{"id":19007,"date":"2017-04-05T23:48:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T15:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-jeff-bezos-is-using-amazons-success-to-fuel-blue-origins-space-effort-a-billion-dollars-at-a-time\/"},"modified":"2017-04-05T23:48:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T15:48:37","slug":"how-jeff-bezos-is-using-amazons-success-to-fuel-blue-origins-space-effort-a-billion-dollars-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-jeff-bezos-is-using-amazons-success-to-fuel-blue-origins-space-effort-a-billion-dollars-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jeff Bezos is using Amazon\u2019s success to fuel Blue Origin\u2019s space effort, a billion dollars at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_322740\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-322740\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-322740\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_8-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Bezos in Blue Origin New Shepard crew capsule\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_8-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_8-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_8-1240x827.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_8.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-322740\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue Origin\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, peers out the window of a New Shepard crew capsule mock-up. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2013 Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has long said that he\u2019s using his personal fortune to fund his Blue Origin space venture, and today he hinted at just how many billions of dollars he intends to spend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy business model right now for Blue Origin is, I sell about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock, and I use it to invest in Blue Origin,\u201d he told reporters here at the 33rd Space Symposium. \u201cSo the business model for Blue Origin is very robust.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Video:<\/strong> Here\u2019s what it\u2019s like to sit in Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard spaceship<\/h4>\n<p>Bezos threw out the figure half-jokingly, after noting that he typically doesn\u2019t reveal how much he\u2019s spending. But he made clear that his in-house space effort, headquartered in Kent, Wash., takes a noticeable chunk out of his estimated $78 billion fortune.<\/p>\n<p>He said the development cost for Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn orbital launch system, which should be taking off from a Florida launch facility by 2020 or so, is likely to be on the order of $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s the New Shepard suborbital rocket ship, which has successfully flown to space and back five times during uncrewed test flights launched from Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas facility. The space-flown booster and a mock-up of New Shepard\u2019s crew capsule are on display this week at the Space Symposium.<\/p>\n<p>The crew capsule was the centerpiece for Bezos\u2019 appearance today. \u201cHey, guys, if it\u2019s OK with you, I think I\u2019ll just go in first,\u201d he said. With that, he climbed inside the mock-up \u2013 and made a reference to New Shepard\u2019s namesake, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space thanks to a suborbital Mercury spaceflight in 1961.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan you imagine how Alan Shepard must have felt all those years ago?\u201d Bezos said from inside the mock-up. \u201cIt must have been pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fgeekwire%2Fvideos%2F1498700776820330%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bezos\u2019 aim for Blue Origin is to follow up on a childhood dream, and have millions of people living and working in space. In recent days,&nbsp;the 53-year-old has freely&nbsp;acknowledged that he started up Amazon with a mind toward using the money from his success to fund Blue Origin.<\/p>\n<p>But he doesn\u2019t expect Blue Origin to be a not-for-profit venture forever: Once New Shepard starts flying passengers, perhaps in the next year or two, that\u2019ll start bringing in revenue. And once New Glenn starts launching satellites, sometime in the 2020s, that could point the way to positive cash flow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s very important that Blue Origin stand on its own feet, and be a profitable, sustainable enterprise,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cThat\u2019s how real progress gets made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Bezos announced the first satellite launch contracts for the New Glenn rocket, but today he said he sees such contracts as mere stepping stones for his bigger vision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy singular focus is people in space,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cI want humans in space. And when you build something that has a high fixed cost, like New Glenn, to make the business model close, you have to use it for other things. And so our satellite customers are going to be a super-important customer base for us, because they\u2019re going to help cover the costs in the early innings. I think ultimately, most of our flights will be taking people up into space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos shied away from saying exactly what those people will be doing, but said that he expects lower-cost launches&nbsp;to be as disruptive&nbsp;for the space industry as Amazon\u2019s innovations have been for the retail industry.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_322742\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-322742\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-322742\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_79-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Bezos with New Shepard booster and capsule mock-up\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_79-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_79-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_79-1240x827.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/20170405_Blue_Origin_79.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-322742\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos talks with reporters with the New Shepard booster and a crew capsule mock-up as a backdrop. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Will Blue Origin be as competitive in the space industry as Amazon is in retail? \u201cWell, of course we\u2019ll be just as competitive,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n<p>He said Blue Origin would rely on the same formula that has driven Amazon\u2019s success: a talented team, lots of money \u2026 and lots of patience. But he emphasized that money and smarts alone won\u2019t lead to Amazon-level disruption in the space business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Amazon, we had a lot of inventions that we were very excited about, and customers didn\u2019t care at all,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd believe me, those inventions were not disruptive in any way. The only thing that\u2019s disruptive is customer adoption. If you can invent a better way, and if customers agree that it\u2019s a better way, then they will use that. That\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re trying to do at Blue Origin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos said the disruption will take hold as Blue Origin, and other players such as SpaceX, advance their efforts to enhance rocket reusability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we can make access to space low-cost, then entrepreneurs will be unleashed, you will see creativity, you will see dynamism,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will see the same thing in space that I\u2019ve witnessed&nbsp;on the internet over the last 20 years. And believe me, that\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other nuggets from Jeff Bezos:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the past, Bezos has said test astronauts might take their first flights&nbsp;on New Shepard in 2017. Today he said \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be 2017,\u201d but he still thought paying passengers could start flying in 2018. He emphasized that \u201cwe\u2019ll put humans on this vehicle when we\u2019re ready, and not a second sooner.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The price for a suborbital ticket to space hasn\u2019t yet been set, and reservations aren\u2019t yet being taken. When one reporter suggested that some tickets could be raffled off, Bezos replied, \u201cI kind of like that idea. You want a marketing job?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Blue Origin is making \u201cgreat progress\u201d on New Shepard as well as on the BE-4 rocket engine that will be used New Glenn\u2019s first stage. The BE-4, is due to be put through full-scale testing in Texas soon. Bezos said progress on New Shepard is \u201cnot constrained\u201d by BE-4 activities. \u201cBoth teams are fully staffed,\u201d he said. During an earlier space conference, Bezos said Blue Origin\u2019s total employee count had passed the 1,000 mark.<\/li>\n<li>Bezos said that he and SpaceX founder Elon Musk are \u201cvery like-minded in a lot of different ways,\u201d especially in their passion for rocket reusability, but there\u2019s still a rivalry between them. When Bezos was asked what lessons could be transferred from suborbital to orbital boosters, he replied, \u201cAll boosters are suborbital. There is no such thing as an orbital booster.\u201d (Musk, however, makes a big distinction between New Shepard\u2019s booster and the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage.)<\/li>\n<li>Following up on that comment, Bezos said \u201cit might be interesting to build a small second stage for this New Shepard booster, because we could use it to put small sats into orbit.\u201d But the primary focus for Blue Origin would continue to be&nbsp;suborbital trips for passengers and payloads.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue Origin\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, peers out the window of a New Shepard crew capsule mock-up. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2013 Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has long said that he\u2019s using his personal fortune to fund his Blue Origin space venture, and today he hinted at just how many billions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[275,509,291,1046,1250],"class_list":["post-19007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amazon","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-new-shepard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}