The first seat on the scheduled July 20 maiden voyage of the Blue Origin spacecraft has been sold for $28 million.
Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, announced he and his brother Mark will fly on New Shepard’s first human flight. New Shepard — named in honor of the late astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to fly into space — is Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket system designed to take astronauts and research payloads into space.
Bidding for that first flight had already passed $2.8 million at the time of Bezos’ announcement, and on Saturday, CNBC reported it has been sold for $28 million at auction. Nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries participated in the bidding.
Auction bidding was at $2.8 million before Bezos’ announcement. By noon Thursday, it had reached $4.2 million, with nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries.
Blue Origin was founded by Bezos in 2000. The company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles.
Bidding is underway now at BlueOrigin.com and concludes with a live online auction June 12. The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future.
New Shepard has room for six astronauts; every passenger gets their own window seat. The vehicle is fully autonomous. Every person onboard is a passenger; there are no pilots.
Also under Blue Origin development is New Glenn, a heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of carrying people and payloads routinely to Earth orbit and beyond. Its reusable first stage is built for 25 missions.
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