Jeff Bezos is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Blue Origin, a private spaceflight company. The company is known for its work on New Shepard — a reusable suborbital space rocket that includes a crew capsule for future paying passengers.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is counting down for its first crewed flight on July 20, when it will launch Bezos and three others into space.
In 2000, shortly after Bezos was named Time’s Person of the Year for his work with Amazon, he turned his attention to space. He founded Blue Origin, which would develop a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing rocket ship that could pop passengers into suborbital space.
Bezos kept his plans under wraps for years, Space.com previously reported. Most of the company’s information came out through mandatory disclosures to the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA as Bezos sought regulatory approvals and funding.
It wasn’t until the late 2000s when Blue Origin had a detailed website and promotional materials available on it, in stark contrast to other billionaire-run spaceflight companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.
In 2011, Blue Origin faced a major setback, when a vehicle was destroyed during a test. Bezos revealed the failure a week after the fact in a short blog post on Blue Origin’s website, explaining that a flight instability affected the angle of attack and ultimately caused the vehicle to crash.
In October 2012, Blue Origin revealed it had conducted a successful rocket escape test, which is a key milestone in rating the spacecraft safe for humans to ride. Although the system is supposed to work on the suborbital spacecraft, the company also plans to use the technology for its orbital flights.
Credit : Space.com
Picture Credit : Google
