It's actually a "spare ticket" and it auctioned for $28 million. It is an 11-minute trip into suborbital space alongside Jeff Bezos. Jeff will be with his brother Mark, so don't think you'll get some special treatment. There were 7,600 people from 159 countries who registered to bid in the auction. The Blue Origin flight is expected to take off on July 20th.
Jeff is on the flight because Blue Origin is the rocket venture Bezos founded in 2000. It has spent almost a decade testing New Shepard, the 60-foot-tall rocket and capsule system. It will mark the first time humans have flown aboard the fully autonomous New Shepard vehicle after 15 uncrewed test flights carried out by the company since 2015. The $28 million price point the ticket sold for is far more than what Blue Origin's direct competitor, Virgin Galactic, has sold its tickets for. Though Galactic has yet to fly paying customers, it has already sold roughly 600 tickets for between $200,000 and $250,000 each.
Now I wonder what makes him want a rocket venture? Shipping things from the Moon to Earth? Here's a quote from when he was 18 and interviewed as the valedictorian of his high school class: The 18-year-old Bezos said he wanted "to build space hotels, amusement parks and colonies for 2 million or 3 million people who would be in orbit. 'The whole idea is to preserve the earth' he told the newspaper ... The goal was to be able to evacuate humans. The planet would become a park.
A happy flower day - this is a Gazania - they open with the sun.
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