Tag: Jeff Bezos

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Jeff Bezos donates Heinlein Prize, keeps sword

Dula, Bezos and Diamandis
Jeff Bezos (center) shows off a sword that serves as part of the Heinlein Prize, as XPRIZE co-founder Peter Diamandis (right) takes the selfie and Art Dula (left), trustee for the Heinlein Prize Trust, looks on. (Credit: Peter Diamandis via Twitter)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos received one of the spaceflight community’s richest honors, the Heinlein Prize, during a ceremony in the nation’s capital on Wednesday night. The prize includes a $250,000 cash award … and a sword that evokes one of Robert A. Heinlein’s sci-fi stories.

Bezos hung onto the sword, but he’s donating the $250,000 to an nonprofit group known as the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

The prize was handed out by representatives of the late science-fiction writer’s family trust to recognize Bezos’ work with Blue Origin, the space venture he founded. Past recipients include Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX; and Peter Diamandis, who co-founded the XPRIZE program as well as Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

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Blue Origin unveils ‘New Glenn’ orbital rocket

Image: Rocket lineup
Blue Origin’s chart shows a lineup of past, present and future rockets, ranging from Orbital ATK’s Antares to the New Glenn configurations and the Saturn 5 moon rocket. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is providing a sneak preview of the “New Glenn” rocket for orbital launches, which his Blue Origin space venture has been working on for four years already.

Bezos shared the design and basic specifications in an update sent to thousands of email subscribers.

“Named in honor of John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is 23 feet in diameter and lifts off with 3.85 million pounds of thrust from seven BE-4 engines,” Bezos wrote. “Burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, these are the same BE-4 engines that will power United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket.”

The two-stage version of New Glenn would be capable of flying commercial satellites and astronauts into low Earth orbit. Bezos said a three-stage New Glenn could send payloads on “demanding beyond-LEO missions.”

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Next test should destroy Blue Origin’s booster

Image: Blue Origin anomaly
Artwork shows Blue Origin’s crew capsule firing its escape rocket motor. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has flown the same rocket booster to outer space and back four times over the past year – but the fifth trip, planned for October, will be that booster’s last.

“Our next flight is going to be dramatic, no matter how it ends,” Bezos said in an email.

Bezos said the uncrewed flight will serve as a test of the New Shepard suborbital spaceship’s escape system.

About 45 seconds after New Shepard launches from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site, the capsule that’s designed for cargo and crew will separate from the booster. This will happen at an altitude of 16,000 feet, at a point in the ascent known as “max-Q,” or maximum dynamic pressure, when the spacecraft’s structure comes under maximum stress.

If the test proceeds according to plan, the capsule’s “pusher” rocket motor will fire for two seconds, propelling the capsule away from the booster. Parachutes will deploy to slow down the capsule’s descent, and the capsule will be recovered safe and sound.

The booster will have a rougher time, which Bezos is bummed about.

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Jeff Bezos joins Pentagon advisory board

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Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin as well as Amazon. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is joining the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, a 15-member panel that’s meant to help the Pentagon adopt some of the private-sector ideas that have fueled America’s tech industry.

The panel is chaired by a tech titan who’s arguably one of Bezos’ biggest competitors: Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Other members include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Instagram COO (and Facebook veteran) Marne Levine, Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced Bezos’ appointment this week, and numbered him among “the most innovative minds in America.”

In addition to founding Amazon, Bezos owns The Washington Post and the Blue Origin space venture. During an April fireside chat at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Bezos told me that he was “very excited” about Blue Origin’s potential involvement in space missions for the Defense Department.

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Jeff Bezos touts Blue Origin flight test results

Image: Blue Origin's bumpers
A photo taken after last month’s flight test of Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship highlights the ring of crushable bumpers on the underside of the crew capsule. (Credit: Blue Origin via Jeff Bezos)

Last month’s test flight of a Blue Origin rocket ship to space and back was aimed at seeing how safely it could land even if one of its three parachutes went out. Today, the results got a thumbs-up from Jeff Bezos, who’s the founder of the Blue Origin space venture as well as the Amazon online retailing giant.

“We’ve designed the capsule to ensure astronaut safety not just for the failure of one parachute, but even for the failure of two parachutes,” Bezos said in an email update that was addressed to fans and potential spacefliers.

The rocket ships are built at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash., and then shipped down to the company’s suborbital launch complex in West Texas.

The uncrewed flight test was conducted June 19. New Shepard rocketed up just beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary of outer space. Then the booster fired up its rocket engine again for a vertical landing, while the crew capsule made a separate descent to Earth.

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Here’s how Jeff Bezos looks as ‘Star Trek’ alien

Image: Jeff Bezos in "Star Trek Beyond"
Jeff Bezos wears a Starfleet uniform (and heavy makeup) in “Star Trek Beyond.” (Credit: Justin Lin)

You’d hardly recognize Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos in the super-heavy makeup he wears as an alien Starfleet official in “Star Trek Beyond,” the latest big-screen voyage of the Starship Enterprise.

But just to make sure you’re able to spot him, Bezos posted a Vine video in which you can see him getting a bite while waiting for his scene. “Cheers,” he says into the camera.

In a Twitter update, Bezos said the “Star Trek” appearance checked off an item on his bucket list. He also gave a shout-out to director Justin Lin, the cast and the crew.

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Blue Origin set to pick up the pace for space

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Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship rises from its launch pad in June. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, plans to accelerate its current once-every-eight-weeks schedule for flight tests of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship, leading up to the first crewed flights next year, one of the company’s executives said today.

The variety of scientific experiments being flown on the flights will also widen, according to Erika Wagner, Blue Origin’s business development manager. Wagner provided a glimpse of the road ahead for the New Shepard program at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference, which is under way this week in San Diego.

The New Shepard spacecraft was built at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., but it’s undergoing testing at the company’s West Texas launch site. The reusable, hydrogen-fueled craft already has made four successful uncrewed flights to the edge of outer space and back, including two missions that carried research payloads.

Wagner told the San Diego audience that Blue Origin’s payload manifest has been planned out for the next year, and would add biology experiments to the mix. The team is also looking at ways to modify the spacecraft so that experiments can be exposed to the space environment, rather than staying inside the pressurized New Shepard capsule throughout the flight, she said.

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A peek at Blue Origin’s Florida rocket factory

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An artist’s rendering shows Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle production facility, which is under construction in Florida. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos today put a spotlight on the construction of a giant rocket production facility in Florida for his Blue Origin space venture – but he also gave a shout-out to the engine production team back in Kent, Wash.

In an email to Blue Origin’s fans, Bezos noted that ground has been broken for an orbital vehicle manufacturing site at Exploration Park, just south of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Ground-clearing actually began last month.)

“The 750,000-square-foot rocket factory is custom-built from the ground up to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration and testing,” Bezos wrote. In comparison, the production facility in Kent where Blue Origin is building rocket engines and its New Shepard suborbital spaceships takes in about 300,000 square feet.

“It’s exciting to see the bulldozers in action – we’re clearing the way for the production of a reusable fleet of orbital vehicles that we will launch and land, again and again,” Bezos said.

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Amazon’s Jeff Bezos wins Heinlein Prize

Image: Jeff Bezos
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Amazon’s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, has won the prestigious Heinlein Prize for his efforts to advance space commercialization at another company he founded, Blue Origin.

Bezos follows in the footsteps of SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis, who played a lead role in creating the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. Diamandis was the first award-winner in 2006, and Musk was honored in 2011.

The prize serves as a tribute to the late science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who championed private enterprise beyond Earth in such stories as “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” and “The Man Who Sold the Moon.” The Heinlein Prize Trust is funded by the estate of Robert and Virginia Heinlein.

This year’s award was announced today in conjunction with the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle, and comes only a few days after Blue Origin put its reusable New Shepard spaceship through its fourth suborbital test flight to outer space and back. Blue Origin is also making progress on its BE-4 rocket engine, which is due to be used on future orbital launch vehicles.

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Blue Origin live-streams test flight to space

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Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship rises from its launch pad. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Something went wrong during today’s test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship, and the world was able to watch how it was handled online.

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture intentionally disabled one of the three parachutes on the New Shepard capsule, and also introduced some added challenges for the vertical landing of the rocket-powered booster stage after separation. It’s all part of Bezos’ plan to test the safety systems thoroughly before putting people aboard.

Liftoff took place at 7:35 a.m. PT (9:35 a.m. CT) from Blue Origin’s Texas launch complex. “Beautiful launch of our New Shepard rocket here from West Texas,” launch commentator Ariane Cornell said during Blue Origin’s live video coverage. The video stream was provided via BlueOrigin.com and YouTube. At its peak, more than 15,000 viewers were tuning in.

The test flight lasted about 10 minutes, sending the capsule to an altitude of 331,501 feet (62.8 miles, or 101 kilometers), Cornell said. The capsule separated from the booster as planned. Then the booster made a successful landing, and the two-parachute system brought the capsule down safely, just as hoped.

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