Jeff Bezos on Longterm Vision for Blue Origin: 'Millions of People Living and Working in Space'
The Amazon CEO is riding high on his company's (and the world's) first reusable rocket launch.
Jeff Bezos took to America’s morning talk shows today to tout his aerospace company’s historic achievement: landing the first reusable suborbital rocket back on Earth, accomplished Monday in West Texas.
Speaking with Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning, Bezos stood before Blue Origin’s fire-scorched New Shepard reusable rocket, and laid bare the vision of his company:
“The longterm vision of Blue Origin is millions of people living and working in space,” he said, adding that “reusability is a total game-changer for that.”
Bezos, a genius at fusing customer service with evolving technology, founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the intent of sending private citizens into low Earth orbit, pending they can finance a trip beyond the stratosphere.
Bezos said, however, that Blue Origin isn’t quite ready to “set the price” for a four-minute jaunt into space.
The Amazon CEO also appeared on Good Morning America, introduced via the same west Texas satellite feed as Elton John’s “Rocket Man” played in the background.
Echoing much of what he said on CBS, Bezos insistently called Blue Origin’s success a “game changer,” noting that a reusable rocket “totally changes the economics of space travel.”
While Bezos is riding high, enjoying a warranted celebration, his main rival in the private space race, Elon Musk, has been sort of congratulatory, while at the same time casting a skeptical eye at Blue Origin for not traveling as fast rockets launched by SpaceX.
