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
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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @12:38PM (3 children)
Bros this is great news for us techbros cuz the median salary of techbros is $300,000 for dropping python scripts!
Sign me up for a ticket dudes!
(No Nerds)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:47PM (2 children)
It will be demand pricing and if you check the website without buying, the price will be higher the next time you look.
My question then becomes, which day(s) of the week will be least/most in demand -- cheaper weekdays or weekends or ???
Also, how much to add some carry on luggage?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
How much for a one-way for some politicians?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @05:46PM
Much less than they spend on getting elected (at least for national elections).
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday July 16 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)
I charge only $10 for mustache rides.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @03:59PM
No girl is going orbital or even suborbital from your mustachio ride.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @07:02PM (1 child)
All these barely profitable almost trillion dollar companies apparently have a pressing need to dump money into random projects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @07:23PM
Is this a company or Bezos's private, personal project. His degrees are in engineering and I read an interview where he said that this is his passion and what he always what he wanted to do with his life.
It obvious that no government or existing aerospace conglomerate was ever going to do anything like this and it would take nerds making their own billions first if we ever wanted to see the space industry do anything. This goes for all companies that get addicted to government money methinks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @09:28PM (1 child)
Not one, but two of these idiot millennials think it's acceptable to leak confidential information if you say "but don't say I told you". Stupid millennials... no ethics, no morals, no clue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @12:50AM
Or, you know, they could be from the PR department, leaking to get some advance publicity before the "big reveal" from the B-man.
It's not like a rumor about the price is going to change anything of importance, this kind of tip or speculation just feeds the hungry news machine.