Well,

you know, what we're trying to do is

build all the infrastructure so that

there can be a completely dynamic space

economy. Today, the cost of admission to

space is still very high. If you look

back at what I witnessed in the internet

space over the last, you know, two and a

half decades, you saw an environment

where because all this infrastructure

existed, global networks and so on and

so on, very small companies could build

very large enterprises. You know, two

kids in a dorm room could build a giant

company. We want space to be like that.

You want space to be this dynamic

entrepreneurial place where two kids in

a dorm room can build an incredible

space company. And and that's that is

going to happen.

You know, so the the job of a company

like Blue Origin is to help build the

road to space, that heavy infrastructure

so that many other companies can do

incredible things.

>> And there's so many resources in space.

>> What have you learned since and how does

the path forward look?

>> Well, let me start by saying that was a

rough moment. Nobody likes that. It was

a gut punch for the whole team. But

what we've learned since then is we got

really lucky.

The some of the long lead items on the

launch infrastructure were preserved.

For example, the propellant tank farm,

all the liquid hydrogen, liquefied

natural gas, liquid oxygen, all those

tanks. Those are, you know, very long

lead items and and they were fortunately

undamaged. The booster

we had a booster in the integration

facility which is right there at the

launch pad and various pieces of

shrapnel missed the boosters. There was

a lot of good luck in that incident. You

know, in the big picture, kind of what

you're saying, God knows how to

appropriately price his goods and space

travel is hard and it's worth it. And

so, you know, we By the way, by the end

of that incident, by the end of the day

that that incident occurred, within 24

hours, completely spontaneously, the

Blue Origin team, and this is a team of

just incredible people, they were making

themselves t-shirts that say, "It's

worth it."

>> And I think the other thing is that

we're busily rebuilding it. We we got

lucky in another way. There was a

construction crew just down the road and

And we brought in 400 pieces of heavy

equipment, uh brought in uh construction

workers that were working 24/7, and so

the pad has now been cleared of all the

debris. It's It's amazing how quickly

that's happened, and just yesterday we

started the reconstruction, and uh I

think you've said it best, we're going

to fly this year.

>> Yeah, we'll fly before the end of the

year.

>> Yeah, awesome. Awesome.

>> I I think what you said about your team

uh is very meaningful. And then I look

back at my my time at NASA, and you

know, the highlights, of course, are

successful space flights, but when you

look at the setbacks, the way you

respond to them, you find out what your

team is made of, right? You don't find

out necessarily in the good times, but

in those times that are a little bit

tougher, and you guys have gotten got a

great team and a lot of support from

NASA on this, and it sounds great

>> and moving forward.

>> Jeff, I want to pick up on something you

you you said um about that it's worth

it. It's kind of like you're now, even

though this happened, you're doubling

down on it's worth it. When others might

not have continued, right? You could

also have decided not to move forward.

Share with us your vision and why it is

worth it to you.

>> Well, uh you know, what we're trying to

do is build all the infrastructure so

that there can be a completely dynamic

space economy. Uh today, the cost of a

mission to space is still very high. If

you look back at what I witnessed in the

internet space over the last, you know,

2 and 1/2 decades, you saw an

environment where, because all this

infrastructure existed, the global

networks and so on and so on, very small

companies could build very large

enterprises. You know, two kids in a

dorm room could build a giant company.

We want space to be like that. We want

space to be this dynamic,

entrepreneurial place where two kids in

a dorm room can build an incredible

space company. And And that's That is

going to happen. Uh you know, so the

the job of a company like Blue Origin is

build the road to space, that heavy

infrastructure, so that many other

companies can do incredible things. And

there's so many resources in space.

You're seeing that now with, you know,

Leo constellations and

uh the potentials for orbital compute.

Uh we have the moon as a gift, it's

right there. Uh and so we're we're

working on all these things. We're We're

We are uh we're building a lunar lander.

We are

uh building a uh

working on in situ resource projects, so

we're learning how to build uh solar

cells out of lunar regolith and and

there are many other initiatives that

we're undertaking, but all of them are

focused on building this infrastructure.

So, there going to be dynamism in the

space economy.

>> Yeah, so this is this is all great news

and I'm so grateful you guys are moving

forward. Learn with you. These are not

things you'd want to have happen when

you have an anomaly, when you have a

setback, but it's a

>> They're unavoidable.

>> They're going to happen, right? They're

going to happen. You don't want them to

happen, but when they do happen, it's

how you react to it.

>> It's how you you get you get gives you a

chance to gives the whole team a chance

to show everyone who we are and what

we're made of.

>> Right.

Looking back years from now, I think

>> And I think the the team at Blue is the

most missionary team I've ever worked

for because you know, we've you've been

part of this, but we've explored every

planet. We've we've we've been to the

deepest parts of the solar system and

and this is the good one. All right,

this is the planet you want to be on.

It's it's beautiful. And as we build

this infrastructure, you can move

polluting industry into space and you

can turn you know, every every place on

Earth like the parks in this city, this

beautiful city here and and we could

support three times the population on

the on this planet.

>> And that's that's the long-term goal.

That's what we're trying to do.

>> That's why it's worth it.

>> That's why it's worth

>> Okay. All right. So, so Jeff, you

mentioned earlier about the space

economy and I think to some of us that

might be kind of like a

like a science fiction. We might hear

that it's like almost like science

fiction. Is it real? You know, is that

is that something that we that is that

is for real? Um but sitting where you

sit, what evidence do you see every day

that convinces you that the demand for

access to space is real and

accelerating?

>> Well, there's uh

this is a great question.

The evidence right now is very obvious.

If you look at demand for launch, demand

for launch is insatiable right now. We

have a tremendous backlog already on our

books for launch. Every space launch

company has tremendous backlog. We are

supply constrained. We are not demand

constrained. And uh

you know, it's being driven by uh

communications with Leo constellations.

It's being driven by national security

missions and it's being driven in the

future by things like orbital compute

and and lunar and lunar resources and

NASA programs to return to the moon this

time to stay. There's just a tremendous

amount of demand for launch.

>> I think it was sort of underestimated at

some point when we years ago when the

government our government was looking

for what they would need. I think it

would is it fair to say they

underestimated what the real demand

would be?

>> 100% I think people underestimated it

tremendously.

>> Yeah and I think there might be an

element to it. I think in some ways

>> It's like if you build it they will

come.

>> You know that if people if you can't get

to a place you can't even imagine what

you would do there. But now that you've

increased the access I even my my

students at Columbia have flown an

experiment on one of the new Shepard

rockets. That would have been

impossible.

>> Even you know seven years ago this is a

few years ago they did this but you

imagine even thinking that when we were

students or in the not too distant

>> a circle too. If you if if launch is

very very expensive then the satellites

have to have really long lifetimes and

they have to be very exquisite.

>> And so

>> But if the launch starts to get cheaper

then the satellites get cheaper and if

the satellites get cheaper there's more

demand for launch. If there's more

demand for launch then you get more

practice with launch and launch gets

cheaper.

>> So there is a virtuous circle there.

Once you get it spinning in the right

direction that's where we want to go.

>> And you had this vision it's not that

you can count on that happening but you

were confident of course that this would

>> You know it's going to happen you just

don't know the exact timing. So you get

you get out there and you get ready. And

you know by getting reusable rockets you

lower the costs cuz

these boosters want to be reused they're

they're expensive and when we land them

then we can reuse them many many many

times.

>> And these as you said these

constellations want to be gigantic. You

know

especially communications it's people

are insatiable on how much bandwidth

they want to use. I when I had a 300

baud modem I wanted to use all of it.

When I had a gigabit in my home I wanted

to use all of it. And when I go all the

way

these constellations want to be very

very large.

>> Okay guys I think we're going to cut to

the tape now for real. All right we had

a little setback but here we go. Let's

roll the shot. [laughter]

>> Today's launch NG-2 we have two goals.

This first is to safely deploy the

payload which is NASA's ESCAPADE which

is heading out on a mission to Mars.

>> And the second is [music] to land the

booster for the first time.

>> NASA's new ESCAPADE mission will help us

understand Mars's climate history using

two spacecraft in orbit for the first

time.

>> It's 2 at flight level.

Autopilot enabled.

>> All right, at 9 minutes is when we're

expecting the first stage to touch

[music] down on Jacqueline.

We've got it, Mr. Landing Bird.

Great shot from the booster.

>> [cheering]

>> Congratulations, ESCAPADE. Both blue and

gold have

successfully [cheering]

deployed. We have successfully landed

the booster, and we have successfully

deployed the satellites for ESCAPADE.

>> So, when you're doing hard things, you

also get great moments like that.

>> Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

>> That Then you said when I said it was a

launch, it's also the landing, which

amazes me. That's not out in the ocean,

right on on the uh the recovery ship.

Amazing.

>> And this is a very large vehicle. That

this vehicle will take 45 metric tons to

Leo. It'll take the the variant we're

working on right now, the 9x4 variant,

will take over 70 metric tons to Leo.

This this is a super heavy class

booster. And to watch it land like that

on an ocean going platform is

is awe-inspiring. And the team is is

rightly very proud of it.

>> And the ocean doesn't always cooperate.

That thing moves.

>> No, it's The ocean is highly

uncooperative.

>> So, to be able to do that like that is

so impressive. So,

>> All right, Dave. This is all incredibly

ambitious. And uh the question is, cuz

you're the CEO here, what what keeps you

up at night when you think about all

this stuff coming together, the the

whole operation, the uh the

manufacturing, the talent pipeline,

getting getting the right people in, the

supply chain, all this coming together.

What what is it that's foremost on your

mind with this? Or is it everything

combined?

>> There is a little bit of everything. I I

I've only been doing aerospace for 2 and

1/2 years. I'm traditionally trained in

consumer electronics. But I I think

people underestimate how hard it is to

build a rocket. Uh these these are

incredibly complicated vehicles, pushing

pushing the boundaries of what, you

know, physics allows. And uh and so to

see success like this and and see how

space is becoming more normal is is

amazing. But to build one off of

anything, whether that would be an

engine or it would be a rocket, that

that doesn't really keep me up at night

much. It it What the hard part is is

building the machine that builds the

machines. You really want to That takes

a lot of time and a lot of thought. And

that's the factories that are pushing

these out. Because you don't want it to

meet the vision that Jeff talked about.

You don't want to build just one rocket.

We want to build We want to fly 100

times a year. And that means 100 second

stages. That means uh that means

hundreds of engines. And so building our

engine factory in Huntsville and our uh

rocket factory down in Orlando and

getting those to rate, which includes

the supply chain, that includes the raw

materials, and heavy vertical

integration is how you build that

machine. And we we're making a huge

amount of progress. Uh but you can

always get better.

>> So, we're We're now building a BE-4

engine. This is our the heavy uh you

know, the

oxidizer uh every 4 days coming off the

line now at BE-4 engine. So, rate

manufacturing is critical to this. You

know, space travel is a solved problem

for

you know, six decades. We're not trying

to invent space travel, we're trying to

make it cost-effective. And that's the

key. That's why you need reusability as

Dave was saying and why you need rate

manufacturing. And so, it really is

about being world-class manufacturers

and Dave and the team are are crushing

that. They're doing an amazing job.

>> When when Dave uh visited us at at

Columbia where I'm on the faculty, that

was a talked about the manufacturing. I

do want to mention something about your

pipeline. When you I don't know if you

knew this, but when we were looking for

someone to come speak, we had a CEO

lecture series and we did a poll within

our our student body and what if you can

listen hear from the the head of any

company, what would it be? And it was

Blue Origin came out number one. So,

thanks for accommodating us. So, I think

your pipeline is of of talent is uh is

excited to to come join and be a part of

this.

>> Yeah, I think people are underestimating

uh in even in the acade- academic world,

how much building physical things is

going to be valued moving forward,

right? And so, the so, uh we we spent

the last three decades uh with a not

enough computer science majors, but I

think the pendulum's going to swing the

other way and I was so inspired seeing

this kids at Columbia and people that

know how to build real physical things

and understand how the complexities of

that and how to manufacture them.

They're going to they're going to be in

very high demand.

>> And and just to pick up a little bit

more on the on the engines, Jeff, um as

you know, the

I don't know if everyone knows it it was

mentioned earlier just a minute ago

about it. You do have separate

facilities. Most of your rockets are

built in Florida primarily, but you have

a whole an entirely separate facility in

Alabama. And now, I've ridden on rockets

that take you to space, but I've never

tried to build one. So, in your mind,

Jeff, what is what what is so difficult

about building rocket engines?

>> Well, rocket engines operate right at

the limit of physics. So, you know, the

internal combustion temperatures inside

of main combustion chamber of a rocket

are 5,000-6,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It's

beyond the melting points of any

materials. And so, the the complexities

of pressurizing those propellants in

high performance turbo pumps that have

to be very lightweight, of cooling those

materials with regenerative channels so

that they don't melt. This is just a

very challenging thing to do. And then,

so designing the engine is hard, and

then manufacturing it is hard, and

manufacturing at rate is hard. Um and

you know, I think we have a little clip

I could show you. We have our lunar

lander as an engine in it called the

BE-7, which is a relatively small

engine. It's 10,000 lb of thrust, and

that

the reliability of this engine is

paramount. And we just did the longest

engine test in history. Uh this is a

41-minute

engine test. This engine ran

continuously for 41 minutes. That beats

the record for the Space Shuttle main

engine, which they once tested 30 years

ago. They tested it for 36 minutes. So,

uh it's that's that and so that's a a

multi-decade record uh that the Blue

Origin team just beat with the BE-7

engine. But this is a very challenging

thing. These engines are very complex.

We have the BE-4 engine, which is the

one that uses liquefied natural gas and

liquid oxygen. Uses an ox-rich stage

combustion cycle. And then, our BE-3U

engine is our second stage engine. It's

liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This

is the same basic architecture that was

used by the Apollo program. So, a

hydrocarbon booster stage and liquid

hydrogen upper stages. Liquid hydrogen

is a a complex fuel to use, but it's

much higher performing than hydrocarbon

fuels. The problem with liquid hydrogen

is that it's very voluminous. It's the

density of liquid hydrogen is very low.

That's why you really don't want to use

it on a booster stage. It gets the

booster stage would get too

volumetrically gigantic. But on a second

stage, it gives you tremendous

advantages. So, this is what the Apollo

Saturn V rocket did, and it's what we do

as well. To do

the the lunar landing with liquid

hydrogen has a further advantage, which

is that you look just a little ways into

the future when we have permanent lunar

settlements. This time we are going to

the moon to stay. I'm not going to

visit, we're going to stay. And when you

look at the materials available on the

moon, you have water ice in the

permanently shadowed craters on the near

the poles of the moon. And that can with

electrolysis be converted into liquid

oxygen and liquid hydrogen. So by using

liquid hydrogen as our lunar landing

fuel, one day in the not too distant

future, you'll be able to use in situ

materials on the surface of the moon to

refuel your lander.

>> Um let's talk more about the moon.

Right. So you guys have had this in your

game plan since the company was founded,

the moon. And lately we've been hearing

a lot about the moon. Artemis 2 was such

a huge success and really captured

everyone's attention. It's now like a a

global interest of going to the moon,

exploring the moon for various reasons.

Do you feel like everyone else in the

world is catching up to where you guys

have been for a while? How How does How

do you How do you feel about that?

>> Yeah, we've been we've been fixated on

not skipping any steps. I'm very excited

to see NASA and I think most of the

world recognize that we should go to the

moon first. We'll go to Mars and we'll

do all the other things, but the moon is

the first best step. And there are many

reasons for that, but it's kind of a

gift. It's so near Earth. We can get

there in 3 and 1/2 days. We can return

in 3 and 1/2 days. You can go anytime

you want. You don't have to wait for the

planetary alignment to be just right.

You can only go to Mars every 2 years or

so. And so there are a lot of advantages

to the moon. And then the moon's gravity

well is so much lower than the Earth

that when you get materials from the

moon, you can lift them off the moon

with 28 times less energy per kilogram

than is needed to lift something off the

Earth. And so that's a really valuable

thing if you are producing liquid

oxygen, for example, on the moon.

Lifting that into space is very easy

compared to lifting liquid oxygen off of

Earth. And so as we go about exploring

the solar system, which we will do, and

as we you know, we will we will build

colonies on Mars and so on, the moon is

an important first step. And when you

skip steps, it actually doesn't make you

faster.

>> Yeah, we and it's going to be an

incredible time over the next just the

next year. If you if you look at our

lunar road map, we call our team inside

of Blue Origin the lunar permanence

group for exactly what Jeff said. We

want to go there and we want to stay on

the moon. And just next year, early in

the year we'll fly our Mark 1 lander,

which is on the screen here. This is a

3-metric-tons-to-the-lunar-surface

vehicle. It'll be the big the largest

thing that has ever landed on the moon,

and that'll be our pathfinder mission.

And then mid-year, it was just announced

last week, Artemis 3 will happen. Luca

will be on that

on that flight, which will be great. Uh

and that's going to be a rendezvous

mission with our Mark 2 lander, which is

our human-rated lander. And we'll we'll

meet up at around 450 km in lower Earth

orbit, and we'll do some of 2 days of

entering into the vehicle. The vehicle

have full environmental controls, so

it'll have an equal system. And we'll

test that out for when we fly to the

moon the following year. And then later

in the year, we'll fly another Mark 1

lander. So these are coming off the

assembly line now. So we have a factory

that's building these. And that will

land NASA's VIPER rover late in the

year. So it's going to

the the cycle time to the moon, the

cadence to the moon is going to increase

very rapidly, and it's it's really

exciting.

>> And by the way, that VIPER rover is

going to go find

lunar water ice in those permanently

shadowed craters. So that's a very

exciting mission to we've seen it we've

we've seen it with various methods from

orbit and so on, but now we'll be able

to go look at it up close.

>> So it just kind of seems like the timing

has worked out pretty well. You guys

identified it now and the moon base

announcement from a from a couple months

ago.

>> You're right that the timing is good. I

would also tell you that this is so

early. You know, we as a species, as far

as space is concerned, we're we're just

still warming up, right? We haven't we

have not even begun. This is the

earliest earliest earliest.

>> And the idea that we've been to the moon

before, which we have, great

accomplishment, much different than what

we're doing now. It's the permanence of

what we're staying there. And I really

love what what you said about

>> And then when we went before, we pulled

it forward in time. We did it before we

were ready.

>> Yeah, it was pulled forward in time. And

uh of, you know, geopolitics and the

race with the Soviets and so on. And now

is the right time to really get into

>> Really get into and go to stay.

>> Yeah, we did it before by spending, you

know, the US spent almost 3% of GDP to

do it. And that's just not sustainable.

>> have those those types of resources.

>> sustainable.

>> Give me 3% of GDP, I'll give you fusion.

Okay?

>> [laughter]

>> So, I guess the the question here and I

we've already I think we know the

answer. Moon or Mars, Jeff?

>> Well, moon first.

>> Moon first and then

>> Moon first and then Mars and and

everywhere else, too. And we'll build

large, you know, O'Neill

very O'Neill style colonies in space as

well.

And and we'll build big, uh you know,

we'll use asteroids and near-Earth

objects and the moon and so on to build

compute in space and solar cells in

space and so on. And a lot of our

compute will be done in space. It's

it'll make more sense. And ultimately,

we even manufacture the chips that the

compute runs on. And then the answers

can just be beamed back to us here. And

this

planet, Dave said it before, but our

long-term vision, our dream is to that

all the polluting industry can be done

off Earth. If space travel gets reliable

enough and inexpensive enough and we can

get materials from asteroids and

near-Earth objects and the moon, then

this garden planet can be returned to

its pre-Industrial Revolution state.

This is the only way in which the world

is worse today than it [clears throat]

was 500 years ago. Everything is better

today.

The the you know, global illiteracy is

better than it was 500 years ago. Infant

mortality is better than it was. Global

poverty is better than it was.

Everything is is better and it keeps

getting better. And the one exception is

the natural world.

And we can actually have both.

>> We we go to space not necessarily just

for space, but for Earth.

>> Yes, you want to protect it. There's a

great quote, which I'm sure you've heard

from one of your fellow astronauts, Jim

Lovell,

>> Yeah.

>> when he went to the when he went to the

moon and he looked back on Earth. He

looked back at the Earth and he said, "I

realized you go to heaven when you're

born, not when you're die. That's cool.

>> I really love the way you describe the

moon as a gift. I've always thought of

it like our little brother or sister

that's always with us. If we're there

it's a and it's the right

sounds like you're saying we get there

we can go other places more quickly. Um

>> It's also been bombarded for some time.

>> What's that?

>> It's been bombarded for 4 and 1/2

billion years by every meteorite. And so

just under that surface is everything we

need to build the things that Jeff

talked about. Like every mineral is

there, water is there. We know this now.

>> And it's just it's going to be it's

going to be an incredible resource and

it's untouched

>> for billions of years. So it it really

is a I like that it's a gift for us to

explore and then use that as a launchpad

to go other places. All right, um let's

talk about uh some more about the

infrastructures stack that you're

developing. Um this is all about you

know the rockets and the vision for the

moon and

all these all these things that you guys

are into and you're going to need a lot

of talent and resources. But you know

you said that that that is really the

key is companies and we've talked about

a little bit already, companies that can

be these world-class manufacturers with

incredible vertical integration. Uh

they're the ones that are going to be

the leaders and Blue Origin is doing

that to set up this space economy

building that infrastructure. So when

you when you say that about building

that the infrastructure layer for the

space economy, what what does that mean

and what are the pieces of that stack

that you're developing?

>> Well, I think on the as you said on the

manufacturer I was very surprised coming

to company like Blue that you do have to

be incredibly vertically integrated in

this area. And

as an example, we have our own these

engines that Jeff talked about the you

know the they're running at just the

boundary of physics and high heat. So we

have a material science group that uh

literally invented new two new alloys.

We call them Cascadium and Reneurium.

And these are to coat these engines so

they can survive in these in these

applications. And then we take those

alloys and we put them into one of the

biggest additive manufacturing factories

in the world which which which Blue has

and we print these metals and literally

print an engine. And so it's part of the

infrastructure is inventing new

infrastructure that to to push the

boundaries of what we'll be able to do.

Again, to get to where we're just said,

which is lowering the cost. You know,

you could probably do this in the old

ways back in the Apollo era, but it does

take a lot of money in in this. And then

I I think the other place that we're

trying to invent is what are the

applications you want to put in space?

And so we have um we've announced two

different constellations, one called

Project Sunrise, the other one called

Terra Wave, that that get uh more

infrastructure into space. And uh I

think we can talk more about that as

well.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask you about

Terra Wave and data

>> Terra Wave is a is a a a LEO comms uh

constellation that uh has very, very

high bandwidth and is optimized for uh

very demanding users, large enterprises,

hyperscalers, government institutions.

Uh includes very fast Earth-to-space

optical links. So it's a very

sophisticated network um and so we're

working on that. We're also working on

Project Sunrise, which is an orbital

compute. It'll These satellites will be

in sun-synchronous orbit.

Sun-synchronous orbit is an interesting

orbit where the satellites 99 plus

percent of the time are always in

sunlight. So they don't get eclipsed by

the Earth. You know, a typical orbit

around the Earth, you know, might be in

lower Earth orbit, might be, you know,

90 minutes or so, and half that time

you're in darkness. Uh and half that

time you're in in in sunlight. But in

the sun-synchronous orbit, you're in

daylight almost all the time, 99 plus

percent. And so your solar cells are

working for you the whole time.

Uh and so there are a lot of questions

about orbital data centers and can it

really work? And people get worried

about heat rejection and things like

this. All of these physics problems are

easily solvable. Uh heat rejection is

not a real problem. It's All these

questions are really about cost. And the

cost So the cost of production of the

solar cells, the cost of production of

the satellites, and the cost of launch

uh will eventually the lines will cross,

and eventually orbital compute will be

uh a better option than terrestrial

compute. We don't know exactly when that

will be, but we're going to work on We

have to work on it now so that we're

ready for those two lines to cross.

>> We're already very reliant on the

connectivity we get every day from

space, and this is a way to to grow it.

>> Yeah, and this is going to there's going

to be many of these constellations. I

was just going to say

>> Yeah, there there and you know, just

just the first phase of Terra Wave is

5,000 plus satellites in Leo and then

another 100 satellites out in mid-Earth

orbit orbit at MEO and so you you start

thinking about the scale of these

constellations. They want to be

5, 10, 20,000 for each shell and and

they'll have different use cases. You

know, you have Starlink and you have

Amazon's Leo and those are very focused

on mostly on the consumer and great. You

can go anywhere now and and and get for

60 or 100 euro a year, you can or a

month, you can you can get great

connectivity. Similarly, our we're

focused on giving enterprises and

governments really, really high

bandwidth with high reliability and and

there'll be 10 more ideas for this and

this just goes back to why launch is so

constrained now because each one of

these constellations and quickly fill up

many, many, many launches, you know,

hundreds of launches and so

we we got to race to just get lower the

cost even further and get more rockets

in the air.

>> And Europe will have their own

constellations, other countries will

have their own constellations. It's just

it's just a very valuable thing to be

able to do. Even just talking about

communications constellations, the kind

of human appetite for comms is basically

you know,

insatiable.

>> I want to ask you about another project

that you have going. Recently, you broke

news of a new endeavor, Prometheus,

right? AI company and you've called it

that you're going to be developing

an artificial general engineer. So as

someone who tries to train real

engineers, I'm very excited about this

because I [laughter] think I think it's

a way that we're going to we can

incorporate that in education and and

train engineers to use this thing that

you're developing, Prometheus.

What can you tell us about that and the

importance of AI in engineering for Blue

Origin and for the world?

>> Yeah, Prometheus is building a set of

tools that's designed to empower

engineers to really invent and build

much, much faster. So if you think

about, you know, today there's a kind of

a dream build cycle. You know, you dream

of something and then depending on how

complicated it is, it may take a few

years to 10 years before you're really

producing it at rate and manufacturing

it. And if you take a step back, and

broadly civilizational wealth, all of

civilizational wealth is driven by

invention. 6,000 years ago, somebody

invented the plow and we all got

wealthier. And then much later, somebody

invented the steam engine and we all got

wealthier. And this cycle continues. And

if we can accelerate that cycle, that

dream build cycle, it will create real

productivity, real prosperity. And so

that's the idea behind Prometheus. And

it can't be done with uh traditional

large language models. They have a

place, but they aren't trained with the

right data to be able to do detailed

engineering. So uh the the analogy I

would give you is, you know, I could

read a thousand books. That's what LLMs

do today. They're trained on entire

corpus of humanity's knowledge. They

have scraped the entire internet and

they know everything that we've written

down in words and they're unbelievably

good at uh at symbol manipulation.

That's what large language models do.

But if I read a thousand books on how to

be a great gymnast, I would still be a

terrible gymnast.

And it's because it's a needs a

different kind of training data. And

that's what when you go to actually

design real physical objects, it's very

complicated and you can't do it just by

reading about it. And so we're building

a uh

a model that is very good at doing

engineering. And then that model becomes

the basis of a series of tools that will

make it easier for for people to to to

dramatically accelerate that build

dream. And so the goal would be, if

today you came to me and you said,

"Jeff, I need a new jet engine with 10%

more thrust." And even if I had built 50

jet engines already, so I would still

tell you that's going to be a 10-year

program. That's how long it takes to

build a modern, sophisticated jet engine

for a modern airliner. And to be by the

time you've tested it and set up the

factory and you're ready to produce it,

that's at least a 10-year program. And

so, can we at Prometheus build a set of

tools to make that be 5 years, and then

3 years, and then 2 years, and then 1

year? And if we can really accelerate

that dream build loop, it changes

everything.

>> And it's not necessarily

>> And it helps Blue Origin, too.

>> Yeah.

>> They They have to have it now. Dave

needs these tools.

>> Yeah. And it's not going to replace

people necessarily. It's going to be a

tool for engineers to use.

>> No, no, no. I I know there's a lot of

concern that many people have, including

many smart people, that AI is going to

make humans redundant and so on. I I

totally disagree with this point of

view, and I think, in fact, AI is going

to create a labor shortage, cuz it's

going to make it possible for people to

identify more problems. We have an

endless set of things to invent, and we

are only limited today. We are limited

not by our imaginations, but by what we

can actually do. I promise you, every

single person in this audience has had

an idea for a new business, or a new

product, or a new device that they wish

they could manufacture, and that idea

stayed in your head and went nowhere.

And the reason it stayed in your head

and went nowhere is because it's too

hard to do, and it wasn't worth it. And

if we can accelerate the dream build

loop, all of the ideas will then become

possible, and then we end up being

limited not by our capabilities, but by

our imaginations.

>> You can already see this with LLMs.

You can already see this somewhat with

vibe coding, right? You know, I I was

classically trained as a computer

scientist, but 3 years ago, I was a

terrible computer scientist. I got But

now, I can in just an afternoon write an

iOS app. And And And I have some ideas

for iOS apps, and and that That is is

one thing that LLMs can do very well,

cuz it is symbolic, and so they can code

very well. And then imagine the tools

that they're thinking about, bringing

that that I could, in an afternoon, do

that in the physical world. And, you

know, contemplate something, and

magically it comes off my 3D printer. I

I'm chomping at the bit. It's It's so

exciting.

>> Exciting future for us for all of us

here. Well, fellas, we've got a few

minutes left here. So, we've got a

couple last questions for you. Um you

guys know each other a long time. I

mean, I know you well enough to know you

guys are friends and trusted

>> We've worked together for, uh know,

almost two decades at Amazon.

>> Okay. So, and so you worked together at

Amazon. Are there any surprises or

differences on how working together at

Blue Origin, how's how's that been? Is

it What's that been like now on on this

new endeavor?

>> Uh I I don't see

a lot

but I there's some things that surprised

me. Uh Jeff is the most uh fair and

feeding tip for Jeff here that he's the

most tactically impatient person I've

ever met and the most strategically

patient person I've ever met. So, uh and

I know that's an oxymoron but it but it

it somehow works. And and and the the

thing that that was the same is at

Amazon Jeff was always the longest term

thinker in the room. There was no

question about it. He was the long-term

optimist in the room. And I when I came

to Blue, the vision is bigger than that.

It it's it it's it's it's he we've he

mentioned it. It's like we're trying to

help this planet and make and and make

space uh the new normal. So, that that

was one. And then I think the other

thing uh for me is uh I I've been in the

room a lot with Jeff and you know, he

always can find and help an idea. He

always can move it forward. And I and

certainly I thought that that superpower

was centered around e-commerce. I mean,

you invented Amazon. And uh I can tell

you now I've been here 2 and 1/2 years,

Jeff knows more about rockets and rocket

engines than he knows about e-commerce.

And that is stunning. [laughter]

>> Thank you, Dave. That's very nice.

Here's what I would say. There's a

There's a saying, some of you may have

heard it, maybe not. Um when you're

under 40, never hire your friends. When

you're over 40, only hire your friends.

There you go. And I could tell

I'm a very very lucky man with a

tremendous amount of gratitude that I

get to work with Dave, you know. Thank

you. That was awesome.

>> O- Okay, just a couple more to round out

here. Uh Jeff, you said that Blue Origin

will be the world's most decisive

company. Um how's that going? How are

things

>> It's going very well, especially since

Dave arrived. and very grateful for it.

Because decisiveness is about speed, and

speed matters in business. You know,

Amazon is a giant company, but we're

still we make decisions very quickly.

And this is something that you need to

be able to do. And I can tell you why

decisions get slow in especially in

large companies. And Blue is a pretty

big company at this point. You know, we

have 14, 15,000 people. It's not a small

company. And the reason is you start

making all decisions as if they're all

the same size. It's like

one-size-fits-all thinking. And you

know, if you have a one-size-fits-all

robe, it never fits. So and so there are

different decisions that should be made

in different ways. There are giant

decisions, which are consequential and

irreversible or almost irreversible.

Super hard to reverse. Those decisions

should be made slowly with great care.

And then there are other decisions,

which even if they're consequential,

they can be reversed. And those

decisions should be made by single

individuals who have good judgment. And

and so you have to remember that there

are these different kinds of decisions.

And speed of decision-making, if you go

if you When you go look at successful

companies, one of the reasons that small

companies can be so nimble is because a

small group of people can be so

decisive. And you know, a company with

100 people and a really good founder or

leader, they can touch every part of the

company, they can be involved in every

decision, and they can be incredibly

decisive and move fast. So that's an

important part of culture. And in

aerospace, you know, traditional

aerospace I think often suffers from

slow decision-making speed. And it's and

I know how aerospace gets there, but I

mean, you know, you're building things

that often have, you know, hazardous

operations, life-safety critical

missions. And so again, not every

decision is like that, though. So you

end up making every decision as if it's

life-safety critical. And then you're

going to move very slowly. That's not

going to lead to the results that you

want. You know, you know, we we want to

move humanity forward and into this next

age, and I think we're in the middle of

a bunch of golden ages right now, and I

want to see companies succeed in all of

them. Biotech, space is an incredible

opportunity, all the things that are

happening in AI. We live in the most

incredible moment. And every young

person right now should be so excited

that they are where they are now because

it's never been a better time to be an

entrepreneur, a better time to start a

company. There's so many possibilities.

>> In in the speak about what we used to do

in the space program with the government

where I'm familiar, we used to call it

we move at glacial speed.

>> [laughter]

>> And you guys move quick. Okay, I've got

we're we're we're close here. I've got a

question for each one of you left. Um,

Dave, uh, this is what goes through your

head when you when you hear Jeff say

that Blue and apparently you've said

this, Jeff, that Blue will eventually be

the best business you've ever been a

part of, even more successful than

Amazon. Now, I'm you know, I'm not a

business major, but Amazon's pretty

successful, so the pressure's on. What

goes through your head when you when you

hear that, Dave?

>> Yeah, it's a it's a clench up moment,

let's put it that

>> [laughter]

>> Yeah.

You know, it's a and I I I he mentioned

this before I took the job that he So,

this I think it got out publicly later,

but he he mentioned it and so this has

been and it is a tough comp, you know,

Amazon by almost any measure is one of

the world's, if not the world's most

successful company. And but I have to

tell you that I I'm an optimist by

general, but in general, but as the time

has gone by and been 2 years and I've

seen how fast the progress we're making

in space and how many opportunities that

are that we've talked about some of them

here that can happen in space. I think

I'm a believer now. And I was a skeptic

and so I'm sure of it. Yeah, it's going

to happen.

>> a giant industry with lots of winners

and literally hundreds and thousands of

winners. It's going to be very exciting

to watch it unfold.

>> Well, I'm very grateful for what you

guys have done devoting your your

talents, energy, entrepreneurship to

this space program. Well done. One last

question, Jeff, this one's for you. It's

about your lesson learned from your

grandfather on the importance of being

resourceful. You know, today we have AI

and a lot of technical help, a lot of

technology around us. Do you still think

resourcefulness carries the same weight

as it did when you heard that story from

your grandfather or even maybe more so

in today's world?

>> I think it's so important. It's

Mike knows some of these stories about

my grandfather because I told I told him

so this, why he's asking this question

but my grandfather when I knew him was a

rancher in South Texas and I spent all

my summers on my grandfather's ranch

from age 4 to 16 and

and eventually was able to help him and

we did everything on our own and like a

lot of people in rural areas you can't

call to repair something you know you

fix it yourself and so we repaired

bulldozers and took out the giant

transmission gears and fixed them and so

on but he even made his own veterinary

needles you know to stitch up the cattle

he would get a piece of wire and heat it

with a blowtorch and pound it flat and

drill a little hole in the end and

sharpen it some of the cattle even

survived. So [laughter]

this is a a very

good just

this this idea it's an attitude this

attitude this approach to life that any

problem is solvable it's a good starting

point and some problems may take a long

time to solve but I promise you if you

start with the opposite point of view

that the problem is not solvable that

will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

>> And with that

where our time is up.

>> But thank you Mike.

>> Thank you very much thank you.