New Shepard hurtled at speeds reaching 2,233 miles (3,595 km) per hour, exceeding the so-called Kármán line - 62 miles (100 km) - set by an international aeronautics body to define the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.Īfter the capsule separated from the booster, the crew unbuckled to experience weightlessness. It's the only way to build a road to space, and we need to build a road to space so that our children can build the future." "What we're really trying to do is build reusable space vehicles. "This is a tiny little step of what Blue Origin is going to do," Bezos told CNBC after the flight. "Well done," Branson wrote on Twitter, congratulating Bezos and his crewmates.īezos founded Blue Origin two decades ago. The two flights give credibility and inject enthusiasm into the fledgling space tourism industry that the Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion annually in a decade. The flight came nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism company Virgin Galactic's successful inaugural suborbital flight from New Mexico. Pioneering female aviator Wally Funk, 82, and recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen, 18, became the oldest and youngest people to reach space. There were generally clear skies with a few patchy clouds on a cool morning for the launch.īezos, founder of ecommerce company Inc (AMZN.O), and his brother Mark Bezos, a private equity executive, were joined by two others. Still, it will probably take some time to build up the space tourism industry, said Marco Caceres, a space industry analyst with Teal Group Corp., an aerospace and defense market analysis firm.The fully autonomous 60-foot-tall (18.3-meters-tall) gleaming white spacecraft, with a blue feather design on its side, ignited its BE-3 engines for a liftoff from Blue Origin's Launch Site One facility about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural town of Van Horn. "We're approaching $100 million in private sales already," Bezos said during the news briefing. He added that interest skyrocketed after Blue Origin announced earlier this year that it would auction off a seat on a future flight. Bezos said the company is planning two more crewed launches this year, and eventually hopes to fly with more regularity. Both Branson’s and Bezos’ flights could open up a potentially lucrative new market for high-priced trips to the edge of space.īlue Origin hasn’t yet announced the cost of tickets on suborbital joyrides, but they are expected to cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars. The New Shepard capsule flies above the Kármán line, while Virgin Galactic’s craft reached an altitude of around 53 miles during Branson’s flight, which fueled a budding rivalry between the companies.īezos’ flight was a critical milestone for Blue Origin and the commercial spaceflight industry, which until now has been dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The edge of space is often defined by the so-called Kármán line, at 62 miles. Both the rocket and capsule are also designed to be reusable.īlue Origin’s capsule is also designed to reach a higher altitude than Virgin Galactic’s vehicle. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and capsule launch vertically and are designed to fly autonomously. Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered Unity craft launches from a carrier airplane from an altitude of 50,000 feet and is flown by two onboard pilots. It's another thing to see with your own eyes how fragile it is."Īlthough Bezos’ suborbital experience was similar to that of Branson, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic operate with different flight profiles. "It's one thing to recognize that intellectually. "It's actually incredibly thin," Bezos said about Earth's atmosphere.
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