Bezos's Blue Origin Recycles a Rocket, Lands It Again

Two months ago, Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, launched a rocket into outer space and landed it back on Earth — a big step in its quest to make space exploration cheaper by reusing rockets. On Friday, they did it again.

In a video that Bezos tweeted on Friday evening, the company says that its New Shepard rocket became the first used rocket to travel past the the Karman Line — which is about 62 miles above sea level and the de facto crossing into outer space — and land vertically.

https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/690731500812169217

“Our vision: Millions of people living and working in space,” the video reads. “You can’t get there by throwing the hardware away.”

Impressive? Yes. But one big caveat before the Elon Musk/SpaceX fanboys have a collective aneurysm: While Blue Origin’s landings are certainly historic, they are not as technically challenging as SpaceX’s. At a basic level, Blue Origin’s current spacecraft, which is much smaller than SpaceX’s, is going up into space and back down again. SpaceX’s is heading into orbit, which requires much faster speed.

Musk tweeted out an explainer back in November.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669129655597731841

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via