{"id":18438,"date":"2018-07-13T19:31:40","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T11:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/200000-for-a-trip-to-space-blue-origin-says-price-hasnt-been-seriously-discussed\/"},"modified":"2018-07-13T19:31:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T11:31:40","slug":"200000-for-a-trip-to-space-blue-origin-says-price-hasnt-been-seriously-discussed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/200000-for-a-trip-to-space-blue-origin-says-price-hasnt-been-seriously-discussed\/","title":{"rendered":"$200,000 for a trip to space? Blue Origin says price hasn\u2019t been seriously discussed"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_415745\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-415745\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-415745\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/jeff-bezos-sets-the-stage-for-su-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"Blue Origin passenger\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/jeff-bezos-sets-the-stage-for-su-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/jeff-bezos-sets-the-stage-for-su-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/jeff-bezos-sets-the-stage-for-su-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/jeff-bezos-sets-the-stage-for-su.jpg 1365w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-415745\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows a passenger looking out the window of Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. (Blue Origin Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 space venture, Blue Origin, is playing down reports that a suborbital space trip on its New Shepard rocket ship could cost $200,000 to $300,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have not set ticket pricing and have had no serious discussions inside of Blue on this topic,\u201d Blue Origin said in an emailed statement. \u201cWe will begin selling tickets sometime after our first human flights and are focused on developing New Shepard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin has flown eight uncrewed flight tests of the New Shepard spacecraft, which consists of a reusable booster that flies itself back to a landing and a crew capsule that floats back down at the end of a parachute.<\/p>\n<p>Further uncrewed flight tests reaching as high as 100 kilometers, the internationally recognized boundary of space, are expected in the months ahead. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith told GeekWire in April that the company is aiming to start flying people by the end of this year.<\/p>\n<p>Those people won\u2019t be commercial customers, however.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will fly Blue Origin astronauts before we fly commercial passengers and haven\u2019t done any real work on passenger selection or the ticket sale process,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Blue Origin Astronaut Experience\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-CT5mJ6KMTQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin does, however, offer an email notification list for would-be passengers, and it recently advertised a position for an astronaut experience manager. (The ad was removed&nbsp;not that long ago, which could mean the position is filled. Or not.)<\/p>\n<p>They company has former NASA astronauts on its staff, and in private conversations, they tend to say they\u2019d love to have first crack at&nbsp;flying on New Shepard.<\/p>\n<p>There have also been rumblings that Blue Origin employees would get an early chance to fly. Last year, one newly hired employee went so far as to tell a newspaper reporter that there was a lottery for New Shepard seats. (The company pooh-poohed that report.)<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s report from Reuters, claiming that the price tag for a flight could be set in the range of $200,000 to $300,000, was attributed to two unnamed Blue Origin employees who were said to have knowledge of the pricing plan. For what it\u2019s worth, those figures are in the same range as the price tag advertised by Virgin Galactic, which is also testing a suborbital spaceship for passenger flights.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not outside the realm of possibility that the future price tag is a topic of conversation at the Blue Origin\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash., particularly if there\u2019s now an astronaut experience manager on the case. But today\u2019s statement suggests that it\u2019s too way too early to write a check.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will fly passengers when we are ready,\u201d Blue Origin said. \u201cWe have a flight test schedule, and schedules of those types always have uncertainties and contingencies. Anyone predicting dates is guessing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows a passenger looking out the window of Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. (Blue Origin Illustration) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 space venture, Blue Origin, is playing down reports that a suborbital space trip on its New Shepard rocket ship could cost $200,000 to $300,000. \u201cWe have not set ticket pricing and [&hellip;]<\/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":[509,291,1250,493],"class_list":["post-18438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-new-shepard","tag-space-tourism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18438"}],"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=18438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}