Washington,june 13
Tech billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin’s month-long auction for a trip to the edge of space aboard New Shepard has ended with a closing price of $28 million, the media reported.A single seat aboard the New Shepard crew capsule, dubbed the RSS First Step Crew Capsule, went up for auction earlier this month, starting with a sealed bidding round that drew “more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries”.People were bidding as high as $2.8 million for a 10-minute experience on the space tourism rocket, slated for launch on July 20.
The month-long open-bidding phase for New Shepard’s seat closed on June 10 and entered a live, online auction round on June 12.The bid price soared from $4.8 million to $28 million in under ten minutes, the Verge reported on Saturday.The winner will be able to claim a seat on the flight with Bezos, his brother Mark, and one other passenger on the flight, which will mark the company’s first mission flying humans.A The identity of the winner will be kept secret for a few weeks — “we need to complete some final paperwork with them”, Blue Origin’s astronaut sales director Ariane Cornell was quoted as saying.
The auction took place in a Boston, Massachusetts facility owned by RR Auction, the hosting company. Dozens of telephone operators were gathered in a room representing 20 bidders, the report said.
