Photo by Blue Origin
Photo by Seattle City Council

Jeff Bezos

Owner

Blue Origin

POSITION

Owner

COMPANY

Blue Origin

COUNTRY

USA

Website

Blue Origin

SCENE

Business

SOCIAL

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter

What makes Jeff Bezos a Global Shaker?

Best known as the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin to pioneer private human access to space exploration.

“I want to take the assets that I have from Amazon and translate that into the heavy-lifting infrastructure that will [help] the next generation to have dynamic entrepreneurialism in space – kind of build that transportation network,” Jeff told Business Insider. “That’s what’s going on, that’s what Blue Origin’s mission is. If we can do that, then the whole thing will take off and there will be thousands of companies doing creative things.”

He believes that his projects with Blue Origin are “the most important work” of his career.

“I’m pursuing this work because I believe if we don’t, we will eventually end up with a civilization of stasis, which I find very demoralizing,” Jeff said in an interview with Business Insider. I don’t want my great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren to live in a civilization of stasis. We all enjoy a dynamic civilization of growth and change.”

Blue Origin started building rocket propulsion engines and launch vehicles as early as 2000, but the news of it being incorporated came out only in 2003. The venture has been kept quite secretive ever since, and up until 2015, not a lot of specifics were known about the company’s products.

Named after the first American to head to space, the company’s New Shepard rocket was the first fully reusable vertical takeoff, vertical landing space vehicle in history. The project aims to carry astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line, which has been deemed as the internationally recognized boundary of space.

The New Glenn, named after John Glenn, is being designed for operational reusability as part of the “road to space.” The engine being designed for this ambitious project will enable the New Glenn to launch payloads over 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit as well as 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit.

 

Tags: Amazon, Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, Space

Last updated: April 8, 2020