Jeff Bezos said Blue Origin has sold nearly $100 million worth of tickets for future tourist trips to space

• Jeff Bezos said Blue Origin had sold nearly $100 million worth of tickets for future trips to space.
• "The demand is very, very high," Bezos said Tuesday, after he flew to the edge of space.
• It's not clear how much Blue Origin will charge for its tickets, which went on sale Tuesday.

Jeff Bezos said Blue Origin had sold almost $100 million worth of tickets for future tourist trips to space.

The former Amazon boss on Tuesday became the second billionaire to reach the edge of space, traveling aboard a New Shepard rocket built by Blue Origin, the spaceflight company he founded in 2000.

Blue Origin officially opened ticket sales in the morning before Bezos' flight, and in his post-flight press conference, Bezos said the company was "approaching $100 million in private sales already."

It's not clear if the company sold any private tickets before it officially opened sales on Tuesday. Insider contacted Blue Origin for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

"The demand is very, very high," Bezos said. "So we're going to keep after that, because we really do want to practice with this vehicle.

"We're going to have to build more boosters to fly more frequently, and we're going to be doing that and working on the operational things we need to do," Bezos told reporters.

Bezos and Blue Origin didn't disclose seat prices for the journey, which travels 62 miles above the Earth's surface.

A seat next to Bezos on New Shepard went for $28 million in the company's auction in June. The winner pulled out due to "scheduling conflicts," and Oliver Daeman, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands who also placed a bid, took the seat instead. He was Blue Origin's first paying customer.

Virgin Galactic's ticket to the edge of space costs $250,000, and includes a spacesuit. Company founder Richard Branson reached space before Bezos on July 11 for Virgin's first crewed mission in its VSS Unity space plane.

Initially, Blue Origin wants to fly New Shepard between 25 and 100 times, Bezos said in the press briefing. Once the rocket can perform 100 flights, the company will increase its goal, he added.

Blue Origin wants to fly the New Shepard rocket twice more this year, Bezos told the media.

"We're going to build a road to space so that their kids and our kids can build the future ... We need to do that to solve the problems here on earth," he said.