A ticket on Jeff Bezos’ space tourism rocket will cost at least $200,000

A Reuters report this morning has given us an advanced window on the price of entry for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space tourism offering, with two sources suggesting a single ticket will cost between $200,000 and $300,000. Blue Origin is an independent company that Bezos founded to work on space travel, and its New Shepard vehicle is a rocket with a passenger capsule attached at the tip, intended primarily to facilitate the fancies of well-off tourists.

Offering six reclining seats accompanied by large windows to soak up the sights of going to the edge of space, the New Shepard will provide its riders with a few minutes’ worth of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth. Good both for Instagram addicts and flat Earth zealots.

Blue Origin’s testing has included eight test launches and returns of the New Shepard so far, including some with dummies inside, though no humans have yet been put on board any of the test flights. Having previously suggested that the first trips might happen in 2018, Bezos’ company is now more likely looking at next year for the start of its commercial offering.

The reported Blue Origin pricing falls right in line with Virgin Galactic’s $250,000 ticket price, which, according to Reuters, has already been accepted by 650 people keen to experience this wholly new and exclusive form of tourism.