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The New Shepard Blue Origin rocket prepares to take off from the launch pad carrying Jeff Bezos with his brother Mark Bezos, Oliver Daemen, 18, and Wally Funk, 82, prepare to be launched on July 20, 2021 at Van Horn, Texas.
Blue Origin | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
VAN HORN, Texas – Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has sold nearly $ 100 million worth of tickets for future passenger flights to the edge of space, the billionaire’s founder said on Tuesday.
“The demand is very, very high,” Bezos said during the Blue Origin presentation after his first crewed flight.
The company did not disclose the prices for seats on its New Shepard rocket. The only indication of Blue Origin’s pricing structure is a public auction the company staged for a seat on its first flight with Bezos, which cost $ 28 million. That’s several times the range of $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 that Blue Origin’s suborbital space tourism competitor, Virgin Galactic, has charged for seats on future flights.
Bezos said Blue Origin would “fly twice as many human missions this year,” but said he was “not yet sure” how many New Shepard crew launches the company would attempt in 2022.
“We’ll find out,” Bezos said, adding that the company wanted to launch at a “very high” pace in the future.
Blue Origin currently has two New Shepard rocket boosters at its facility in Texas, one for search cargo flights and the other for passenger flights.
“We really want to train with this vehicle, so we’re going to have to build more boosters… to fly more frequently,” Bezos said.
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