Blue Origin, the rocket company of billionaire Jeff Bezos, said Wednesday that it is aiming for its first suborbital sightseeing on its New Shepard spacecraft on July 20, ushering in a new era of private commercial space travel. There is an important moment in the race to do.
Blue Origin also said it would offer the winning bidder of the five-week online auction a seat on the first flight, the proceeds of which would be donated to the space firm’s foundation.
Arian Cornell, Blue Origin’s Director of Astronaut Sales, refused to disclose details of normal ticket prices the company would charge for future trips, which have been secretly preserved inside the company for years.
Reuters reported in 2018 that Blue was planning to charge passengers at least $ 200,000 for the ride, based on its valuation of rival plans from billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings and other ideas, however, that could change its thinking is.
Wednesday’s announcement included delays in years of testing and development work. After its first flight in July, Cornell said Blue would have “a few more” crew flights before the end of the year.
The New Shepard rocket-and-capsule combo is designed to autonomously fly six passengers into subterranean space more than 62 miles above Earth, experiencing minutes of weightlessness and pressurized capsules back to Earth It is enough to see the curvature of the planet before it arrives. Parachute.
The capsule includes six observation windows Blue Origin says is nearly three times taller on the Boeing 747 jetliner and by far the largest in space.
While celebrities and uber-rich space tourists appear as the main market for the jaunt, industry sources at least initially expect Blue Origin to incorporate some philanthropic components into its ticketing strategy.
A college science professor and an aerospace data analyst join a four-man crew for an orbit planned later this year by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a charity billed as the first all-civilian spacecraft in history Is part of the drive.
Virgin Galactic aims to fly private customers in early 2022, following the first flight with Branson later this year.
Its zero gravity experience is anchored by its SpaceShipTwo aircraft, and the company has ambitious plans to offer point-to-point travel between distant cities at space altitude.
Virgin says it will charge more than $ 250,000 for the new reservation but has not announced final pricing. The sale will reopen after Branson’s flight.
Cornell declined to say when – or if – Bezos would travel to space on New Shepard.
The announcement of Blue Origin provides Amazon with the founding of Amazon, which needed speed, while it signed SpaceX’s $ 2.9 billion contract under NASA’s high-profile program to return the US to the moon in the coming years. Opposes.
However, NASA has asked SpaceX to stop development work specifically related to the Moon Program contract pending the outcome of protests by Blue and rival Dianetics at the US Government Accountability Office.
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