Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin discloses current highest bid for seat on first human spaceflight

Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, recently disclosed $2.8 million as the current highest bid for a seat on its New Shepard spacecraft. The aerospace company had launched the public auction for the first seats on May 19 and within hours the highest bid recorded was $2.4 million. The bid then soon increased to a whopping $2.8 million, which is the double bid of the $1.4 million seen during the first phase of the auction, which was sealed and ran from May 5 to May 19. 

Now, the second phase of the auction is underway and will last until June 10. According to the website, the process will conclude in a final phase on June 12 with a live online auction. The winner of the seat will be one of six people on board the first-ever crewed flight, the New Shepard. Blue Origin is targeting July 20 for its first suborbital sightseeing trip on its spacecraft, a landmark moment in a competition to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel.

About New Shepard 

The trip will last a total of ten minutes, four of which passengers will spend above the Karman line that marks the recognised boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space. The reusable suborbital rocket system was named after Alan Shepard, who sixty years ago became the first American in space. New Shepard is designed to carry as many as six people at a time on a ride past the edge of space. The capsule has massive windows to give passengers a view, spending a few minutes in zero gravity before returning to Earth.

The company has yet to fly New Shepard with passengers on board. However, till now it has successfully carried out 15 uncrewed tests runs launching from its facility in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas. The rocket launches vertically, with the booster detaching and returning to land at a concrete pad nearby. The capsule, on the other hand, floats back to the surface with three large parachutes that slow it down to about a mile an hour when it lands.

 (Images: BlueOrigin/Website)