'First look' inside Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin factory where they're building a $20,000,000 giant reusable rocket
Viewers now have a chance to peek behind the doors of Blue Origin, thanks to an insider look by YouTube channel Everyday Astronaut.
In a new hour-long video, Tim Dodd from the channel is given a guided tour around the New Glenn Factory by the founder himself, Jeff Bezos.
According to Blue Origin’s website: 'New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.
'The rocket is engineered with the safety and redundancy required to fly humans, and will enable our vision of building a road to space for the benefit of Earth.'
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The tour kicks off in the lobby where Dodd spots the company's first rocket that landed in space, now just a display piece.
'It's only flown a handful of times and now it's just a lobby decoration,' said Dodd.
The pair then moved on to tank production, where the Amazon CEO explained the intricate process of welding and assembling the barrel sections.
'Good aerospace hardware does look like art,' Bezos remarked in response to Dodd's appreciation of the end result.
Bezos also showcased the fabric material for the New Glenn rocket.
'The fabric covering is our thermal insulation,' Bezos explained.
'We developed that ourselves, it's highly reusable, it's been tested on New Shepherd.
'This vehicle comes in at Mach 6 and goes through some quite extreme heating environments.'
In fact, the company's thermal protection does not need to touched up at all after flights, so it's designed for what Bezos called 'operable reusability.'
He continued: 'We have developed painstakingly a very capable reusable thermal protection system.'
The entrepreneur then moved on to a few goals for the project.
'The vehicle is designed to be 'turned around in 16 days,' Bezos said.
Though it's designed for a minimum of 25 missions, 'I'm hoping it will eventually be much more. We'd like to get to at least 100.'
Over onto hydraulics, Bezos touched on the landing gear.
The 'gravity-assisted' landing gear deploys 14 seconds from landing and takes a total of 8 seconds to deploy.
'So, they're both fully deployed six seconds before landing,' Bezos added.
The tour has always been shared on popular internet forum Reddit where viewers have shared their feedback.
'Incredible facility, Bezos does great in the tour and holds the conversation very well. Very excited to see so much happening in space. As much fun as it is to rip on BO, it’s cool to see so much happening in rocketry,' the first user replied.
'Kudos to Tim for getting a tour with Bezos as his guide considering how closed-door this company has been,' a second user added.
Another user fired shots at Elon Musk's space company, writing: 'IMHO The best thing for SpaceX would be for BO to succeed.'
US space agency NASA previously announced that Blue Origin will launch its ESCAPADE spacecraft to Mars in 2024 to study the planet’s magnetosphere.
The mission is valued at $20 million and intends to use the New Glenn rocket, which has yet to make its first flight.
Blue Origin has not yet set a launch date or detailed the vehicle’s full mission schedule.