Man splashes $28m for space tour with Jeff Bezos

A mystery bidder has paid $28m for a seat with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for his first crewed spaceflight. The trip is being conducted by Bezos’s Blue Origin company.

The payment came as Blue Origin opened auction for the flight. Initially, the top bid stood under $5m but the Saturday’s online auction attracted the bidder; the name of the bidder would be announced later.

The hefty amount would go to Blue Origin’s foundation ‘Club for Future’ whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM (Science, technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and to help invent the future of life in space.

Interestingly, the trip would last around ten minutes only.

Who are the Passengers

Four people would be on the flight. Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, mystery bidder and another space enthusiast would fly to the edge of the space.

Schedule of trip

The trip is scheduled on July 20 which marks the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origins back in 2000.

Safety Concerns

Some say Bezos has put his life on the line with the trip, however, the cabin which would house 4 passengers has travelled over dozen times to the same journey. In previous tours though, this was not housing any passengers.

According to Blue Origin, the company plans to launch its passengers more than 100km above the Earth’s surface. This would allow them to experience microgravity. The capsule housing Bezos and others will return to Earth using parachutes.

Who Else Are In The Space Race

We all know about Elon Musk’s plans to take humans to Mars. Musk believes in multi-planetary experience and is soon to send humans to Mars with his SpaceX adventure.

Another name in this industry is Richard Branson who has founded Virgin Galactic. Branson’s firm aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. 

Interestingly, Branson might be stealing Bezos’s thunder by being on a suborbital flight aboard the VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on July 4.

A Virgin Galactic spokesman said in a statement that the company was analyzing the data from successful May 22nd flight.  

“As previously announced, we expect to complete the final test flights this summer through to early fall. At this time, we have not determined the date of our next flight,” it was stated.