Blue Origin aims to take passengers on suborbital space flights in 2018

Jeff Bezos' space companyBlue Origin expects to begin crewed test flights of its reusablesuborbital New Shepard vehicle next year and begin flying payingpassengers in 2018, Bezos told reporters on Tuesday.

Bezos' remarks, made during the first ever media tour of theBlue Origin manufacturing facility, marked the first time thebillionaire founder of Amazon.com had put a target dateon the start of the commercial space flights Blue Origin is
developing.

"We'll probably fly test pilots in 2017, and if we'resuccessful then I'd imagine putting paying astronauts on in2018," Bezos said at the sprawling plant south of Seattle.

The company expects to build six New Shepard vehicles, whichare designed to autonomously fly six passengers to more than 100 kilometres (62miles)above Earth, high enough to experience a fewminutes of weightlessness and see the planet set against theblackness of space.

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Blue Origin's first reusable rocket was lost in a testflight in April 2015, though the capsule parachuted safely back
to the ground. A second ship has made two test flights, and BlueOrigin is in the process of assembling its next two vehicles,which, for the first time, include windows for payingpassengers.

No price yet

Blue Origin has not yet settled on a price for rides, butBezos said it will be competitive with what other companies,such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, are charging forsimilar flights.

Galactic is selling tickets to fly on its six-passenger,two-pilot SpaceShipTwo for $334,000 ($250,000 US). The company last monthunveiled its second spaceship and expects to begin test flightssoon. The first SpaceShipTwo was lost during a fatal test flightin October 2014.

Privately owned XCOR Aerospace, which is developing atwo-person space plane called Lynx, is charging about $134,000 ($100,000 US) for one person to fly alongside a pilot.

Bezos said he has invested more than $669 million ($500 million US) in BlueOrigin, which is on track to double its staff to about 1,200within the next year. He said that he would continue to foot thecompany's bills "for as long as necessary."

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Bezos expects Blue Origin to become profitable at somepoint. "I'm optimistic it will be a healthy business," Bezos
said.

Blue Origin also is working on rocket engines for UnitedLaunch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and
Boeing, and for Orbital ATK.

"It's very gratifying that the world's premier launchcompanies are choosing our engines," Bezos said.

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