This unnamed bidder paid ₹ 205 crores for a seat on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin spaceflight

An unnamed bidder on June 12 paid $28 million at auction for a seat on board the first crewed spaceflight of Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin on July 20. According to a press release, the winning bidder, whose identity will be disclosed in the coming weeks, will now join Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark and will fly to space on New Shepard’s first human flight next month. The winner beat out some 20 participants in an auction launched in late May and wrapped up with a 10-minute online bidding frenzy, live cast by Blue Origin. 

Blue Origin is targeting July 20 for its first suborbital sightseeing trip on its spacecraft, a landmark moment in a competition to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel. The trip will last a total of ten minutes, four of which passengers will spend above the Karman line that marks the recognised boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space. New Shepard is designed to carry as many as six people at a time on a ride past the edge of space. The capsule has massive windows to give passengers a view, spending a few minutes in zero gravity before returning to Earth.

The company has yet to fly New Shepard with passengers on board. However, till now it has successfully carried out 15 uncrewed tests runs launching from its facility in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas. The rocket launches vertically, with the booster detaching and returning to land at a concrete pad nearby. The capsule, on the other hand, floats back to the surface with three large parachutes that slow it down to about a mile an hour when it lands.

Jeff Bezos & brother Mark going to space

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Jeff Bezos announced that he will be boarding the New Shepard. Announcing his flight to space, Bezos in an Instagram post said that it was his dream to travel to space ever since he was five years old. Bezos' younger brother Mark will also join the first crewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard. 

If the journey is successful, Jeff Bezos could be the world's richest person (with an estimated net worth of $187 billion) and the first billionaire to have hopped on a rocket ship, even outdoing his rival Elon Musk and his ambitious plans in the race to space. Notably, Musk has been at the forefront of exploring life outside Earth, as is his SpaceX has become the predominant space vehicle-maker, pioneering re-usable rockets and also making big waves in its quest to 'colonise Mars' in the next few years. 

(Image: AP)