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Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (2017)
Photo: Isaiah Downing / REUTERS
The New Shepard rocket is scheduled to launch into space on July 20. For the first time, the space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wants to bring people into space. For this, the company is auctioning a seat in the astronaut capsule. The company Blue Origin announced that it has been possible to bid online since Wednesday, and the winner should be determined on June 12th. "This seat will change the way you see the world," said a company announcement. The passenger rocket has successfully completed 15 unmanned test runs.
The flight will take a total of only ten minutes, four minutes of which the passengers will spend above the Kármán line, which marks the boundary between the earth's atmosphere and space.
At an altitude of around 100 kilometers, the crew on board can then experience weightlessness and view the curvature of the earth from space.
The company would like to offer tourists short trips into space in the future.
The passenger capsule is propelled by a small, reusable rocket that returns to Earth separately from the capsule once it has reached flight altitude.
The capsule itself slides back to the surface of the earth, braked by parachutes.
Bezos founded Blue Origin around 20 years ago.
In mid-April, the company last tested its rocket called the New Shepard with an astronaut capsule.
It reached an altitude of around 105 kilometers before returning to Earth.
For the first time, employees of the company also rehearsed some astronaut tasks before take-off and after landing, but the actual test flight remained unmanned.
Blue Origins announcement gives Bezos much-needed momentum after the company lost a $ 2.9 billion contract to SpaceX as part of NASA's high-profile program that aims to bring Americans back to the moon in the coming years.
kim / dpa / AFP / Reuters
