Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket successfully lifts off and lands back on the ground in textbook test flight

Blue_Origin

Blue Origin successfully launched the eighth test flight of its New Shepard rocket on Sunday.
The liftoff and landing were textbook.
Founder Jeff Bezos told the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, this week that Blue Origin is "the most important work that I'm doing."

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' private rocket company, launched the New Shepard rocket's eighth test flight from West Texas on Sunday.

New Shepard reached space, cruising at 2,200 mph at one point, then came back down for a textbook autonomous landing on the launchpad.

A sonic boom shook the area as the booster sped back to Earth.

Blue_Origin landing

It was the second time they were reusing the rocket, the commentator on the company's livestream said.

The company's scientists and engineers have quietly been working on New Shepard for years in the desert of West Texas.

After a few delays because of thunderstorms and final safety checks, the reusable rocket lifted off just after 1 p.m. ET.

"Mannequin Skywalker" was also onboard:

Mannequin Skywalker is ready for his 2nd mission on board New Shepard. He’s a little sensitive about being called a “dummy”, as he will be conducting astronaut telemetry and science studies – a very important job! pic.twitter.com/h2ncpGWaTi
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) April 28, 2018

The capsule with the mannequin inside softly glided back to Earth with parachutes a few minutes after the booster returned.

'Opening space for all'

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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket under development will be more powerful than New Shepard. Both have the ultimate goal of making rockets reusable so you don't have to throw all the materials away and start over every time you want to go to space.

"Reusability allows us to fly the system again and again," Blue Origin writes on its website. "With each flight, we’ll continuously improve the affordability of space exploration and research, opening space for all."

Elon Musk has a similar reason for making SpaceX rockets reusable — it costs a ton of money to send things into space. He and Bezos argue that if they can reuse rockets, it can significantly cut that cost, and make space travel and exploration much easier.

This week, Bezos told Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, that Blue Origin is "the most important work that I'm doing." He also said they plan to put humans in the rockets for test flights at the end of this year or the beginning of 2019.

"Take the scenario, where you move out into the Solar System," Bezos said. "The Solar System can easily support a trillion humans. And if we had a trillion humans, we would have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts and unlimited (for all practical purposes) resources and solar power unlimited for all practical purposes. That's the world that I want my great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren to live in."

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