Blue Origin: Jeff Bezos returns in New Shepard capsule
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Two decades after its creation, Blue Origin has launched its first human flight. The Rocket took off from a private facility in West Texas, travelling to an altitude of over 107km before landing just under 11 minutes later. Among the passengers on board was the company’s owner Jeff Bezos. So what is the vision behind this aerospace company, and will it usher in a new age of commercial space travel?
Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos, who also founded Amazon.
The American business magnate created the e-commerce giant Amazon from his garage in Seattle in 1994.
Since then, the billionaire has accumulated a fortune with an estimated net worth of $205.1 billion (£150bn), according to Forbes.
As well as Amazon, he owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin.
What is Blue Origin?
Blue Origin is a private spaceflight company founded and owned by Jeff Bezos.
It develops rockets to fly travellers to space commercially.
It will effectively blast mainly wealthy tourists up to space for a huge fee.
The price of a ticket onboard the initial Blue Origin flight is unknown but it is thought the winner of the auction for a ticket paid $28 million.
Although the company was founded by Amazon’s owner, it is not a part of the e-commerce company – it is a separate venture from Amazon.
Mr Bezos said about his company: “This is not about escaping Earth.”
He added: “If you go to space and see how fragile it is, you want to take care of it even more. And that’s what this is about.”
In a post fight news conference, Mr Bezos said the flight signalled one step forward towards the company’s mission to expand to a place where people could live and work in space.
He said: “This is a tiny little step of what Blue Origin is going to do.
“What we’re really trying to do is build reusable space vehicles.
“It’s the only way to build a road to space, and we need to build a road to space so that our children can build the future.”
Mr Bezos has said he envisions a future where humans move “polluting industry” from the fragile Earth to space.
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