{"id":19557,"date":"2015-11-24T19:21:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T11:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/exclusive-jeff-bezos-speaks-out-on-blue-origin-spacex-and-space-trips-i-cant-wait-to-go\/"},"modified":"2015-11-24T19:21:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T11:21:26","slug":"exclusive-jeff-bezos-speaks-out-on-blue-origin-spacex-and-space-trips-i-cant-wait-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/exclusive-jeff-bezos-speaks-out-on-blue-origin-spacex-and-space-trips-i-cant-wait-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Jeff Bezos speaks out on Blue Origin, SpaceX and space trips: \u2018I can\u2019t wait to go!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bezos\"
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, sprays champagne from a bottle after the successful landing of the New Shepard rocket booster on Monday. (Credit: Blue Origin via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazon\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, says watching his Blue Origin rocket make a safe landing after flying into space rates as one of the greatest moments of his life, and he can\u2019t wait to take a ride himself.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive GeekWire interview, conducted on the morning after the New Shepard test mission, Bezos answered questions about what the flight means for Blue Origin, the space venture he founded \u2026 why he waited so long to start tweeting \u2026 and when the rest of us will get a suborbital space ride. He also stirred the pot in his rivalry with that other billionaire space geek, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a transcript of today\u2019s Q&A, edited for clarity and length:<\/p>\n

\"Jeff
Jeff Bezos posted his first Twitter update to celebrate the New Shepard test flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GeekWire: How does it feel? I saw you spraying folks with champagne this morning \u2026  What was it like to have this flight go off today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff Bezos:<\/strong> I was very optimistic about the flight, but I\u2019ll tell you, when I saw that vehicle land, it was one of the greatest moments of my life. Judging by the fact that there wasn\u2019t a dry eye in the house, I\u2019m pretty sure all my teammates here at Blue felt the same way. This is a field that people go into in large part because of real heart and passion, and that team did a remarkable job. It was just incredible.<\/p>\n

Q: It sounds as if you might have been wondering for a second whether the rocket would actually land on its feet. Did you have any doubts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> You know, I\u2019m an optimist \u2013 so I always go into things convinced that they\u2019re going to work. But being sure it\u2019ll work and seeing it work are two different things.<\/p>\n

Q: Tell me what this means for Blue Origin and for spaceflight in general. You\u2019ve been at this for more than a decade, and you\u2019ve had your setbacks \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Well, first, for spaceflight in general: Full reuse is the holy grail of rocketry. You cannot throw the hardware away every time and expect to ever realistically lower the cost of access to space. It\u2019s just impossible. What we did is an existence proof that you can vertically land from space and reuse the rocket booster. Our architecture is scalable to very large size. So I\u2019m super-excited about that. It\u2019s something that puts us \u2013 and not just Blue Origin, but it\u2019s something that puts humanity on the path to eventually having millions of people living and working in space.<\/p>\n

\"pluto\"
\nScience journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong> is the author of “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.”<\/p>\n

You were there for last week\u2019s Apollo F-1 engine unveiling [at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight]. If you look at modern rockets today, they still look very much like what you would have seen in the 1960s. You have to get away from expendable rockets if you\u2019re going to the next stage. And the booster is the most important stage to make reusable, because it\u2019s the biggest, most expensive part of a rocket system.<\/p>\n

Q: And what does it mean for Blue Origin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> For Blue Origin, it\u2019s two things: There\u2019s what it means for our tourism program, and then there\u2019s what it means for our orbital vehicle.<\/p>\n

For the tourism program, I\u2019m hopeful that we\u2019re a couple of years away from commercial operations at this point. We consider this the first of many successful test flights. We\u2019re going to conduct a very thorough, very deliberate test program. For the next couple of years, we\u2019re going to fly this vehicle many, many times and put it through a lot of stressing conditions. When we\u2019re completely confident in the vehicle, then we\u2019re going to start selling tickets and putting people on board. That\u2019s very exciting.<\/p>\n

As for what it means for our orbital vehicle, one of the reasons I love the vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing architecture is that it\u2019s so scalable. We\u2019re going to take the same architecture we just validated with New Shepard, but at larger scale with our BE-4 engines, and have a completely reusable vertical-landing booster for the orbital vehicle that we\u2019re going to fly out of Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

Q: Are you going to be like Virgin Galactic\u2019s Richard Branson and make plans to go on the first commercial flight when New Shepard is ready to take on passengers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I can\u2019t wait to go! I\u2019ve wanted to do this since I was 5 years old. One thing I love about our vehicle architecture is that it flies autonomously, so we can do this very methodical test program without risking any test pilots. We\u2019ll go through this for the next couple of years, and then I can\u2019t wait to climb into that vehicle.<\/p>\n