{"id":11620,"date":"2021-06-12T20:41:39","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T12:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/28-million-bid-wins-auction-to-join-bezos-on-suborbital-spaceflight\/"},"modified":"2021-06-12T20:41:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T12:41:39","slug":"28-million-bid-wins-auction-to-join-bezos-on-suborbital-spaceflight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/28-million-bid-wins-auction-to-join-bezos-on-suborbital-spaceflight\/","title":{"rendered":"$28 million bid wins auction to join Bezos on suborbital spaceflight"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jeff Bezos and members of the Blue Origin team inspect a capsule after a landing in 2017. Credit: Blue Origin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An unidentified enthusiast bid an astronomical $28 million Saturday to win an on-line auction for a seat aboard a New Shepard spacecraft and a chance to make history next month, joining rocket owner and Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos for a commercial flight to space.<\/p>\n

Bidding for the 10- to 12-minute sub-orbital flight started at $4.8 million. In less than two minutes it shot up to $10 million, doubling to $20 million a minute and 10 seconds after that. The $28 million winning bid was accepted a little more than six minutes after the auction\u2019s final round began.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing three times\u2026 and that is sold! Twenty-eight million dollars to number 107!\u201d auctioneer Steve Little announced with a flourish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name of the auction winner will be released in the weeks following the auction\u2019s conclusion,\u201d Bezos\u2019 rocket company, Blue Origin, said in a tweet. \u201cThen, the fourth and final crew member will be announced \u2013 stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s six-seat New Shepard capsule will carry the the world\u2019s richest man, his brother Mark, the not-yet-identified auction winner and one other passenger on a short up-and-down flight to the lower reaches of space on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.<\/p>\n

Launching from a company test facility near Van Horn, Texas, the reusable single-stage New Shepard rocket will boost the crew capsule to an altitude just above 62 miles, the internationally recognized \u201cboundary\u201d of space, before it arcs over for a parachute descent back to Earth.<\/p>\n

Bezos and his crewmates will experience about three minutes of weightlessness near the top of the trajectory, enjoying spectacular views of Earth from six windows the company says are the largest ever flown in space.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin announced the auction May 5, a dramatic way of revealing the company was finally ready to begin carrying passengers to space after 15 successful unpiloted test flights. One month later, on June 7, Bezos announced on Instagram that he and his brother Mark would be joining the auction winner for the historic flight.<\/p>\n

Nearly 7,600 people from 159 countries registered for the auction and the 20 top bidders, none identified, participated in the final round Saturday. A 6 percent fee was added to the winning bid.<\/p>\n

The proceeds will be donated to Blue Origin\u2019s foundation, \u201cClub for the Future,\u201d inspiring \u201cthe next generation as they go off and think about millions of people living and working in space \u2026 which is precisely what Blue Origin\u2019s vision is,\u201d the company said in an earlier release.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin has not yet announced what New Shepard seats will normally cost, but tickets are expected to run in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand dollars each.<\/p>\n

Competing against fellow billionaires Richard Branson and Elon Musk, Bezos has said he spends a billion dollars a year funding Blue Origin and the development of sub-orbital spacecraft for commercial up-and-down trips to space as well as larger, more powerful boosters to launch satellites, and eventually people, to orbit and beyond.<\/p>\n

The upcoming New Shepard flight is expected to be the first carrying purely civilian passengers to space aboard a commercially built spacecraft without company or government pilots on board.<\/p>\n

While civilians have flown as guests or paying passengers on U.S. and Russian spacecraft in the past, those missions were government sponsored and piloted by professional astronauts. Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic has launched company pilots and engineers to space on sub-orbital test flights, all of them civilians, but so far, no members of the public.<\/p>\n

In the wake of Bezos\u2019 announcement, there has been speculation Virgin Galactic might try to beat Blue Origin to the punch, launching Branson on a test flight over the July 4 holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

But Bezos and Blue Origin presumably would still claim the distinction of launching the first truly commercial space flight, taking off with the first non-company, non-government passengers flying to space aboard a privately owned and operated spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s company, SpaceX, already launches astronaut crews to NASA\u2019s International Space Station and plans to launch a fully commercial orbital mission in September. Additional commercial flights are expected.<\/p>\n

However the history books might record it, the Blue Origin flight is the culmination of a lifelong dream for Bezos and a dramatic way to demonstrate his faith in the safety of his company\u2019s rocket and spacecraft, matching Branson\u2019s long-stated goal of flying on his company\u2019s spaceplane.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the Earth from space that changes you, it changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It\u2019s one Earth,\u201d Bezos said in an Instagram post announcing his flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go on this flight because it\u2019s the thing I\u2019ve wanted to do all my life. It\u2019s an adventure. It\u2019s a big deal for me. I invited my brother to come on this first flight because we\u2019re closest friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Jeff Bezos and members of the Blue Origin team inspect a capsule after a landing in 2017. Credit: Blue Origin An unidentified enthusiast bid an astronomical $28 million Saturday to win an on-line auction for a seat aboard a New Shepard spacecraft and a chance to make history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}