture, will soon begin selling tickets for its rocket. That makes the experience a premium and Blue Origin isn’t a charity, so the company may inflate the price to beyond £20 million to make a profit.Īlternatively, as the rockets get more sophisticated and the price of a launch decreases, the company may lower the price to make it more competitive.īlue Origin representatives have repeatedly not responded to requests for comment on its programs and pricing strategy.īezos said last May that ticket prices had not yet been decided. Does this mean future tickets will all cost £20 million? It’s tough to say.Įach New Shepard capsule can only ever hold six passengers, so Blue Origin can only launch a few dozen people to space each year. Using an auction meant that Blue Origin could sidestep putting an actual price on the ticket and let the market decide. ![]() The flight on July 20 will include a bidder who stumped up £20 million ($28 million) for the experience. But there are some interesting (and very high) numbers being bandied around. ![]() We don’t know for sure how much a ticket aboard a Blue Orgin spaceship will cost yet. Spoiler alert: flying to space isn’t cheap (Blue Origin) ![]()
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