{"id":56538,"date":"2021-10-01T20:43:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T12:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/faa-to-investigate-safety-concerns-raised-in-letter-by-current-former-blue-origin-employees\/"},"modified":"2021-10-01T20:43:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T12:43:42","slug":"faa-to-investigate-safety-concerns-raised-in-letter-by-current-former-blue-origin-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/faa-to-investigate-safety-concerns-raised-in-letter-by-current-former-blue-origin-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"FAA to Investigate Safety Concerns Raised in Letter by Current, Former Blue Origin Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)<\/strong> confirmed it will investigate claims that 21 current and former employees at Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin<\/strong> made about the safety of the company\u2019s rockets in a letter published yesterday on Lioness.<\/p>\n

Alexandra Abrams, former head of Blue Origin Employee Communications, joined 20 other anonymous Blue Origin employees in writing the letter, titled \u201cBezos Wants to Create a Better Future in Space. His Company Blue Origin Is Stuck in a Toxic Past.\u201d The letter criticized the company\u2019s work culture and approach to environmental sustainability, and alleged that workers were often encouraged to prioritize execution speed over quality control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the opinion of an engineer who has signed on to this essay, \u2018Blue Origin has been lucky that nothing has happened so far,’\u201d Abrams and the group wrote.<\/p>\n

The FAA issued a brief response, stating that it is reviewing the information presented in the letter.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s initial response claimed that Abrams was, \u201cdismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations.\u201d In an interview with CBS, Abrams claimed that she was never informed by Blue Origin that she was fired for export control violations.<\/p>\n

Ars Technica<\/em>\u2018s Eric Berger reported Thursday that several sources currently working at Blue Origin confirmed that some of the details presented in Abrams and the group\u2019s letter were true. Berger\u2019s sources agreed with the Abrams letter that, \u201cprofessional dissent at Blue Origin is actively stifled\u201d by Blue Origin senior leadership, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, and Bezos himself.<\/p>\n

CNBC Space Reporter Michael Sheetz obtained a letter that Smith wrote to Blue Origin employees early Friday morning, addressing the allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, you may have seen that some claims were made against our team,\u201d Smith wrote to Blue Origin employees. \u201cAs with any criticism, whether personal or professional, and whether the criticism is fair or baseless, it is never easy to hear. It requires reflection and humility to sort through what is useful and what is not. It is particularly difficult and painful, for me, to hear claims being levied that attempt to characterize our entire team in a way that doesn\u2019t align with the character and capability that I see at Blue Origin every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith also addressed the safety concerns being reviewed by the FAA: \u201cThe New Shepard team went through a methodical and pain-staking process to certify our vehicle for First Human Flight. Anyone that claims otherwise is uninformed and simply incorrect. That team is appropriately proud of the work they\u2019ve done and we should be as well,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed it will investigate claims that 21 current and former employees at Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin made about the safety of the company\u2019s rockets in a letter published yesterday on Lioness. Alexandra Abrams, former head of Blue Origin Employee Communications, joined 20 other anonymous Blue Origin employees in writing the letter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56539,"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":[],"class_list":["post-56538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56538"}],"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=56538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}