Blue Origin reveals $2.4M as current highest bid for rocket trip

Jeff Bezos’s space company is targeting July 20 for the first suborbital sightseeing trip on its New Shepard rocket, a landmark moment in a competition to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel.

Blue Origin, billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space firm, disclosed that the current highest bid for a seat on the inaugural flight of its New Shepard spacecraft stands at $2.4m as the second round of its auction continues. The company said it received more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries in the first round, but did not disclose the highest bid as that round was sealed. The second round kicked off with an initial bid of $1.4m, according to the Blue Origin website.