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Blue Origin plans to start selling suborbital spaceflight tickets next year
Blue Origin expects to start flying people on its New Shepard suborbital vehicle "soon" and start selling tickets for commercial flights next year, a company executive said June 19.
Speaking at the Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit here, as the keynote of a half-day track on earth and space applications, Blue Origin Senior Vice President Rob Meyerson offered a few updates on the development of the company's suborbital vehicle. "We plan to start flying our first test passengers soon," he said after showing a video of a previous New Shepard flight at the company's West Texas test site. All of the New Shepard flights to date have been without people on board, but the company has said in the past it would fly its personnel on the vehicle in later tests.
[...] Even the company's billionaire owner has not disclosed details. "We don't know the ticket price yet. We haven't decided," said Jeff Bezos in an on-stage interview May 25 at the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. That approach stands in stark contrast to Virgin Galactic, the other company in the advanced stages of development of a commercial suborbital vehicle capable of carrying people. Virgin Galactic started selling tickets more than a decade ago, even while SpaceShipTwo was still in the early stages of development. The company has approximately 700 customers who have paid at least a deposit.
Also at Quartz.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @12:26AM (13 children)
It seems pointless to me.
What do they sell, a vanity service? An entertainment product, like an 'adventure park' experience?
For the ones who really don't know (are there any?)]: the vomit comet [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @12:42AM
Pretty much. You don't even have the time to do anything cool like you could as an ISS tourist (there have been 7 [wikipedia.org], with Charles Simonyi going twice).
Of course, the ticket price will be a major factor. New Shepard is a suborbital and fully reusable rocket. Ticket prices might come down to $50k to $100k, compared to $150k or $250k that others have charged.
https://www.space.com/34310-blue-origin-orbital-flights-for-space-tourists.html [space.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/60byti/new_shepard_capsule_flight_ticket_price/ [reddit.com]
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:10AM (7 children)
Well it has been shown through studies, which I am too lazy to find, that material things do not make you as happy as experiences. Why do people go to Cancun? If they want and they can go to a sandbox, and if they want Mexicans they can go to a Bodega. It's not the same experience.
If you have it all, you still want to be happy. If going to space makes you happy, then lot of people will fork over the money.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:54AM (6 children)
So, an "entertainment product".
Ok, my initial question was: are there any other than:
- vanity/luxury
- expensive entertainment
market segments that Bezos targets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:02AM (3 children)
You keep harping on this. What's the problem with a little space tourism? If people are willing to pay, somebody should blast them into space.
They will target serious payloads starting with New Glenn:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#Launch_vehicles [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:12AM (2 children)
Hint: take my question on face value, no value judgement implied (I don't imply anything good or bad about the space tourism).
I'm asking: can you felow SN-ters imagine any other segment markets (than luxury/entertainment, which I see) that Bezos targets with this offer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:19AM (1 child)
NASA launches suborbital sounding rockets for short-term telescopes and other experiments. If Shepard can be made to release a payload, then it could be used for that purpose.
And the German space agency will use New Shepard for microgravity experiments: http://spacenews.com/dlr-to-fly-experiments-on-blue-origins-new-shepard/ [spacenews.com]
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:38AM
Thanks.
And apologies for not being clear from the start what I was actually asking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:00PM (1 child)
So what else is a trip to Spain or Italy in the summer? Not everyone finds life fulfillment playing video games. Ten years ago people were falling all over themselves proclaiming that they would sell their house and everything else they had for a trip into 'space'. New Mexico (and I think others) built spaceports so many people expressed interest.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17905/spaceport-america-emptiness/ [popularmechanics.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @04:05PM
Be it only for the Sagrada Familia and it will beat by far any vomit comet experience.
Sone tapas in a flamenco bar adds infinitely more to the cultural awareness in an exquisite way.
Vedi Napoli, poi muori, for one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:23AM (1 child)
Public relations. Some twits with money to waste get to say, "I've been to the edge of space!" They feel good about it, and maybe they'll invest some money into real science, and/or real space exploration. And, maybe they influence some other rich twits. There is also the not-negligible factor of demonstrating safety. Unless, of course, Bezos extra-high-altitude planes fall in flames. That would be bad.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:50AM
Vanity then.
If they want to invest into real science, and/or real space exploration, they could do it without the "I rode the private vomit comet" badge - it would even be better for their return-of-investment bottom line.
(I still hear 'pure vanity market segment')
That's the first valid point.
Even if 'demonstrating safety' can be achieved cheaper with other means - granted, "vain Laika-s" are rather an income center than a cost center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:47AM (1 child)
> "We don't know the ticket price yet. We haven't decided," said Jeff Bezos
Of course they don't know the ticket price yet. It will be demand pricing, just like current airline fares that change by the minute as the plane fills up. Bezos can't imagine doing it any other way than maximum revenue generation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @04:17PM
Set fixed price is a very modern and US religious economic invention.
https://aeon.co/videos/how-the-quakers-became-unlikely-economic-innovators-by-inventing-the-price-tag [aeon.co]