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| A trip to space with Jeff Bezos for $ 28 million |
Blue Origin founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has ended an auction for a month-long space tour with a closing price of $28 million.
The New Shepard flight, scheduled for July 20, will be the company's first manned mission.
Before returning to Earth, the weightless winner enjoyed a few minutes with Bezos, his brother Mark, and another passenger.
The identity of the winner will be kept confidential for several weeks. Ariane Cornell, Director of Sales at Blue Origin Astronaut, stated in the live broadcast that we need to finish the final paperwork.
The auction was held at a facility in Boston, Massachusetts owned by RR Auctions.
Dozens of operators gathered in one room to represent the 20 bidders who raised the initial price from $4.8 million to $28 million in less than 10 minutes.
According to the company, about 7,600 people worldwide have registered in the bidding process.
Profits will be donated to the non-profit Blue Origin Charity Club in the future.
Space travel with Jeff Bezos:
New Shepard is a reusable 60-foot rocket designed to launch a 6-person space capsule.
The capsule is expected to rise about 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface to the edge of space. This 10-minute mission will allow passengers to experience microgravity for approximately 3 minutes.
And Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who will step down as CEO next month, announced that he will take on the task with his brother Mark to fulfill his lifelong dream.
The cost of a suborbital flight is $28 million, about half the cost of an orbital flight mission seat.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule will launch its first private astronaut mission into orbit later this year. The four passengers remained on the runway for about three days.
The Crew Dragon capsule transports only state astronauts to the International Space Station.
Since 2015, Blue Origin has tested the fully reusable New Shepard Rocket 15 times, but hasn't mentioned the price of the passenger seat.
Cornell said the company was in touch with the most competitive bidders at the time to give them access.
She stated that the fourth and final passenger will be announced soon. It does not indicate whether he is an employee of Blue Origin, a competitor, or anyone else.