Blue Origin will auction its first space tourism ticket

Blue originBillionaire rocket company Jeff Bezos, On Wednesday, it will open sales of tickets for the tour of its New Shepard spaceship, A historic moment in which American companies are striving to reach a new era of private commercial spaceflight.

The first tickets for the flight will be sold on July 20 at auction to the general public. “We are offering a seat on this first trip of the winning bidder at Blue Origin’s online auction. Starting today, anyone can bid at BlueOrigin.com“The company stated.

The auction will consist of three phases: from May 5 to May 9, the site will be open for bidding; On May 19, these performances will be public, and participants must exceed the highest bid to continue participating; The live auction will take place on June 12th.

“The winning bid will be donated to the Blue Origin Foundation, Club for the Future, To inspire future generations to pursue careers related to space development, “Bezos said.

In addition to that first seat, Blue Origin is expected to announce details of how a seat was purchased, the timing of the first flight, and the cost of the ticket made. A carefully kept secret Inside the blue for years. The chosen date – July 20 – is no accident. Around The 60th anniversary of the flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space and the second human, succeeding the Russian Yuri Gagarin, who traveled three weeks ago.

Blue Origin’s new range of rockets and capsules are designed to independently fly six passengers over 100 kilometers above Earth into sub-orbital space., High enough to Experience a few minutes of weightlessness and watch the planet curve Before returning the pressurized capsule to the ground with an umbrella.

The capsule has six observation windows that Blue Origin says is nearly three times higher than that on a Boeing 747..

Blue Origin announced last week that it would start selling tickets soon, after years of delayed testing and development work.

Reuters It reported in 2018 that the company was planning to charge passengers a minimum of $ 200,000 for the trip, based on an assessment of billionaire Richard Branson, rival to Virgin Galactic, and other considerations, although her thinking may have changed.

In 2018, a Blue Origin employee with first-hand knowledge of the pricing plan said the company would start selling tickets on Ranging from $ 200,000 to $ 300,000. A second employee said the tickets would cost at least $ 200,000.

Although celebrities and the wealthy appear to be the main market for space tourism travel, at least initially, industry sources expect Blue to include some charitable elements in his ticketing strategy.

A university professor of science and space data analyst is part of the four-member crew that will take off into orbit later this year. SpaceX, de Elon Musk, as part of A charitable initiative touted as the first fully civilian space flight in history.

Also, The Virgo Galaxy It plans to travel with private clients in early 2022, after its first flight with Branson On board later this year. Its zero-gravity expertise builds on its SpaceShipTwo, and has ambitious plans to offer point-to-point travel between distant cities at altitudes close to space. Virgin says it will charge more than $ 250,000 for new reservations, but has not announced the final price. Sales will reopen after Branson’s trip.

The Blue Origin ad will provide Bezos, who founded Amazon, A much needed push after Blue Origin lost a $ 2.9 billion contract to SpaceX under NASA’s high-profile program To bring Americans back to the moon for years to come.

However, NASA has asked SpaceX to halt development work related to the lunar program contract specifically pending the outcome of protests by Blue and Dynetics competing to the US Government Accountability Office.

(With information from Reuters)

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