Bidding for the seat began as a silent auction online, which will now shift to a live and final auction set to take place on Saturday, June 12.
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June
11, 2021
3 min read
The battle of the space wars waged on this week as online bidding to ride alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on his way to outer space drew to a close.
The billionaire, who founded space exploration company Blue Origin, announced earlier this spring that he’d be auctioning a seat on his New Shepard rocket ship’s first human spaceflight.
Bidding for the seat began publicly on May 19 as an online silent auction, which will now shift to a live and final auction set to take place on Saturday, June 12.
Related: Jeff Bezos announced he will fly into space on July 20
Viewers can stream the live auction on Blue Origin’s website, though registration for participation to bid in the auction for the flight has already closed.
At the end of last month, the highest bid for the coveted seat on the 11-minute flight was $2.8 million. By the time bidding closed on Thursday, the highest offer was a whopping $4.8 million.
If the seat were to sell at this price, the lucky winner would essentially be paying more than $430,000 for each minute they spend on the spaceflight.
All proceeds from the final bid will be donated to Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s foundation, which aims to “inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.”
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Bezos and his brother will also be on board, which he announced in a heartfelt Instagram post earlier this month.
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” the entrepreneur wrote. ”On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
The flight is set to soar just two weeks after Bezos’ steps down as Amazon CEO, which he announced he’d be doing to staff back in February.
“Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming,” he said at the time. “When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”
The New Shepard rocket ship has run 15 successful missions to space sans-crew, but this is its first with humans on board. The inaugural flight will lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas.
“It’s time for astronauts to climb onboard,” Blue Origin said in a statement. “This seat will change how you see the world.”
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