Skip to main content

Blue Origin’s prototype space tourism capsule looks plush and roomy

If you’re loaded with money and rather like the idea of a trip to the edge of space, then Blue Origin is probably on the list of companies you’re currently considering for your ride of a lifetime.

Founded by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin has been making steady progress with its New Shepard reusable rocket system that will one day take space tourists on unforgettable suborbital adventures. With a growing number of successful unmanned missions under its belt, the company is hoping to launch the service as early as 2018.

Recommended Videos

As Blue Origin moves ever closer to the first human test flights of its system, expected later this year, Bezos this week released several images offering a glimpse of the kind of comfort paying passengers can expect to enjoy during their trip.

Blue Origin capsule
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The plushly designed capsule, which looks suitably science fiction, features six comfy-looking reclining seats positioned close to the large windows so the tourists can enjoy a view like no other. “Every seat’s a window seat, the largest windows ever in space,” Bezos said in an email update on Wednesday.

The seats will become temporarily redundant when the capsule reaches a spot 62 miles (100 km) above the surface of the Earth, as the passengers will be permitted to unbelt and have some fun floating idly about in a weightless environment.

Speaking at the Space Symposium event in Colorado Springs last year, Bezos described the kind of experience Blue Origin space tourists can expect.

“We want people to be able to get out, float around, do somersaults, enjoy the microgravity, look out of those beautiful windows,” he said, adding that the training for the trip would be “relatively simple.”

Blue Origin is yet to reveal how much it’ll cost to go on its 12-minute suborbital adventure, though rival outfit Virgin Galactic has been charging around $250,000 for reservations aboard its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Blue Origin reveals target date for debut flight of New Glenn rocket
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.

Blue Origin is targeting New Glenn’s inaugural mission (NG-1) for no earlier than Friday, January 10. It will launch from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, the company announced on Monday.

The three-hour launch window opens at 1 a.m. ET (10 p.m. PT on Thursday, January 9).

Read more
January features two major rocket launches to look out for
The Super Heavy booster's Raptor engines powering the Starship's launch on November 19, 2024.

Last year was a busy one for space missions, and 2025 looks set to be no different.

The continued development of new rockets will feature heavily over the next 12 months. Heading into the new year, SpaceX, for example, is aiming to really ramp up the launch rate of its next-generation Starship rocket.

Read more
Can private spaceflight benefit more than just a lucky few?
The Polaris Dawn crew during a full dress rehearsal.

For decades, scientists have been studying how the human body reacts to space and developing methods to counteract the worst of the effects.

But if we want all of humanity to one day have access to space, then there’s a problem. The only people who have traditionally been studied in space are space agency astronauts, who are only a small subset of the population. They are selected specifically to be physically fit, without underlying health conditions, and to be of working age. They are also, historically -- and to some extent, currently -- overwhelmingly white men.

Read more