Jeff Bezos Says ‘Hell Yeah’ to Flying to Space Again

Tuesday was a very big day for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who flew to space on a Blue Origin rocket.

The Blue Origin founder has said that his first spaceflight was ‘tiny little step’ in Blue Origin’s plan to build a road to space.

Blue Origin, which was founded in 2000, has a mission to expand to a point where people live and work in space.

“What we’re really trying to do is build reusable space vehicles. 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,” Bezos told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan.

According to Bezos, his suborbital New Shepard rocket is a pathfinder for his company’s other, larger scale projects.

“If you want to be a space entrepreneur today, you have to do everything from the beginning. There’s no real infrastructure that’s at an affordable cost. So that’s what we have to do, is build that kind of infrastructure and then future generations will get to rest on top of it,” Bezos added.

Bezos, along with his brother and two other passengers were the inaugural crew for the launch of New Shepard.

“This suborbital tourism mission lets us practice,” Bezos said. “We need to do that over and over and over and get as good at running space vehicles as we are as a civilization at running
commercial airliners.”

Blue Origin is also working on a massive orbital rocket called New Glenn, a stable of next-generation rocket engines, and a crewed lunar lander.

Bezos has said that “reusable space vehicles,” like New Shepard which launches and lands, are key to Blue Origin’s goal.

“Since I stepped down as the CEO of Amazon, I have a lot of time to dedicate to this vision. so I’m going to split my time between this and the Bezos Earth Fund, which is the climate sustainability foundation,” Bezos said.

Bezos was able to see “how tiny this planet’s atmosphere is.”

“It’s really this small thing supporting all life. So we need to take all polluting industry, all heavy industries and move it off Earth. This could take many decades, but that’s what we can do,” Bezos said.

He called the experience “beautiful” and added, “It felt so comfortable and natural.”

Asked by CNBC’s Brennan if he’s “going to do it again,” Bezos replied.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.