Winning Offer For Ticket On Blue Origin’s 1st Human Space Flight Is $28M

That’s the winning offer for a seat on Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which will fly humans to space for the first time next month.

The live auction on Saturday lasted less than 10 minutes after starting at $4.9 million and drawing over 20 bids.

The winning bid will be sent to Blue Origin’s Club for the Future charity, which encourages future generations to pursue STEM jobs.

The live auction on Saturday comes after five weeks of the internet bidding. According to Blue Origin, approximately 7,600 individuals from 159 countries had registered to bid on a ticket on the July 20 flight by the time registration ended Thursday for the live auction. Bidding for the pre-auction finished at $4.8 million.

Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s director of astronaut and orbital sales, said ahead of the live auction that the winner’s identity won’t be revealed right away because the business needs to “finish some final paperwork with them.”

“However, considering that the flight is just a few weeks away, you will all know who the winner is very soon,” she continued.

Bezos will be on the trip, as will his brother Mark Bezos, according to the company’s announcement earlier this week.

“I’ve dreamed about flying to space since I was five years old,” the Amazon entrepreneur said on social media. “On July 20, my brother and I will go on that expedition. My closest friend and I embarked on the most incredible journey.”

According to the firm, the last fourth crew member will be named when the auction winner is declared.

Blue Origin intends to give the auction’s highest bidders access to forthcoming flights, according to Cornell.

According to the firm, the ability to fly over the Karman Line, the globally recognized line of space, at a height of over 300,000 feet (62 miles), creates new commercial potential in space tourism. According to Cornell, just 569 persons have ever crossed the Karman Line.

The astronauts will be allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts and float in zero gravity for roughly three minutes throughout the experience, which will last around 11 minutes.

The first human flight comes after New Shepard completed 15 flights to space and returned. The spacecraft will take off from a distant location near Van Horn, Texas.