Billionaire Jeff Bezos made it public, he and his brother are headed into space on July 20 on a reusable rocket made by his space company, Blue Origin. That much we’ve known for a while now. What we haven’t known, until Saturday morning, is who would be strapping into the 3rd seat aboard the Blue Origin “New Shepherd.”
During Saturday’s LIVE auction, which concluded a month-long bidding process for the maiden voyage in July, that 3rd seat was secured for $28 million dollars.
It only took four minutes for the bids to move beyond $20 million, and closed only three minutes later. Nearly 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries. The identity of the winner, who is obviously big time into space exploration – was not released to the public, but according to Blue Origin, it will be announced in a few weeks. The maiden “manned” voyage is estimated to last about 11 minutes or more than $2.5 million per minute.
Blue Origin says the name of the fourth crew member will be announced very soon.
The $28 million raised from the auction will go to Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s foundation, “to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and help invent the future of life in space,” the company announced.
Only a brief portion of the flight will be at the altitude at which space begins, called the Karman line — — about 62 miles above sea level.
