Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is planning to send people to the edge of space for the first time in July, and one seat will be offered to the highest bidder.
The company announced on Wednesday the first suborbital flight that will launch from its six-passenger New Shepard spacecraft, with one potential civilian joining alongside a team of astronauts. The summer flight would mark the beginning of Blue Origin’s commitment to send paying customers to suborbital space, creating a new market for space tourism.
There will be three phases to the auction for the seat, according to a readout on the company’s webpage.
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The countdown clock on Blue Origin’s website ticks under 10 minutes to when the company reveals details about buying “the very first seat” on space tourism rocket New Shepard:https://t.co/aYzhlou2EO pic.twitter.com/ttZdeAK3wH
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) May 5, 2021
From May 5 to May 18, sealed online bidding will take place and conceal all offers. On May 19, bids will become visible and participants must exceed the highest bid to continue the auction. On June 12, the bidding will conclude with a live online auction.
“The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and help invent the future of life in space,” Blue Origin said in a statement.
When passengers depart Earth on July 20, the spacecraft will launch to about 100 kilometers above Earth, the marker for the unofficial point at which space begins.
Once the crew capsule enters suborbital space, it will detach from the top of the rocket, and the passengers will experience weightlessness while gazing out at Earth. Following the detachment maneuver, the booster will come back down to land vertically, and the capsule will return to Earth’s surface using parachutes.
Upon liftoff, the trip will last around 10 minutes and provide roughly two to three minutes of weightlessness for passengers aboard the craft, according to a visual diagram about the mission from Blue Origin.
In the coming years, Blue Origin will compete alongside SpaceX and Virgin Galactic over the commercial space market as technology advances to allow more civilian trips to space.
This fall, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to send the first all-civilian crew aboard the Dragon spacecraft on its Inspiration4 mission.
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SpaceX’s Crew-1 Dragon capsule returned to Earth Sunday, following the arrival of Crew-2 astronauts to the International Space Station on April 24.
