Jeff Bezos-owned space company Blue Origin is selling tickets for a seat on its first crewed flight to space. The company has confirmed via Twitter that anyone can place an opening bid. The flight is scheduled to take off on July 20 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft.
The company has designed the capsule keeping in mind the potential commercial space travel. The capsule can carry up to 6 passengers to nearly 100km above, which is internationally agreed to be the edge of space. It is also called the Karman line.
Is it safe for passengers?
The distance is fairly less than the altitude of the International Space Station that orbits the planet at around 321km. For traveling on the Blue Origin spacecraft, the passenger should be at least 18 years of age. Not just that, the space company will take the passenger’s height and weight into account. The passenger should have an average height and should weigh between 50 and 101kg.
Passengers will be able to see Earth going away from the six observation windows. To ensure the safety of the passengers, Blue Origin on its website says that it had “15 successful consecutive missions (of the New Shepard and its redundant safety systems)including three successful escape tests, showing the crew escape system can activate safely in any phase of flight.”
SpaceX and Blue Origin rivalry
Blue Origin’s move comes right after SpaceX announced that three civilian passengers will be joining billionaire and pilot Jared Isaacman on a free trip around our planet inside the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have been battling each other for the commercial space race. The latter suffered a huge blow when NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract for building the Moon lander for its Artemis missions.
NASA said SpaceX’s Starship is apt for the mission, as it features a spacious cabin and has two airlocks for moonwalks. Besides, the spacecraft can be reused for launches and its landing system is ideal for trips to the Moon, Mars, and other extraterrestrial places. SpaceX will have to make a successful test flight before the actual manned launch.
