On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos gave a tour of the Blue Origin factory in Kent, Wash., to a select group of 11 journalists. It was the first time the company had opened up its factory to the media.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

There will be a fourth test of the New Shepard suborbital rocket and capsule system soon;

Bezos said there will be an opportunity to witness a New Shepard flight later this year at the company’s test facility in Texas;

The New Shepard system flown in November was refurbished for a cost “in the small tens of thousands of dollars” and re-launched in January;

Bezos says the company plans to rely the system until they lose it in an accident;

New Shepard will begin flying scientific payloads later this year;

The automated vehicle could begin flying test subjects in 2017, with space tourism flights to follow as soon as 2018;

An in-flight abort test is planned during which the New Shepard capsule will blast free from the launch vehicle at maximum dynamic pressure;

Six passengers will sit in recline seats, each facing a 3-foot tall large window to give them a view of space and Earth;

Passengers would be able to unstrap themselves to float around the capsule;

Bezos said the company will be thorough in testing New Shepard before placing anyone on board;

Blue Origin could eventually end up flying a small fleet of New Shepard vehicles dozens of times annually;

Bezos did not reveal pricing, but said thousands of people have registered interest in flying;

Blue Origin hopes to test its BE-4 engine by the end of this year;

The BE-4 engine will be used in United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, which is set to make its first flight in 2019;

Blue Origin also plans to use the BE-4 in its own launch vehicle, which is nicknamed “Very Big Brother”, beginning in 2020;

Bezos plans to reveal more details about the company’s rocket later this year;

The BE-4 engine will have 550,000 pounds of thrust, which is five times greater than the BE-3 motor used on New Shepard;

The BE-4 engine is being designed for a minimum of 25 uses;

The company has been quiet to avoid over promising and under delivering (“Space is really easy to overhype,” Bezos said);

The company’s logo features the motto Gradatim ferociter, which is Latin for “step by step, ferociously”, two tortoises representing the victory of the tortoise over the hare, and an hourglass symbolizing human mortality;

Blue Origin has 600 employees, with plans to grow to 1,000 within the next year;

Bezos has invested much more than 500 million in Blue Origin since he founded the company in 2000;

The Amazon.com founder’s goal is to spread humanity out into the solar system, making use of its vast resources and moving most heavy industry out into space;

Bezos says he is interested in Mars, but he believes the planet is a forbidding place that makes Antarctica looks temperate by comparison.

Sources

Jeff Bezos lifts curtain on Blue Origin rocket factory, lays out grand plan for space travel that spans hundreds of years

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-lifts-curtain-blue-origin-rocket-factory-vision-space/

Jeff Bezos pulls back the curtain on his plans for space

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jeff-bezos-pulls-back-the-curtain-on-his-plans-for-space/2016/03/09/a0716c7e-e5f4-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html

Behind the curtain: Ars goes inside Blue Origin’s secretive rocket factory

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/behind-the-curtain-ars-goes-inside-blue-origins-secretive-rocket-factory/

Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/science/space/jeff-bezos-lifts-veil-on-his-rocket-company-blue-origin.html?_r=1