Jeff Bezos celebrates first landing of fully reusable rocket
Amazon CEO and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos boasted his excitement on Twitter Tuesday about "the rarest of beasts," which he says is the "game changer" for space travel.
The video showcased the launch and smooth, vertical landing of the New Shepard space vehicle- created by his commercial space flight company, Blue Origin -- making history as the first fully reusable rocket to nail a safe landing on Earth.
"All the rockets that we've ever flown as a civilization have been expendable. We use them one time and we throw them away," Bezos said. "(New Shepard) changes the cost structure of space travel completely."
That could help accomplish Blue Origin's long-time vision of travel and life on space, Bezos says.
"One of the good things about this vehicle is it can fly autonomously - it's kind of a flying robot," Bezos said. "It can fly itself up onto space, bring itself back down and land so we don't have to put a pilot at risk during the test program."
Bezos disclosed the company's plan to continue testing for "the next couple of years," then start taking people into space "once we're completely confident in the vehicle."
While Bezos could not yet offer any estimate for travel costs, he said people who are interested could sign up now on the Blue Origin website, and will be notified by email once the price is set.
Bezos said he has "been crazy about rockets" since he was a little boy. As a five year old, he watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon's surface, which sparked his interests in engineering, science and space exploration.
"You don't choose your passions, your passions choose you," he said. "This is just in me."
In addition to tackling space, the multi-billionaire also purchased one of the country's oldest newspapers, The Washington Post, in 2013. He spoke about its success - surpassing the New York Times in the number of online viewers - and goals of "shining light" on powerful institutions and producing "quality journalism" in the Internet age.
The Amazon CEO also commented on the latest scandal to rock the e-commerce giant, following the New York Times' exposé alleging a workplace culture of "purposeful Darwinism," which some employees said contributed to high turnover rates and attrition.
In a memo to employees, the chief executive dismissed the allegations, and urged workers to report any incidents like the ones included in the article to human resources or to email him directly. Bezos said the majority of the response has been positive.
"I got some emails and most of them were from people saying, 'That's not my experience.' You can't have a corporate culture that's like the one described there and then do the things that Amazon does," Bezos said. "We're full of inventors and people who like serving customers. You know I tap dance into work every day and I work with a lot of people like that too."
Bezos also expressed excitement for the holiday season and said that Amazon was well prepared, faster and more reliable than ever.