KENT, Wash.—Notebooks in hand, we gathered around a long table inside Jupiter 2, a conference room on the second floor of Blue Origin’s headquarters. Ten of us had come at the company’s invitation to see for the first time, first hand, where Blue Origin builds its spaceships and rockets. For years, this had been undiscovered country for journalists. And then Jeff Bezos, as casual as you please in a blue and white checkered shirt and designer jeans, strolled into the room.

Bezos may be better known for upending the retail world with Amazon and making himself the fifth richest person in the world along the way. But his passion lies above in the night sky. He has thought about building rockets and flying into space since he was five years old, so he started this day accordingly. “Alright, are you guys ready to have some fun?” he asked.

We were.

Bezos spent the better part of three hours showing us around Blue Origin’s headquarters, from the full-size replica of Jules Verne’s Victorian-era spacecraft to the company’s football-field sized machining rooms and rocket bays. So here's the inside story on the factory that allowed Blue Origin to make history last year by launching the first rocket that flew into space and subsequently landed safely back on Earth.

The facility

A decade has passed since Blue Origin moved into this unmarked facility in Kent, Washington, which encompasses nearly 300,000 square feet. The company acquired the space from Boeing, and the very drill bits that bored the Chunnel between Great Britain and France, beneath the English Channel, were made here during the last century.

The main entrance leads into a more or less standard office building, albeit with some geek-approved touches. There is the Verne spacecraft, which fills an atrium between the second and third floor of the building. Scattered about this central space are elements of Bezos’ personal collection of memorabilia and legitimate historical items, from science fiction to the real thing. Next to a life-size version of the Battlestar Galactica door, for example, one finds an Apollo training suit.

The second floor houses a large reception area where the company’s logo covers much of one wall, from floor to ceiling. Among its most distinctive elements are two tortoises, which represent taking rocket development methodically, and a winged hourglass, which means time is fleeting. The motto, “Gradatim Ferociter,” means step by step, courageously.

A sprawling factory is attached to the office building. As we walked down a flight of stairs to the factory floor, Bezos explained, “This is where all the magic happens. Well, I say that, but this is where all the visible magic happens. A lot of the magic happens on computers in simulations, but that part doesn’t tour as well.”

This was a real factory, safety glasses required. As we explored, various tools hummed and whined and whirred constantly. In the foreground stood two New Shepard capsules that will eventually carry humans into space.The vehicles feature six recumbent seats, each facing out its own window, with the largest panes ever flown into space.

And where does the pilot sit? He or she doesn’t. The vehicle is completely autonomous. Human test flights could begin next year, with commercial flights beginning as early as 2018, Bezos said.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

About half of the factory is devoted to two large halls filled with all manner of lathes, mills, and other machines to fashion engine, rocket, and spacecraft parts. Each stands several stories high. The four largest machines, made by the Japanese Mazak Corporation, are individually the size of a small house. Each costs about $1 million and can mill in five different directions. Once fabricated here, the parts move into the other half of the factory for assembly.

If you’re into space, this is kind of a magical place. As we walked around one corner of the factory, our group almost bumped into a large rocket fuel tank receiving a coat of insulation. This was “tail 3,” the third New Shepard propulsion module. The first crashed in April, the second has now flown twice. This one will soon move by truck to the launch site in West Texas.