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from the buying-your-way-into-the-history-books dept.
Sold! Bidder pays $28m for spare seat on space flight with Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin has sold the spare seat of the company's 20 July New Shepard space rocket blast-off for $28m, the company announced on Saturday.
With 20 active bidders starting at $4.8m during the 10-minute auction, bids escalated in the final three minutes of the sale. Initially, some 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries, the company said. The winner, whose identity has not been announced, will join the Amazon founder Bezos and his brother Mark on the flight.
The 11-minute, automated flight – the company's 16th but first carrying humans – will lift off from Van Horn, Texas. The capsule will carry as many as six passengers, though the company has not yet revealed who else will be onboard.
[...] The company has said the auction price will be donated to Blue Origin's foundation, Club for the Future, whose stated mission "is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in Stem (science, technology, engineering, and math) and to help invent the future of life in space".
Previously: Jeff Bezos' Vision for Space: One Trillion Population in the Solar System
Jeff Bezos Will Fly on Blue Origin's First Human Spaceflight
Related: Branson May Make a Last-Ditch Effort to Beat Bezos Into Space
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Sunday June 13 2021, @11:59AM (4 children)
The rich need to be relieved of their money somehow, so that the money can be put to work. At least these rich person's play things are vaguely positive in that there will be R&D and manufacturing involved. Things will gradually become commoditised and access to space will become much cheaper.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @09:14PM
The first phrase describes Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. The rest describes SpaceX.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday June 14 2021, @12:49PM (2 children)
In what way is the money "put to work"? Giving rides to space tourists? A lot of it just goes on fuel which is burned up.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday June 14 2021, @01:11PM (1 child)
The fuel is the cheap part. The engineering costs the money, and the operations. People are paid to do that. All the time, they're honing their skills and making innovations.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15 2021, @12:40AM
Like how to add an additional drink holder into the seat or some other "first class" amenity?