Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin house tourism flight launches July 20

Jeff Bezos’ house enterprise Blue Origin will launch its first astronaut crew to house on July 20, flying on its house tourism rocket referred to as New Shepard, the corporate introduced Wednesday.

Blue Origin has but to open ticket gross sales or launch pricing details about New Shepard flights, however will host a public public sale for a seat on the primary crewed launch.

A sealed on-line public sale will run till Might 19 and bids can go as much as $50,000 – with the corporate requiring further identification data and a $10,000 deposit for increased bids. Then, from Might 19 onward, Blue Origin will maintain a public bidding course of – earlier than a ultimate dwell on-line public sale on June 12.

“We’re auctioning off the primary seat to profit our basis Membership for the Future,” a Blue Origin video stated.

New Shepard is designed to hold as many as six folks at a time on a experience previous the sting of house, with the capsules on earlier check flights reaching an altitude of greater than 340,000 ft (or greater than 100 kilometers). The capsule has huge home windows to offer passengers a view, spending a couple of minutes in zero gravity earlier than returning to Earth.

The rocket launches vertically, with the booster detaching and returning to land at a concrete pad close by. The capsule’s return is slowed by a set of parachutes, earlier than softly touchdown within the desert.

Blue Origin’s announcement comes on the 60th anniversary of the Mercury-Redstone three flight, which carried astronaut Alan Shepard – after whom Blue Origin named its rocket system – on the primary U.S. human spaceflight in 1961.

Moreover, July 20 will mark the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon touchdown.