Just over a year ago, Jeff Bezos took off for space with his Blue Origin space company. Since then, there have been other tourists’ flights with the company as well. Blue Origin does not discuss the cost of the tickets (probably under that old saying, “if you have to ask…”) but the first seat was auctioned off for $28 million!
How Much it Costs to Fly to Space with Blue Origin
Blue Origin actually has taken some passengers up for free, like William Shatner and others. These are the “honorable” guests or celebrity guests that help with the image and mission of Blue Origin.
Cost of Flying to Space
But, it seems that the actual costs of tickets have come down quite a bit since the very first seat sale. The cost apparently fluctuates based on several factors, including how much you are worth. SpaceVIP is a platform that helps people book space trips and has booked some customers with Blue Origin. They say that it has to do with “who you are, your social capital, whether you alight with their launch purposes…”.
But, a nonprofit group, Foundation for the Future, has said that it cost $1 million for one of their board members to book a seat for later this year. So, it seems that a paid seat could be as “cheap” as $1 million.
For more to back that up, the most recent flight, which took off from the base in Van Horn yesterday (August 4), had on board 6 passengers. One of them was one of the twins from the popular Dude Perfect YouTube channel. It was Coby Cotton and his ticket was apparently one of two purchased by MoonDAO. Since this is built on the ethereal blockchain, people could see that it cost MoonDAO $2,575,000 for the two seats they purchased. That works out to a little more than $1.25 million per passenger.
Credit: Blue Origin
What You Get for the Cost
But, what does a passenger get for this $1 million+ flight? A flight onboard the New Shepard spacecraft that goes up 65 miles and takes just over 10 minutes from take-off until landing.
That’s right, the Blue Origin flights, even with the “cheaper” price of $1 million for a seat, still are the most expensive flights per minute in the world – or above. Flying with SpaceX is for longer duration so a cheaper-per-minute cost while Virgin Atlantic is cheaper still though does not go as high as the Blue Origin flights.
Consider this – a flight from New York to Dubai in a luxury Emirates first class seat costs $14,800 for the 12.5 hour flight. That is a per-minute-cost in luxury of $19. The Blue Origin flight is $100,000 per minute. 🙂 It’s space, yeah, but, still – wow, pretty pricey!
Featured image – Credit: Blue Origin
