{"id":19345,"date":"2016-06-21T21:54:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T13:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/amazons-jeff-bezos-wins-heinlein-prize-for-space-commercialization-at-blue-origin\/"},"modified":"2016-06-21T21:54:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T13:54:54","slug":"amazons-jeff-bezos-wins-heinlein-prize-for-space-commercialization-at-blue-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/amazons-jeff-bezos-wins-heinlein-prize-for-space-commercialization-at-blue-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos wins Heinlein Prize for space commercialization at Blue Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_255586\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-255586\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-255586 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/160616-blue-630x412.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Bezos\" width=\"630\" height=\"412\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/160616-blue-630x412.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/160616-blue-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/160616-blue-1240x811.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-255586\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin. (Credit: Blue Origin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Amazon\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, has won the prestigious Heinlein Prize for his efforts to advance space commercialization at another company he founded, Blue Origin.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos follows in the footsteps of SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis, who played a lead role in creating the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. Diamandis was the first award-winner in 2006, and Musk was honored in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>The prize serves as a tribute to the late science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who championed private enterprise beyond Earth in such stories as \u201cThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress\u201d and \u201cThe Man Who Sold the Moon.\u201d The&nbsp;Heinlein Prize Trust is funded by the estate of Robert and Virginia Heinlein.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s award was announced today in conjunction with the Space Frontier Foundation\u2019s NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle, and comes only a few days after Blue Origin put&nbsp;its reusable New Shepard spaceship through its fourth suborbital test flight to outer space and back. Blue Origin is also making progress on its BE-4 rocket engine, which is due to be used on future orbital launch vehicles.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Flight Four \u2013 One Chute Out\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xYYTuZCjZcE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder Jeff\u2019s visionary leadership, Blue Origin has developed launch vehicles and a commercially financed line of engines that pave the way to reusability in space transportation,\u201d Art Dula, trustee of the Heinlein Prize Trust, said in a statement. \u201cAs a recipient of the Heinlein Prize, we recognize Jeff and the efforts of the Blue Origin team in its development of technologies that could revolutionize the industry and provide commercially-available launch capabilities to a variety of customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos welcomed the award in his own statement:&nbsp;\u201cRobert Heinlein inspired millions with his visionary \u2014 and incredibly entertaining \u2014 stories, and it\u2019s an honor for all of us at Blue Origin to receive this award. Heinlein foresaw a thriving future with humans throughout the solar system. We won\u2019t stop working to make that vision come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Musk received the award, its cash value was $250,000. This time around, the prize amount was not released, but Dula told GeekWire that the money would be given to charity at Bezos\u2019 request. Not that Bezos needs it: His net worth is estimated at more than $60 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The prize also traditionally involve the award of a Lady Vivamus sword&nbsp;inspired by the Heinlein novel \u201cGlory Road.\u201d Dula said Bezos would be getting a surprise gift, and hinted that it\u2019d be a space artifact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have something to give him that\u2019s very special,\u201d Dula said.<\/p>\n<p>The goodies will be presented during a Sept. 14 ceremony in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin. (Credit: Blue Origin) Amazon\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, has won the prestigious Heinlein Prize for his efforts to advance space commercialization at another company he founded, Blue Origin. Bezos follows in the footsteps of SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis, who played a lead [&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":[509,291,1046,5509],"class_list":["post-19345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-robert-heinlein"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345"}],"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=19345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}