And that’s before you get to the airline, Prime Air, with its own fleet of over Prime Air-branded 70 aircraft, shipping exclusively packages from Amazon around the world. It has its own home security company, Ring, and its own grocery chain, Whole Foods. Over the following years it has grown to become one of the largest companies in the world, with business in everything from Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing services company that counts entities from Netflix to the CIA as customers to owning MGM, the studio that makes James Bond to holding a major stake in Rivian, an electric car company. (Photo by Brent Lewis/The Denver Post via Getty Images) Brent Lewis/The Denver Post/Getty Imagesīattle of the billionaires: Jeff Bezos' rocket company protests SpaceX's latest NASA contractīlue Origin was founded by Bezos in 2000, and the company conducted more than a dozen test flights with no one on board at Blue Origin’s facilities in rural Texas, about 70 miles from Marfa.īezos created Amazon in 1994, first as an online bookseller, with $250,000 from his parents. Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, spoke to the crowd about the business and future of commercial space travel and how his new company, Blue Origin, is looking to make that more accessible to the general public. The bidding was at $2.8 million Monday morning but it hit $3.2 million after Blue Origin’s announcement.įounder of space company Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, speaks about the future of commercial space travel during the 32nd Space Symposium on Apin Colorado Springs, Colorado. Though the company has not announced how much it will sell regular tickets for, Blue Origin said one seat will be given to the winner of a month-long auction that’s currently in progress. Branson has long said he would be among the first passengers aboard Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane, but that flight is expected to take place later in 2021.īlue Origin’s flight crewed flight will see the company’s six-seater capsule and 59-foot rocket tear toward the edge of space on a 11-minute flight that’ll reach more than 60 miles above Earth.Īfter six years of extensive and often secretive testing of the rocket and capsule, called New Shepard, Blue Origin announced in May that it was preparing to put the first passengers in a New Shepard capsule. British billionaire Richard Branson, whose own space company, Virgin Galactic, is planning on conducting flights to suborbital space for ultra-wealthy thrill seekers and competing directly with Blue Origin. Not even Elon Musk, whose SpaceX builds rockets powerful enough to enter orbit around Earth, has announced plans to travel to space aboard one of his companies human-worthy crew capsules. If all goes according to plan, Bezos - the world’s richest person with a net worth of $187 billion - will be the first of the billionaire space tycoons to experience a ride aboard the rocket technology that he’s poured millions into developing. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to auction ticket for first space tourism flight Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg via Getty Images Matthew Staver/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Bezos has been reinvesting money he made at Amazon since he started his space exploration company more than a decade ago, and has plans to launch paying tourists into space within two years. and founder of Blue Origin LLC, speaks at the unveiling of the Blue Origin New Shepard system during the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S., on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.

Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Inc.

Jeff bezos rocket name