Start your anti-gravity training now: Commercial space flight is only two years away.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, founder of the Blue Origin space company, expects to begin crewed test flights next year. If all goes well, the company's reusable suborbital New Shephard rocket will start flying with paying customers in 2018, according to Reuters—one of a handful of media outlets invited to tour the private spaceflight company's manufacturing facility in Seattle.
Bezos's 16-year-old project has grown from an anonymous undertaking to an effort rivaling Elon Musk's SpaceX. But building rockets isn't easy, or cheap: Bezos has invested a reported $500 million to cover Blue Origin's bills—a cost he said he will continue paying "for as long as necessary," as reported by Reuters.
The entrepreneur, however, believes the company will one day turn a profit. And, depending on how much Blue Origin charges for a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the cosmos, that day could be coming soon.
"We'll probably fly test pilots in 2017, and if we're successful then I'd imagine putting paying astronauts on in 2018," the billionaire told reporters on Tuesday.
Blue Origin hopes to fill its hangar with six New Shephard vehicles, designed to autonomously fly half a dozen passengers more than 62 miles—the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.
In April, Bezos and Co. lost their first rocket in a test flight; the capsule, however, parachuted safely back home. A second ship has since made two successful test flights.
The organization has plans other than just space tourism, though. According to The New York Times, which was also at this week's press tour, Blue Origin is set to sell its rocket engines to other companies, like United Launch Alliance.
Astro-nuts can keep an eye out for more details later this year about Bezos's designs for a larger rocket to launch from Cape Canaveral, and an opportunity to watch a test flight in Texas.