A mystery passenger will be aboard Blue Origin’s next space tourism mission, having chosen to keep their identity secret until after Wednesday’s flight. Jeff Bezos’s private space company is set to launch six people to the edge of space aboard its New Shepard vehicle, with lift-off scheduled from Blue Origin’s Texas facility at 8.30am local time (2.30pm BST). This marks the 15th human flight for the New Shepard programme, which began in 2021, and the first to carry an unnamed passenger.
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Ahead of the mission, Blue Origin confirmed that the five named participants would be joined by “an undisclosed sixth crew member who asked to remain anonymous until after the flight”. The five publicly identified passengers are franchise executive Jeff Elgin, electrical engineer Clint Kelly, entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, startup founder Aaron Newman, and real estate investor Vitalii Ostovsky. The launch of flight NS-36 will be live-streamed on the company’s website. Ticket prices for the 10-minute journey are estimated between $200,000 and $300,000, though one seat on the first flight was auctioned for $28 million.
Space tourism flights conducted by Blue Origin and other private companies, such as SpaceX, have faced criticism for their environmental impact. Researchers writing in the AGU journal Earth’s Future warned that “routine space tourism launches may undermine progress made by the Montreal Protocol in reversing ozone depletion in the Arctic springtime upper stratosphere”. They added that “[soot] particles from rockets are also of great concern, as these are almost five hundred times more efficient at warming the atmosphere than all other sources of soot combined.” Critics have also raised ethical questions over social inequality and questioned the limited scientific value of such missions.
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Others, including NS-36 passenger Karagussova, argue that space tourism will help democratise access to space. “The future of humanity is connected with space,” Ms Karagussova wrote on Instagram ahead of the flight. “By exploring new horizons, we not only advance technology but also expand our own capabilities. For me, Mission NS-36 with Blue Origin is part of a research project and a step towards a dream I have been working on for many years.”
