Blue Origin is an aerospace equipment manufacturer headquartered in Kent, Washington, and founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. The company also sells sub-orbital spaceflight services.
Blue Origin Story
Bezos started Blue Origin because he saw a future where millions of people would live and work in space to preserve the Earth.
For humanity to survive, in other words, Bezos believed that it was important to find alternative sources of materials and energy in space so that harmful industries could be moved off-planet.
Today, Blue Origin is one of a host of companies in the civil, commercial, and defense spaceflight industries such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Axiom.
Although the company provides rocket engines and related technology to clients, it is perhaps best known for its New Shepard rocket and spaceflight system for commercial passengers.
The first crewed mission with Bezos, his brother Mark, and two other individuals launched on July 20, 2021.
Two subsequent missions took place in 2021, with each astronaut experiencing around three minutes of zero gravity at an altitude of 340,000 feet.
Blue Origin ownership structure
Blue Origin is wholly owned by Jeff Bezos, with the Amazon founder stepping down from his role as that company’s CEO in February 2021 to devote more time to building rockets, among other things.
Bezos had become enamored with space as a child and had expressed an interest at 18 in building space hotels and amusement parks for millions of people that would orbit the Earth.
In 1999, he discussed starting a space company with American fiction writer Neal Stephenson after watching the rocketry-inspired film October Sky.
Blue Origin remained more or less silent for the first fifteen years of its operation as Bezos and his team worked to refine their propulsion systems and launch vehicles.
During this period, the only possible clue to the billionaire’s intentions was his acquisition of a 30,000-acre ranch in Texas, which would later serve as the company’s operational base.
While Bezos remains the sole owner of Blue Origin in 2022, the company’s CEO is Dr. Robert H. Smith – a former Honeywell Aerospace executive with a formal education in aerospace engineering and mathematics.
Key takeaways:
- Blue Origin is an aerospace equipment manufacturer headquartered in Kent, Washington, and founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000. The company also sells sub-orbital spaceflight services.
- Blue Origin is one of multiple companies in the civil, commercial, and defense spaceflight industries such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Axiom. Although it provides rocket engines and related technology to clients, Blue Origin is perhaps best known for its New Shepard rocket and spaceflight system for commercial passengers.
- Jeff Bezos wholly owns blue Origin. The Amazon founder stepped down from his role as the eCommerce company’s CEO in February 2021 to devote more time to building rockets. Former Honeywell Aerospace executive Robert H. Smith is the company’s current CEO.
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