Jeff Bezos , one of the world ’ s most successful entrepreneurs and founder of Blue Origin , Amazon , and their various companies , has said , “ Earth is the best planet in the solar system .” Bezos said that his vision , and passion , are to create a foundation in space that will allow for the long-term preservation of Earth . He essentially wants to go to space to preserve Earth .
His passion started as a child watching Apollo 11 taking off and landing on the moon . Visions of space travel fueled his dream as he went into high school and determined that he wanted to be a space entrepreneur — years before people used those terms together . Bezos has had one of the most successful businesses in the world , Amazon ( headquartered in Seattle ), rivaled only by Alibaba , the largest merchandiser in Chinese trade .
With this tremendous success , he has had the economic privilege to dream about commercial space travel , including living and working in space . He started Blue Origin in September of 2000 , but it generally flew under the radar for years .
Now , in 2022 , Blue Origin is publicly taking people into space . At this writing , they had ventured on 20 launches of the New Shepard vehicle — including four human launches — each lasting about 10 minutes in low Earth orbit ( LEO ).
Blue Origin is making a name for itself in space tourism , but so far , only for either the wealthy or deeply invested individuals — people like Wally Funk , a lifetime aviator and astronaut who has dedicated her life to the industry .
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