MBA: There was this concept of NewSpace [an emerging commercial space industry] and I wanted to be part of it. I realized that if I was going to be an executive in the space industry, I needed more tools in my tool belt, so I went to business school [at Harvard].



BLUE ORIGIN: I was [attracted by] companies like Blue Origin that are taking these big innovative steps on their own and have extraordinary people like our leader who are not only very committed to the vision and have the means to do it, but are also more stable in how they go about marching toward that vision. At Blue Origin, we have the ability to take extraordinary calculated risks, to make innovative jumps, and that’s exciting. With such innovations as fully reusable rocket ships and LNG fuel, New Shepard can launch, land and refurbish for less than one-fiftieth the going price of a current on-the-market orbital rocket launch.



SPACE TOURISM: Yes, we’ll have tickets to space. Whodathunk? New Shepard will be flying Blue Origin employees by the end of this year, assuming our test program continues to go well. Within the next year or two, we’ll have paying customers, which is really exciting. I would go in a heartbeat, but we haven’t released anything yet about who is going or what the cost will be. [Competitors plan to charge $250,000.] … It’s about giving ordinary people the opportunity to go over 100 kilometers up to space and to gaze out of these beautiful windows — the largest windows that will have ever flown in space. I really do think it’s going to be one of these life-changing experiences for people. If there are going to be millions of people living and working in space, it can’t be just billionaires. Ultimately, the keystone is bringing down the cost of access to space.



SATELLITES: The New Glenn, our big orbital rocket, will [be test launched] in 2020. Initially, it will be flying satellites. When you put a satellite on top of a rocket, you encapsulate it in something called a fairing. Ours is going to be 7 meters in diameter, compared to 5 meters for most rockets. When we show satellite operators the capability we have with New Glenn, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. They say, ‘We can buy one New Glenn flight or two to three other rockets to do the same thing.’ We’re shaking up the market with the New Glenn, which we are very proud of.



VISION: To get millions of people living and working in space, you have to get a lot of infrastructure into space, and that’s what has driven the size [of New Glenn]. Initially, you would want to put infrastructure in low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station is. We can launch 45 metric tons per launch into that orbit. That’s a lot. For a long time, people have been talking about generating solar power in space, where you have constant access to the sun. You can beam down the power as opposed to having coal-burning power plants — those are the types of ideas we hope to enable. More countries, governments and private businesses will want to use our rockets to put up their satellites, to put up their infrastructure.



GROWTH: When I joined in 2014, Blue Origin had 400 people. Now, we are well over 1,400. Seattle has all this wonderful talent, and we are hiring the best and brightest. Not just people with space and aerospace backgrounds, but also material science, computer science and electrical engineering. We want men and women who are passionate about space or about their domain.