Jeff Bezos plans to charge $200,000 for space rides

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Jeff Bezos’ rocket company plans to charge passengers about 200,000 to 300,000 US dollars for its first trips into space next year, two people familiar with its plans told Reuters.

Blue Origin, a 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.

The space vehicle, New Shepard, is designed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 62 miles (100 km) above Earth into suborbital space, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the planet before the pressurized capsule returns to earth under parachutes.

Ariane Cornell (C) gave tours to the media of Blue Origin's Crew Capsule mockup at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, April 5, 2017. /VCG Photo

The capsule featuring six observation windows Blue Origin said are nearly three times as tall as those on a Boeing Co 747 jetliner.

Blue Origin has completed eight test flights of the vertical take-off and landing from its launch pad in Texas, but none with passengers aboard. Two flights have included a dummy test the company calls “Mannequin Skywalker.”

The company will do the first test in space of its capsule escape system, which propels the crew to safety should the booster explode, “within weeks,” one of the employees said.

A small step for a man

The New Shepard Rocket was preparing for liftoff on its eighth overall test flight from near Van Horn, Texas. /VCG Photo

Blue Origin, whose Latin motto means “step by step, ferociously,” is working towards making civilian space flight an important niche in the global space economy, alongside satellite services and government exploration projects, already worth over 300 billion US dollars a year.

Bezos, the world’s richest person with a fortune of about 112 billion US dollars, has competition from fellow billionaires Richard Branson and Elon Musk, Tesla Inc’s chief executive.

Branson’s Virgin Galactic said it has sold about 650 tickets aboard its own planned space voyages but has not set out a date for flights to start. The company is charging 250,000 US dollars per ticket, in line with Blue Origin’s proposed pricing.

SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, said its ultimate goal is to enable people to live on other planets.

All three are looking to slash the cost of spaceflight by developing reusable spacecraft, meaning prices for passengers and payloads should drop as launch frequency increases.

While Blue Origin has not disclosed its per-flight operating costs, Teal Group aerospace analyst Marco Caceres estimated each flight could cost the firm about 10 million US dollars. With six passengers per trip, that would mean losing millions of dollars per launch, at least initially.

Three sources said Blue’s first passengers are likely to include its own employees, though the company has not selected them yet.

[Cover: Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos addresses the media about the New Shepard rocket booster and Crew Capsule mockup at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States April 5, 2017./Photo via VCG]

Source(s): Reuters