Blue Origin, the commercial space company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has released the first images of its capsule that will carry tourists into space.
- Blue Origin shows off images of manned capsule
- Company plans manned test flight by end of year
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The interior of the capsule has six, evenly-space seats arranged in a circle, with adjacent to windows about the same size and shape of an airplane exit door.
The capsule is 530 square feet, CNN Money reports. Blue Origin says that's about 10 times the amount of room that Alan Shepard, the first American in space, had on his Mercury flight in 1961.
The capsule will be launched with the company's reusable New Shepard rocket.
Blue Origin has been testing capsule and rocket returns in West Texas and plans a manned test flight by the end of 2017. It hasn't said how much it will charge for a ticket into space.
Competitor SpaceX, founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has been reusing Falcon 9 rockets launched from the Space Coast. It will reuse a rocket for the first time Thursday in a launch from Kennedy Space Center.