Number Crunch

Would You Pay $28 Million to Fly Into Space With Jeff Bezos?

Blue Origin auctions off its first seat for July launch

$28 million: That’s how much an unnamed bidder spent at auction to aboard Blue Origin’s first flight to earth’s outer limits.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will shoot over 340,000 feet (64 miles) into the earth’s atmosphere on July 20. The rocket will be boarded by company founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, and this anonymous $28 million man.

A fourth person will also board for the July launch, to be announced later. The New Shepard rocket can seat up to six people.

The proceeds from Blue Origin’s auction will go to the company’s education foundation named Club for the Future, which encourages kids to embark on STEM and space-related career paths.

The rocket is pilotless, flying autonomously. Sitting on top of the rocket is the New Glenn Capsule, which has large windows for the viewing experience as New Shepard lives in zero gravity for about three minutes before returning to land.

Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Bezos and he funds the company through sales of Amazon stock. The company is competing with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in a sector known as “suborbital tourism.”

These commercial space flights won’t all cost tens of millions of dollars, but they will cost a couple hundred grand — at best.

Virgin Galactic plans on sending consumers to the earth’s upper atmosphere by early 2022.

Seems like a costly bit of change to spend a few minutes and 64+ miles in the air, but if you’ve got the money, why not?