Wayne T. Price

FLORIDA TODAY

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is unquestionably passionate about space.

But the 52-year-old multibillionaire — one of the world’s wealthiest individuals — is also an extremely pragmatic business leader who doesn’t casually throw gobs of cash at curiosities or self-indulgences.

He started his space company, Blue Origin, in 2000 to advance his childhood passion. But Bezos also intends Blue Origin to be a business success, one that could change the face of space travel and possibly the work force on the Space Coast in the decades ahead.

FLORIDA TODAY was one of a handful of media outlets last week granted a rare peek inside the headquarters of Blue Origin outside Seattle as it prepares to break ground on a rocket manufacturing facility on Merritt Island. Florida also is in the running to win production of the company’s powerful BE-4 rocket engine, which it will also make available to other companies. United Launch Alliance plans to use the engine in its next-generation rocket.

Here are some takeaways from Bezos from that visit:

Space tourism isn’t just high-priced amusement rides for the wealthy.

It’s meant to advance space travel, and rocket launches, through tourism and entertainment.

Bezos likened space tourism to the early days of aviation, when barnstormers would fly through small towns across America, giving people rides and introducing them to the airplane.

“That was entertainment, but it really advanced aviation,” Bezos said. “All those barnstormers were a big fraction of airplane flights in those early days. In those early, early days there weren’t very many missions that the airplane could have. The airplanes weren’t capable enough to solve very many big problems that people actually had."

“So the entertainment mission became a very important mission that led to lots of flights and lots of airplanes being manufactured. And that led to better airplanes. And then you get air mail and so on and so on.”

The location selected for production of the BE-4 engine will come after an in-depth search.

First off, Bezos said “I’m very happy with the choice we made” regarding its selection of Cape Canaveral as the launch site for its orbital vehicle, and testing and support of the BE-4 engine.

The company will also manufacture its rockets at a plant on NASA property at Exploration Park, at the southern edge of Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. Blue Origin is investing more than $200 million in Brevard County and it could lead to more than 300 high-tech space jobs.

That decision followed a very thorough search, and the site selection for the BE-4 production will be just as thoroughly scrutinized. The BE-4 is a booster stage engine being developed without any government assistance.

“The biggest factor there is a talented work force,” Bezos said, “that you could really hire people that understand the quality and demands of aerospace. You really want to get good assembly and integration engineers. You want to be able to get high-quality machinists and machine operators. Those jobs today are very sophisticated jobs.

“And you want to go to someplace that’s welcoming, that actually wants the company.”

Bezos isn’t chomping at the bit for Blue Origin to compete for national security payloads.

Bezos called those national security launches the specialty of United Launch Alliance and of limited market value for companies like Blue Origin. For now, he said Blue Origin is content in supporting ULA’s launch efforts, like building BE-4 engines for its Vulcan rocket.

“I’m not convinced we’ll go into the national security payload business ourselves,” Bezos said. “It’s a relatively small number of flights. It’s very hard to do well and ULA is already great at it. I’m not sure where we would add any value.”

He isn’t worried by an Aerojet Rocketdyne engine being the backup plan for ULA’s Vulcan rocket if there are problems with Blue Origin engines.

Two things.

One, the Vulcan is being designed around Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine. For ULA to switch to Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine would require substantially modifying the Vulcan, meaning significant delays and money on ULA’s part, Bezos said.

Second, for ULA to have a “Plan B” isn’t surprising.

“If I were in their position I would also have a backup engine,” Bezos said. “It’s just logical and makes sense. But we are so far ahead that our engine is going to be ready. That’s what gives me great confidence.”

He believes competition with SpaceX and others will benefit space technology and orbital launches.

Competition is good, particularly if it leads to Bezos’ ultimate goals of getting “millions and millions of people living and working in space.”

The media tends to focus on Bezos’ back-and-forth with Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, which also launches rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The two space visionaries captured attention with back-and-forth tweets after each launched and landed rockets.

On Nov. 24, Bezos tweeted: “The rarest of beasts — a used rocket. Controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy.”

SpaceX drone ship appears at Port Canaveral after Falcon 9 launch

Musk didn’t take long to tweet back: “Not quite ‘rarest.’ SpaceX Grasshopper rocket did 6 suborbital flights 3 years ago & is still around.”

Bezos last week offered a measure of truce.

“I know him,” Bezos said. “We’ve talked to each other many times. And I think we’re very like-minded about a lot of things. We’re not twins in our conceptualization of the future or how space should develop. But there are a lot of similarities.”

Contact Price at 321-242-3658 or wprice@floridatoday.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @Fla2DayBiz.