Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin opens up bidding for first ‘spectacular’ space tourism trip in July

On July 20^th, New Shepard will fly its first astronaut crew to space. Blue origin said it would offer one seat on this first flight to the winning bidder of its five-week online auction. Starting today, anyone can place an opening bid by going to BlueOrigin.com. Here are the three phases of the auction:

1. May 5-19: Sealed online bidding – Participants can bid any amount they want on the auction website (no bids are visible)
2. May 19: Unsealed online bidding – bidding becomes visible and participants must exceed the highest bid to continue in the auction
3. June 12: Live auction – the bidding concludes 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.

As reported in 2018, Blue Origin was planning to charge passengers at least $200,000 for the ride, based on an appraisal of rival plans from billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc and other considerations, though its thinking may have changed.

The New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo is designed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 100 kilometres above Earth into suborbital space, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet.

The pressurized capsule then returns to earth under parachutes.

The capsule features six observation windows, which Blue Origin says are nearly three times as tall as those on a Boeing 747 jetliner and the largest ever used in space.

On this day 60 years ago, Alan Shepard made history by becoming the first American to fly to space. In the decades since, fewer than 600 astronauts have been to space above the Kármán Line to see the borderless Earth and the thin limb of our atmosphere. They all say this experience changes them.

our launch vehicle after Alan Shepard to honor his historic flight. New Shepard has flown 15 successful consecutive missions to space and back above the Kármán Line through a meticulous and incremental flight program to test its multiple redundant safety systems. Now, it’s time for astronauts to climb onboard.