On Saturday, a mysterious bidder bid $28 million for Jeff Bezos’s seat for the first manned spaceflight of the multi-billion-dollar Blue Origin company next month.
The Amazon founder revealed this week that he and his brother Mark will both sit on the boat. The company’s new Shepard launch vehicle will fly to the edge of space and return on July 20. The Bezos brothers will join the winner of Saturday’s charity auction, whose identity is unknown.
“The name of the auction winner will be announced within a few weeks after the auction ends, “Blue Origin tweeted after the auction.
“The fourth and final crew member will then be announced, so stay tuned.”
The winning bidder on Saturday defeated about 20 competitors in the auction launched on May 19 and ended with a 10-minute live broadcast frenzy.
The bid on Thursday reached $4.8 million, but it soared in the final live auction, rising by millions of dollars-an an increase of $1.
The proceeds–plus 6% of the auction commission, will be used to create Blue Origin, Club for the Future, which aims to inspire future generations to pursue STEM careers: science, technology, engineering, and take off from the desert of western Texas, the New Shepard trip will last 10 minutes and four of the passengers will pass between the Earth’s atmosphere and space through the Carmen Line, which marks the recognized boundary.
It was separated from the propeller and stayed at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers for 4 minutes. During this time, the crew on board could experience weightlessness and observe the curvature of the earth.
The thruster automatically landed on a platform 2 miles from the launch site. Earlier this year, it was announced that the space capsule fleet Bezos, who would step down as Amazon’s CEO to devote more time to other activities, will return to the ground.
The three large parachutes decelerated to 1.6 km/h during landing. Projects including Blue Origin have stated that flying into space is a lifelong dream. Blue Origin’s New Shepard has successfully conducted more than a dozen unmanned tests at its facility in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas.
“We’re ready to fly some astronauts,” said Ariane Cornell, Director of Blue Origin Astronaut and Orbital Sales on Saturday.
The reusable suborbital rocket system is based on the first American Alan Xie to enter space 60 years ago, named after Alan Shepard.
Bezos and Musk have a very In open competition, the latter’s SpaceX is planning to spend millions of dollars and send people into orbits further into space. At the same time, Virgin Galactic and it are expected to start regular commercial suborbital flights in early 2022.