Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin ready to sell tickets for New Shepard rocket

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin will soon begin selling tickets for rides on its tourism rocket New Shepard.

Jeff Bezos, founder of tech company Amazon, has revealed his space venture Blue Origin will soon begin selling tickets for rides on its space tourism rocket called New Shepard.

Blue Origin announced on Thursday that it would soon begin to sell tickets for a chance to ride on the reusable suborbital rocket New Shepard, with more details on when and how to purchase tickets likely to drop on May 5.

In a 49-second video posted to the company’s social media, Mr Bezos appears in a cowboy hat at the Texas site of Blue Origin’s successful April NS-15 rehearsal flight.

“Guys, how exciting is this, c’mon,” he said while driving up to the company’s crew capsule.

In a caption alongside the clip, the company wrote: “It’s time. You can buy the very first seat on #NewShepard. … Details coming May 5th. #GradatimFerociter.”

It’s time. You can buy the very first seat on #NewShepard. Sign up to learn how at https://t.co/XNq9WALA7u. Details coming May 5th. #GradatimFerociterpic.twitter.com/K9jugCs9yz

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 29, 2021

Gradatim ferociter is Blue Origin’s motto and is Latin for the expression: “Step by Step, Ferociously.”

The link to the website directs interested parties to a form, prompting visitors to “sign up to learn how you can buy the very first seat on New Shepard”.

When purchase will be made possible and what the price tag will be are still unknown.

Blue Origin aims to launch as many as six civilian passengers to an altitude of more than 104km.

Its rehearsal flight on April 14 lasted for a duration of 10 minutes and 10 seconds, but Blue Origin has some tough competition within the industry.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to begin selling seats on New Shepard.

Notably, Bezos has recently been trading jabs with billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk over NASA’s decision to reward SpaceX with the $2.89 billion contract to develop a commercial human lander system that will carry the next two American astronauts to the moon.

Blue Origin – and later Alabama-based Dynetics – filed a protest against the move on Monday with the US Government Accountability Office.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. Picture: Brendan Smialowski and Mandel Ngan/AFP

In response to a story about the protest first published by The New York Times, Musk tweeted that his rival “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol.”

Thus far, most of SpaceX’s test launches have resulted in fiery explosions, but Musk said on Monday that the launch of the company’s newly upgraded Starship prototype SN15 (Serial No. 15) could happen this week.

This article originally appeared on Fox Business and was republished with permission