— Ch. 1 · Founding And Early Development —
Blue Origin.
~4 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
Jeff Bezos established Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. in 2000 with a quiet ambition to make space travel accessible. The company operated from Kent, Washington, keeping its activities largely hidden for years. In March of 2005, the first test vehicle named Charon flew at Moses Lake, Washington. This low-altitude craft used four Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines instead of traditional rockets. It reached an altitude of roughly 40 feet before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point. By the 13th of November 2006, the Goddard rocket achieved its first powered flight. That vehicle climbed to 279 feet and demonstrated successful autonomous guidance systems. Rob Meyerson joined the team in 2003 to help steer early development efforts. The organization purchased land 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, in 2006 to establish Launch Site One. Little public information existed about their internal operations during these initial years. Bezos funded the venture entirely through his private investments until later years.
Suborbital Tourism Milestones
Blue Origin NS-16 marked the first crewed mission on the 20th of July 2021. Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen crossed the Kármán line at approximately 351,210 feet. The flight lasted about ten minutes and allowed passengers to experience weightlessness above Earth's atmosphere. Subsequent missions like NS-18 carried William Shatner into space in October 2021. The company continued launching crews regularly with flights reaching altitudes between 104 km and 107 km. On the 14th of April 2025, New Shepard completed its eleventh human spaceflight with an all-female crew including Katy Perry and Gayle King. This historic flight demonstrated the vehicle's capacity to carry six passengers safely. By the 25th of February 2025, Blue Origin had sent six paying customers on its tenth tourism mission. The booster landed vertically on the same launchpad it used for takeoff after each flight. The capsule returned via three parachutes and a solid rocket motor system. One partial failure occurred during flight NS-23 when a thermal-structural issue triggered the escape system.