How Much Will Space Travel Cost? You'll be Surprised.

Want to take a trip into space? You better get your wallet ready.

Blue Origin plans to start sending people into space as soon as next year. Blue Origin is the space-exploration company created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The company has been developing and rigorously testing its New Shepard rocket and capsule for several years.

The project is nearing completion.

The cost for space travel has been widely speculated. Bezos himself added to the speculation. He has promised to make a New Shepard trip accessible for average people. He explained: “I’m in the process of converting my Amazon lottery winnings into a much lower price of a mission so that we can go explore the solar system.” Bezos was so committed to affordability, he has contributed more than $1 billion of his own money to the project.

So how much will a New Shepard trip cost? Estimates range from $200,000 to $300,000 per trip. The figure is not exactly encouraging for average wage-earners. In fact, The (U.K.) Sun referred to Blue Origin trips as “reserved for the uber wealthy.”

Customers can nonetheless expect a specular ride. They will ride in a capsule set atop a 50-foot tall rocket. “Astronauts” will experience 2 ½ minutes of intense thrust, during which they will travel faster than Mach 3. The booster will then separate from the capsule and the “astronauts” will free-float through space. The capsule can hold 6 occupants. It will be large enough for “astronauts” to float around and even do somersaults in the weightlessness. Blue Origin also promised to offer the “largest windows in spaceflight history” in the capsule. The company hopes to maximize the view from space. The capsule will eventually descend back to earth and land with a parachute.

Both the booster rocket and the capsule will be fully reusable. The booster will return to earth by vertical landing. While SpaceX was widely praised for its vertical rocket landings, Blue Origin was the first company to perfect the process.

Although the trips may be prohibitively expensive for most people, they certainly sound fun. Look for manned commercial trips to space by 2019.