from the open-your-wallet-and-say-'help-yourself' dept.
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.
Related Stories
Jeff Bezos Plans to Charge at Least $200,000 for Space Rides:
Potential customers and the aerospace industry have been eager to learn the cost of a ticket on Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle, to find out if it is affordable and whether the company can generate enough demand to make a profit on space tourism.
Executives at the company, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Bezos in 2000, told a business conference last month they planned test flights with passengers on the New Shepard soon, and to start selling tickets next year.
The company, based about 20 miles (32 km) south of Seattle, has made public the general design of the vehicle - comprising a launch rocket and detachable passenger capsule - but has been tight-lipped on production status and ticket prices.
Blue Origin representatives did not respond to requests for comment on its programs and pricing strategy. Bezos said in May ticket prices had not yet been decided.
One Blue Origin employee with first-hand knowledge of the pricing plan said the company will start selling tickets in the range of about $200,000 to $300,000. A second employee said tickets would cost a minimum of $200,000. They both spoke on condition of anonymity as the pricing strategy is confidential.
Note that Blue Origin is advertising suborbital flights which, basically, just go "up and down". Virgin Galactic's flights also are sub-orbital. SpaceX's flights, on the other hand, actually reach orbital which requires much greater velocity.
Previously: Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin Expects to Sell Tickets for Manned Suborbital Flights in 2019
- Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, gave a talk to a members-only event at the Yale Club in New York on Tuesday.
- During the 30-minute lecture, Bezos said his private aerospace company, Blue Origin, would launch its first people into space aboard a New Shepard rocket in 2019.
- Bezos also questioned the capabilities of a space tourism competitor, Virgin Galactic, and criticized the goal of Elon Musk and SpaceX to settle Mars with humans.
- Ultimately, Bezos said he wants Blue Origin to enable a space-faring civilization where "a Mark Zuckerberg of space" and "1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins" can flourish.
- Bezos advised the crowd to hold a powerful, personal long-term vision, but to devote "the vast majority of your energy and attention" on shorter-term activities and those ranging up to 2- or 3-year timeframes.
[...] Bezos: I don't think we'll live on planets, by the way. I think we'll live in giant O'Neal[sic]-style space colonies. Gerard O'Neil, decades ago, came up with this idea. He asked his physics students at Princeton a very simple question, but a very unusual one, which is: Is a planetary surface the right place for humanity to expand in the solar system? And after doing a lot of work, they came back and decided the answer was "no." There's a fascinating interview with Isaac Asimov, Gerard O'Neill, and their interviewer that you can find on YouTube from many decades ago. And to Asimov, the interviewer says, "Why do you think we're so focused, then, on expanding onto other planetary surfaces?" And Asimov says, "That's simple. We grew up on a planet, we're planet chauvinists."
(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]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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]