If you’ve got a need to get away after all this locking down — and your pockets are deep enough — why not rocket off to space for a bit?
That’s what Amazon creator Jeff Bezos is offering, by opening up seats on the New Shepard, a rocket that’s part of his space program, Blue Origins.
Technically, you’ll go to the edge of space, crossing the Kármán line, some 66 miles above the Earth and generally accepted to be where Earth’s atmosphere ends and outer space begins. But that’s high enough to experience zero gravity, and certainly high enough to be considered socially distanced from everyone else below.
On the Blue Origins website, reservations are now being taken for those looking to experience the launch, with the promise for details to come on May 5.
Here’s Blue Origins’ description, which reads like a sci-fi movie’s travel brochure: “Sitting atop a 60-foot-tall rocket in a capsule designed for six people, you’ll listen to the countdown and then feel the engine ignite and rumble under you as you climb through the atmosphere. Accelerating to more than Mach 3 and experiencing forces equal to three times Earth’s gravitational force, you will count yourself as one of the few who have reached these speeds and crossed into space.”
With “safety and reliability” paramount, the company promises, “You will then return to Earth as the capsule’s parachutes deploy for a gentle landing back in the West Texas desert.”
As for the cost? Apparently that’s coming May 5, too. But as the old saying goes, if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.