Although it’s “insane” to try to land New Glenn, Bezos says it’s important to try

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.—Understandably, the main building of Blue Origin's sprawling campus in Florida buzzed with activity on Sunday evening as the final hours ticked down toward the company's historic first orbital launch. The time had come to celebrate a moment long-awaited.

On one side of the large foyer hung a multi-story print of the New Glenn rocket lit up on its launch pad. The striking image had been taken a day after Christmas and put up in the lobby two days earlier. On the other side, a massive replica of the company's "Mk. 1" lunar lander towered over caterers bustling through.

My escort and I took the elevators to the upper floor, where a walkway overlooks the factory where Blue Origin builds the first and second stages of its New Glenn rocket. There I met the chief executive of the company, Dave Limp, as well as the person responsible for all of this activity.

A few words with Jeff Bezos

"It's pretty exciting, isn't it?" Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, said by way of greeting.

Clad in a black polo shirt, emblazoned with the Blue Origin logo, Bezos appeared both affable and anxious on the eve of what is the biggest moment yet for this rocket company.

I asked what his expectations were for the launch of New Glenn, which has a three-hour window that opens at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC) on Monday, January 13. The launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base lay several miles away from the factory where we conducted the interview.

"We would certainly like to achieve orbit, and get the Blue Ring Pathfinder into orbit," Bezos said. "Landing the booster would be gravy on top of that. It's kind of insane to try and land the booster. A more sane approach would probably be to try to land it in the ocean. But we're gonna go for it."

Blue Origin has built a considerable amount of infrastructure on a drone ship, Jacklyn, that will be waiting offshore for the rocket to land upon. Was Bezos not concerned about putting that hardware at risk?

A view inside the New Glenn rocket factory in Florida.

Credit: Blue Origin

"I'm worried about everything," he admitted. However, the rocket has been programmed to divert from the ship if the avionics on board the vehicle sense that anything is off-nominal.

And there is, of course, a pretty good chance of that happening.

"We've done a lot of work, we've done a lot of testing, but there are some things that can only be tested in flight," Bezos said. "And you can't be overconfident in these things. You have to be realistic. The reality is, there are a lot of things that go wrong, and you have to accept that, if something goes wrong, we'll pick ourselves up and get busy for the second flight."

As for that flight, the company has a second booster stage deep in development. It could be seen on the factory floor below on Sunday and should be ready later this spring, Limp said. There are about seven upper stages in the flow as the company works to optimize the factory for production.

A pivotal moment for spaceflight

Bezos founded Blue Origin a little more than 24 years ago, and the company has moved slowly compared to some of its competitors, most notably SpaceX. However, when Blue Origin has built products, they've been of high quality. Bezos himself flew on the first human mission of the New Shepard spacecraft in 2021, a day he described as the "best" in his life. Of all the people who have ever flown into space, he noted that 7 percent have now done so on a Blue Origin vehicle. And the company's BE-4 rocket engine has performed exceptionally well in flight. But an orbital mission, such a touchstone for launch companies, has eluded Bezos until now.