Jeff Bezos is looking for a travel buddy.
Blue Origin will auction off a seat on its New Shepard spacecraft, which is set to ferry the Amazon founder into the atmosphere on July 20. But not surprisingly, shrugging off the chains of gravity isn’t going to be a discount flight.
Online bids for the auction are now closed, but a live auction will take place on June 12 at 1 p.m. ET and will be livestreamed on BlueOrigin.com. Bidding will start at the current high online price of $4.8 million.
Bezos made headlines earlier this week by announcing he would be a passenger on the first passenger-carrying mission. That ride will take place two weeks after he plans to step down as CEO of Amazon.
“Ever since I was 5 years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space,” Bezos said in an Instagram post announcing his plan. “On July 20, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
Proceeds from the auction will go to a Blue Origin foundation that promotes math and science education.
This will be Blue Origin’s 16th flight overall. The company has never had a catastrophic failure, but it’s still not without risk. The New Shepard suborbital flights hit speeds of roughly 2,300 miles per hour—three times the speed of sound—and go 350,000 feet in the air.
Like Bezos, the winner of the auction will have three days of preflight training before the launch. The flight itself will last between 10 and 12 minutes.
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