A New Space Race

It wasn’t all bad news for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos this week. His other company, Blue Origin, scored a big symbolic first in the privatesector space race Monday — launching a rocket that returned back to ground base in one piece.

The rocket — New Shepard — soared 329,839 feet, or just above the 62mile mark where outer space begins.

As Bezos noted, it then returned “through 119mph highaltitude crosswinds to make a gentle, controlled landing just 4½ feet from the center of the pad. Full reuse is a gamechanger, and we can’t wait to fuel up and fly again.”

At the top of its flight, New Shepard released a payload capsule — which itself reentered safely via parachute.

The news is a giant step forward for the commercialization of space: Reusable rockets make for huge cost savings.

Nor is Blue Origin the only private firm in the game. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX aims for similar reuse of its Falcon 9 rocket — which has a proven ability to soar much higher, all the way to low earth orbit.

Under contract from NASA, SpaceX has already flown several supply missions to the International Space Station. And several companies, including Boeing and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, are working on spaceplanebased approaches.

Federal budget pressures make it unlikely NASA will have much launch capacity for decades to come. So it’s wonderful to see the private sector stepping up — with much, much more to come.

As Bezos says, this is only the beginning.