Space flight with billionaire Bezos sold for $ 28 million at auction

by time news

The name of the winner was not disclosed.

Participation in space flight with billionaire Jeff Bezos sold at auction for $ 28 million. The name of the winner has not yet been announced. The flight is expected to take place on 20 July.

Bids for the July 20 flight on the Blue Origin aerospace company New Shepard with Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark at auction started at $ 4.8 million. Rates increased in the last three minutes of the sale, writes The Guardian. Initially, about 7,600 people from 159 countries registered to participate in the auction. The winner, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, will embark on a suborbital flight with Amazon founder Bezos and his brother Mark.

The capsule will carry up to six passengers, although the company has yet to reveal who else will be on board.

Last week, Jeff Bezos, who will step down as Amazon CEO 15 days before the flight, tweeted on Instagram: “Since the age of five, I’ve dreamed of going into space. On July 20, I will embark on this journey with my brother. Greatest Adventure With My Best Friend. “

The flight takes place amid growing competition between some of the world’s richest people. Bezos’s Blue Origin vies with Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies and Richard Branson-backed Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc.

Bezos spent about $ 1 billion a year from his Amazon fortune to fund Blue Origin.

Passengers must be 5 feet to 6 feet 4 inches (1.52 m to 1.93 m) tall and weigh between 110 and 223 pounds (49 to 101 kg), the company says. They must also be able to climb seven flights of stairs to the launch tower in less than 90 seconds and sit strapped in a vehicle for 90 minutes without access to a toilet.

In addition, they must withstand gravitational forces 5.5 times the normal weight of a person during descent and three times that weight for two minutes on ascent.

The main task of Blue Origin projects is space tourism. The New Shepard capsule is equipped with large portholes through which passengers can have a good view of extraterrestrial space after spending several minutes in zero gravity before returning to Earth.

The company said the proceeds from the auction will be donated to Blue Origin, Club for the Future, whose stated mission is to “inspire future generations to pursue careers in Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and help reinvent the future of life in space.”

Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000 and has already conducted a number of test flights. After nearly six years of testing of the New Shepard rocket and capsule, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to send the first passengers in the capsule of its reusable suborbital spacecraft, named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to fly suborbital.

The New Shepard is a manned capsule that launches vertically with a single-stage reusable launch vehicle and then lands with parachutes. Equipped with an emergency rescue system and parachutes, the sealed capsule is designed for 6 people. After vertical acceleration by the launch vehicle, the capsule separates at an altitude of 40 km and ascends by inertia to an altitude of more than 100 km.

In October 2020, the rocket with the cargo capsule climbed 106 km, after which the capsule and the reentry stage separated and landed separately. A successful test of the precision landing system will allow long-term exploration of the moon, as well as future flights to Mars, according to Blue Origin.

See also: “Bezos set a world record for wealth thanks to the pandemic”

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