Jeff Bezos To Fly To Space

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin technology company has set July 20th 2021 as the date for its first crewed space flight.

In a cleverly timed move, the announcement came on May 5th, the sixtieth anniversary of the very first spaceflight by an American astronaut, Alan Sheppard, after whom Blue Origin’s spacecraft is named. The launch date is also an auspicious anniversary, July 20th 1969 being the day NASA’s Apollo 11 mission first touched down on the Moon.

Blue Origin’s New Sheppard capsule and rocket combination has room for six astronauts on board. Most of these will be company employees, perhaps including even Jeff himself. For this inaugural flight though, one of those seats is up for grabs. The good news is that anyone can apply. The less good news is that applicants are likely to need a lot of money to get their ticket. And I mean A LOT.

The winning bidder will be announced after a three stage process, culminating in a live auction on June 12th. All the money received from the lucky (and wealthy) winner will be donated to Blue Origin’s charitable foundation. Bidding has already opened, and at this stage, anyone can apply via a sealed online bid.

Applicants won’t need to be super fit either. So long as you are within the stated height, weight and health specifications, can speak English and can safely unbuckle a seat belt, you are free to apply. There will be a short training session before launch.

The actual flight itself will be a relatively brief affair. Launch will be from Blue Origin’s space centre in the West Texas desert. The rocket will reach a maximum speed of around three times the speed of sound (MACH 3). The astronauts will feel a force of gravity at least three times greater than usual (3G). The New Sheppard capsule will separate from its booster rocket after around three minutes. At this point, a period of weightlessness will begin, and astronauts will be allowed to unbuckle their seat belts and float freely within the cabin.

The capsule will continue to rise, surpassing the 100km Karman Line, widely accepted as the boundary of space. The blackness of space and the curvature of the Earth will be clearly visible from New Sheppard’s six large windows. The capsule will then gradually begin its journey back to Earth, with the period of weightlessness ending after around three minutes. The descent will be under parachute, with the capsule landing safely back on the desert floor barely ten minutes after launch.

Everything has been fully tested, with more than a dozen un-crewed launches of the rocket and capsule successfully completed. These test flights culminated in a final full dress rehearsal and launch on April 14th. For that flight, only the company’s famous Mannequin Skywalker test dummy was actually on board.

The company has yet to announce ticket prices for its future scheduled flights, but pundits estimate a likely opening level of around $200,000 (about £150,000).

The chances are though, that prices are likely drop quite quickly as rival services from companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic drive prices down. In fact, there are so many potential competing space launch companies that it looks like being a pretty crowded market place. There are rival rockets, space planes, space stations and even balloons that are all at various stages of development. By 2030, we can expect to see prices reduced to the kind of level you would currently expect to pay for a Business class trans-Atlantic aircraft flight.