A trip on Blue Origin's spaceship, the rocket company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would cost USD 2,00,000 (approximately Rs 1.3 crore) for its first trip. Bezos' rocket company is among the few companies that fly passengers to space.  Elon Musk' SpaceX, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic are among space exploration companies from which Bezos can face tough competition.

Blue Origin space will take people in their private space exploration space and use their New Shepard launch vehicle. They will start selling tickets next year. Two anonymous Blue Origin employees announced the approximate ticket prices to Reuters.

Bezos declared that his company would be venturing into human space exploration, potential customers have been waiting for more details on it. Jeff Bezos started Blue Origin in 2004 and had publicly detailed the plans. The general design of the vehicle including a launch rocket and a detachable passenger capsule were also made public. The possible-program started talks if space tourism could boost in the future.

The New Shepard vehicle can fly six passengers above Earth into suborbital space autonomously for more than 62 miles (100 km). Blue Origin said that the capsule has six observation windows which are three times as tall as those on a 747 jetliner from Boeing.

This will let people experience a few minutes of weightlessness and observe the curvature of the planet. Following the capsule will return to earth under parachutes. Earlier they had planned to launch into space in 2012, but no plans were then revealed. The New Shepard which is a vertical launch can reach an altitude of about 75 miles.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 13, 2018 05:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).