Jeff Bezos finally sold the only seat for sale in Blue Origin's spaceflight for a whopping $28 million.
Amazon's previous CEO, Jeff Bezos, recently announced that one of his plans after stepping down as the company's CEO is to fly to space. He and his brother, Mark Bezos, founded a commercial spaceflight company, Blue Origin, back in 2000.
The company has already produced a brand new spacecraft named "New Shepard." The brothers plan to finally explore space on July 20 using their spacecraft.
Since the brothers want to give back to other space enthusiasts, Blue Origin had an auction for an extra seat in the spacecraft. As a result, almost 7,600 people were ready to register for the bid --coming from a total of 159 countries.
On Saturday, July 12, Blue Origin officially announced the auction winner. However, the winner's name has not yet been announced.
$28 Million Flight to Space with Jeff Bezos
On Instagram, Jeff Bezos announced his intentions.
According to Hype Beast, Bezos stated that he has already dreamed of traveling to space ever since he was five years old.
Finally, he will take a journey to space on July 20. He added that the flight would be the most incredible adventure that he will spend with his best friend -- his brother.
Blue Origin's New Shepard will have a total of six seats, two of which will be occupied by the Bezos brothers. Together with the auction winner and the crew members, they will travel a total of 62 miles on top of the Earth's surface.
The total winning bid amount that Blue Origin will garner will be donated to its foundation, Club for the Future.
Bezos said that the foundation aims to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Blue Origin's First Spacecraft - 'New Shepard'
Hype Beast also reported that Blue Origin's first-ever spacecraft, named New Shepard, got its name from a famous astronaut, Alan Shepard.
He was the first American astronaut to visit space and became famous for his mission to Mercury.
According to the report, Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft is a reusable suborbital rocket system. It will fulfill Bezos' lifelong dream to take curious tourists, researchers, and scientists way beyond space's internationally recognized boundary, commonly known as the Karman Line.
Space: A New Target for Billionaires
Blue Origin's first flight to space will take approximately 11 minutes.
New Shepard will feature a pressurized crew capsule that can fit up to six people, and it will also have huge windows so that passengers can see what the outer space looks like.
However, Bezos is not the only tech tycoon who plans to have space launches shortly.
In one of his tweets, Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, confirmed that SpaceX's ongoing spaceport called "Deimos" is now under construction. He also mentioned that it would start its operations in 2022.
Ocean spaceport Deimos is under construction for launch next year https://t.co/WJQka399c7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 30, 2021
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Written by Fran Sanders
