After receiving 5,200 bids from 136 countries, Blue Origin has announced the result of the first round of bidding for the first passenger seat on its New Shepard reusable space vehicle. The highest sealed bid for the first flight, scheduled to fly on July 20, 2021, was a lofty US$1.4 million.
Today's announcement marks the end of the sealed bidding for a seat aboard the Reusable Space Ship First Step crew capsule that will fly atop the New Shepard booster on a 10-minute suborbital flight into space to an altitude of over 62 miles (100 km) from the company's Launch Site One in West Texas.
The auction now goes into open bidding until June 10, 2021. During this phase, the current US$1.4 million bid will be regarded as the minimum. As the open bids continue, the highest current bid will be displayed on the Blue Origin website. On June 10, at 5 pm EDT, opening bidding will close.
The bidding will then move to a live, online auction on June 12 at 1 pm EDT for registered and verified bidders. The funds from the final winning bid will go to Blue Origin's Club for the Future, which encourages young people to enter the STEM field.
If you have a few million dollars going spare and want to bid, head over to the Blue Origin website. While well beyond Virgin Galactic's earlybird $250K price tag for a trip to space, it will likely still be a bargain compared to the tens of millions paid by early space tourists like Charles Simonyi.
