Tag: Blue Origin

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos says it’s ‘Day One’ for space industry

Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, speaks at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. (Via Satellite Magazine via YouTube)

“Day One” isn’t just for Amazon anymore: Billionaire Jeff Bezos says that first-day feeling of being fired up about a business venture applies to Blue Origin and the commercial space industry as well.

Bezos, the founder of Amazon as well as his privately held Blue Origin space venture, made the comment in a newly published interview with Via Satellite’s Mark Holmes, which was conducted during the magazine’s Satellite 2018 conference in March. Here’s how Bezos summarized the message he wanted to get across:

“I would be super optimistic about the future. The message would be that I think this is ‘Day One’ for the space industry. It is a big industry, it is already a significant industry and I think it is going to get much larger. I think we will find new uses for space that people haven’t even figured out yet, in addition to communications. I don’t know what they are, but I want to see that entrepreneurial explosion in space. I want to see dynamism. I want to see the same thing in space that I have witnessed on the internet over the last 20 years, where a thousand experiments are done and [there are] lots of start-up companies.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos’ focus on space sparks questions

Image: Jeff Bezos
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and one of his Blue Origin rockets. (Blue Origin Photo)

While Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates spends billions of dollars a year on global health, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is spending $1 billion on his Blue Origin space venture — and some folks have a problem with that.

The issue is coming to the fore in the wake of Bezos’ comments last week that Blue Origin represents “the most important work that I’m doing,” and is funded with billions of dollars of his personal wealth.

Bezos sees his share of Amazon’s success as the equivalent of “lottery winnings” that currently translate to an estimated net worth of $130 billion, making him the world’s richest individual.

“The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel,” Bezos said last week during an Axel Springer award ceremony in Berlin. “That is basically it. Blue Origin is expensive enough to be able to use that fortune. I am liquidating about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. And I plan to continue to do that for a long time.”

That sentiment is in line with Bezos’ long-held passion to pioneer the space frontier by making it possible for millions of people to live and work in space. He’s gotten used to acknowledging that the main reason for starting up Amazon was to get the money to fund space development.

But as last week’s comments became widely distributed, they attracted pushback from folks who pointed out concerns closer to home.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos strikes a fashion pose for Blue Origin

Bezos with boots
Jeff Bezos shows off his “Gradatim Ferociter” boots. (Jeff Bezos via Twitter)

If being Amazon’s CEO ever gets tiresome for Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest human, he could always turn to a career modeling Western wear.

Bezos demonstrated that today after the successful test flight of his Blue Origin venture’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. In his apres-landing photo shoot, shared via Twitter, Bezos wears a cowboy hat, Blue Origin shirt, jeans, sunglasses and cowboy boots as he leans against the New Shepard crew capsule.

The boots are the piece de resistance.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Blue Origin sends suborbital rocket to new heights

New Shepard launch
Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship, dubbed RSS H.G. Wells, blasts off from its West Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture notched another record today when it sent its New Shepard suborbital spaceship on its highest-ever round trip to space.

It was the eighth uncrewed test flight for the New Shepard program, and the second go-around for this particular spaceship, which is dubbed RSS H.G. Wells in honor of the English science-fiction writer and futurist.

RSS H.G. Wells flew for first time last December, and was refurbished in line with Blue Origin’s strategy for rocket reusability. On that flight, the craft rose to a height of 99.39 kilometers, just shy of the 100-kilometer Karman Line that defines the internationally accepted boundary of outer space.

The target altitude for this flight was a record-setting 106.7 kilometers, or 350,000 feet. After today’s picture-perfect launch and landing, Bezos reported in a tweet that the craft reached 351,000 feet (107 kilometers).

“That’s the altitude we’ve been targeting for operations,” he said. “One step closer.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos gets set for Blue Origin test launch

New Shepard on pad
Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship stands on its pad for a 2016 test flight. (Blue Origin File Photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin space venture is targeting the next test flight of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship for Sunday.

Word of the launch came today in a tweet. And yes, there will be streaming video.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Blue Origin says next-gen rocket engine is on track

Blue Origin BE-4 engine
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is on display in Colorado Springs. (Blue Origin Photo)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — For years, there’s been a big question surrounding the next-generation BE-4 rocket engine that’s being built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture: Will it be good enough for United Launch Alliance, a crucial prospective customer?

Now Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the BE-4 has passed all of the technical tests required for ULA to sign onto a production contract.

“We’ve met the technical and performance requirements that they’re looking for,” Smith told GeekWire today during a one-on-one interview at the 34th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “And so we’re just working through how do we actually get to a production deal. We’re working through terms and conditions, termination liability, all of the things you’d want within a contractual structure.”

Smith said there’s been good interaction with ULA on the technical side of the BE-4 test-firing process. “At this point, we think it’s just, how do we get to the commercial production deal?” he said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

SNC and Blue Origin show off space hardware

Buzz Aldrin and Mark Sirangelo
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Mark Sirangelo get an early look at SNC’s Dream Chaser atmospheric test plane. (SNC Photo)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. —  A year after Blue Origin put its New Shepard rocket booster on public display for the first time, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture has brought its BE-4 rocket engine here for one of the nation’s premier space conferences.

But this time, Colorado-based Sierra Nevada Corp. is taking up at least as much of the spotlight at the 34th Space Symposium with the prototype for its Dream Chaser mini-space shuttle.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Space billionaires take the spotlight

Image: Jeff Bezos and champagne
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, sprays champagne from a bottle after a successful rocket landing in November 2015. (Credit: Blue Origin via YouTube)

Space is hard: That used to be the excuse for explaining why sending people into space would always be something only governments could do. Now it explains why even billionaires find the feat difficult.

As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told me back in 2010, even before he was officially recognized as a billionaire, rocket science is “super-frickin’ damn hard.”

To persevere, even billionaires have to have a passion for spaceflight, most likely fostered at an early age, and an iron resolve to weather adversity. That comes through loud and clear in two newly published books, plus a TV documentary that’s premiering tonight.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

America’s spy-satellite agency cheers Jeff Bezos

NRO's Sapp and Jeff Bezos
Betty Sapp, director of the National Reconnaissance Office, sits in on a chat with Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin. (NRO via Twitter)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos paid a visit to the National Reconnaissance Office this week — which fits right in with his plan to participate in national security space missions through his Blue Origin space venture.

Based on the readout from the NRO, the nation’s spy-satellite agency is also interested in what Bezos had to say about technological innovation.

“We cheer every new entrant who’s brave enough to go into the space business,” NRO Director Betty Sapp said during the March 12 meet-up, according to the agency’s Facebook posting.

“You’re obviously an innovator — like few others in the United States — and a real leader in space,” Sapp told Bezos. “Someone who could not only change the way we do business, but you, among others, have helped make space cool again, and that really resonates with us.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Jeff Bezos shares 114-second rocket engine video

Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is an essential part of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ vision of getting millions of people living and working in space, so he’s anxious to show it works.

But not anxious enough to cut corners. The video he shared today on Twitter and Instagram shows a work in progress: a test firing of the methane-fueled BE-4 at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas, with the power dialed down to 65 percent of maximum and the blast limited to 114 seconds.

Get the full story on GeekWire.