Bidding for ticket on first New Shepard manned suborbital flight reaches $2.8 million
Capitalism in space: The first phase in Blue Origin’s auction for the purchase of the first seat on its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft in July has closed, with the high bid now $2.8 million.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has begun unsealing the bids for an open seat on its New Shepard suborbital spaceship, and the high bid hit the $2.8 million mark with more than three weeks to go in the online auction.
Blue Origin says the auction has drawn out more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries. … Bidding started on May 5 and will conclude with a live auction on June 12. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Blue Origin’s educational foundation, the Club for the Future.
The first phrase involved sealed secret bids, and ended with the high bid at $1.4 million. The second phase, on-going now with bidding quite brisk, makes the high bid visible to all bidders.
The $2.8 million bid is far higher than the estimated price point predicted for this suborbital flight, which had been in the range of several hundred thousand dollars. The high price is likely because this will be the first flight, and people with cash are willing to spend it to get bragging rights to that seat. At the same time, the high bidding suggests that the previous estimated ticket price might have been low, at least for the first flights.
With three weeks left before the final live auction on June 12th, there is a chance the winning bid could get even higher.
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Capitalism in space: The first phase in Blue Origin’s auction for the purchase of the first seat on its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft in July has closed, with the high bid now $2.8 million.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has begun unsealing the bids for an open seat on its New Shepard suborbital spaceship, and the high bid hit the $2.8 million mark with more than three weeks to go in the online auction.
Blue Origin says the auction has drawn out more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries. … Bidding started on May 5 and will conclude with a live auction on June 12. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Blue Origin’s educational foundation, the Club for the Future.
The first phrase involved sealed secret bids, and ended with the high bid at $1.4 million. The second phase, on-going now with bidding quite brisk, makes the high bid visible to all bidders.
The $2.8 million bid is far higher than the estimated price point predicted for this suborbital flight, which had been in the range of several hundred thousand dollars. The high price is likely because this will be the first flight, and people with cash are willing to spend it to get bragging rights to that seat. At the same time, the high bidding suggests that the previous estimated ticket price might have been low, at least for the first flights.
With three weeks left before the final live auction on June 12th, there is a chance the winning bid could get even higher.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Robert wrote: “The high price is likely because this will be the first flight, and people with cash are willing to spend it to get bragging rights to that seat. At the same time, the high bidding suggests that the previous estimated ticket price might have been low, at least for the first flights.”
I’m surprised that they only received 5200 bids. However, it still gives them a large enough customer base to keep them in business, and could conceivably eventually repay the development cost, but I suspect that Blue Origin’s primary benefit of having New Shepard is the rocketry experience and operations experience that they gained over the past 20 years.
What disappoints me most is that five years ago they had their basic new features demonstrated, and took another five years to sort out how to do the same as NASA has been doing for 60 years. Reusability and a six-person capsule are the new features, but passenger safety should not have taken five years to figure out.
I would like to see Obama and Clinton sent to live on one of the Moons of Mars
Star Bird–
I vote for Gitmo.
Edward-
vaguely been following this.
Q: sealed-bidding is entirely different from a public-auction. Why are they doing this, this way?
wayne asked: “sealed-bidding is entirely different from a public-auction. Why are they doing this, this way?”
I can’t say with authority, but sealed bidding has a tendency to evoke bids that each bidder believes is the value (at least to him) of the item on auction. My thinking is that Blue Origin did sealed bids in order to find what those interested in a ride think the ride is worth to them. Blue Origin could use this information when deciding upon a price for the general public, keeping in mind that the second flight is less valuable than the first. With Virgin Galactic not yet operational, there is not yet much competition for this service, so it may bring a larger than expected price (perhaps greater than the $250 thousand Virgin has suggested it will charge).
The current open bidding allows for those who are most interested in being on the first flight to bid aggressively against each other. If the current high bid is higher than anyone else is willing to pay then this could be a rather boring part of the auction. Otherwise, there could be interesting bids as people try harder for that first public seat and the bragging rights, as Robert called it, that come with it. It seems that the bid has already doubled. Yowza!
I haven’t been involved with a lot of auctions, so I don’t really know the strategies well. Combining bidding processes like this seems unusual to me, because sealed bidding could get those who are most interested to bid higher than they might otherwise bid, and public bidding might keep the action going. The final live bidding should get people to become emotional and bid higher than they otherwise would. Combining the three methods in this way made the sealed bids obsolete even as they were bid, which is why I think that Blue Origin is trying to find the price they could charge for the next few years, until Virgin Galactic works through its backlog of customers.
Of course, another competitor could be SpaceX, if they choose to start point-to-point passenger service around the globe. Ride a Starship from New York to Tokyo (or Boca Chica, TX, to Hanalei, Kauai, Hawai’i (say “hi” to Puff the Magic Dragon, for me)) and return by passenger jet.
I’m surprised that they only received 5200 bids.
In order to bid more than $50,000, you had to be a verified bidder. That required providing identification, having a phone call with the auction house, and submitting a refundable $10,000 deposit.
mkent,
Do we know, yet, how many of the 5,200 bids were over $50,000?
From the news on Monday June 7.
“Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has announced that he and his brother Mark Bezos will be joining the auction winner on New Shepard’s first human flight next month.”
So do we have a three-way race between SpaceX, BO and VG here?
What are the odds and where can I place my bets?