The next few years could see another major space race, this time between private companies and billionaires. The vastness of space is littered with profitable asteroids that could be worth trillions of dollars in rare and precious metals, not to mention the futuristic prospect of space travel and setting up colonies on other planets. Jeff Bezos’ new space transportation company, Blue Origin, was just approved by NASA to help launch new space missions and rockets in the coming future.
Jeff Bezos is angling to set up his own space-related company that would, among other things, become a rocket platform to launch payloads from both civilian sources as well as military/government groups in the future. NASA went on to confirm on Wednesday that Jeff Bezos’ Blue origin 310-foot rocket was approved for potential use in scientific missions later this decade. The first actual launch of the rocket is expected to take place later next year.
“We are proud to be in NASA’s launch services catalog and look forward to providing reliable launches for future NASA missions aboard New Glenn for years to come. The award builds on Blue Origin’s existing partnership with NASA and will advance science and exploration to benefit Earth,” said Jarrett Jones, senior vice president of Blue Origin in an official statement. “Project managers at NASA centers around the country can now design spacecraft to take advantage of New Glenn’s unique seven-meter fairing and heavy-lift performance for a broad range of missions.”
Besides more scientific and military missions, Blue Origins is exploring the possibility of doing civilian tourist launches into space as well. At this point, the future success of the company depends on winning major government contracts, with this announcement from NASA being a good sign for the company. Otherwise, almost all of the company’s proceeds have come from Jeff Bezos himself.
While it’s still a far-flung futuristic project for Jeff Bezos, it’s apparent that having an early head start will do a lot to secure dominance in what could be an incredibly profitable industry down the road. Most people are already familiar with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has already been working alongside the government for a while now. SpaceX – otherwise known as just Space Exploration Technologies Corp – is one of the few other potential rivals in this space. The other being a joint project between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
In addition to government projects for space exploration and possible colonization, there is a tremendous potential market for space mining. Specifically, mining our moon and nearby asteroids is an industry worth potentially hundreds of trillions of dollars. Even smaller asteroids passing by our planet contain billions of dollars of gold, platinum, and other crucial metals. While still a far off possibility right now, it’s definitely something that companies like Blue Origins and SpaceX are looking out for.
At the same time, investors probably shouldn’t expect any of these companies to go public anytime soon, although its definitely a possibility. Blue Origins has only been able to grow due to Jeff Bezos personally selling his Amazon stock to finance his new venture. Currently, the billionaire is spending around $1 billion in stock sales to finance this space-related venture.
