Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We're very constrained as a country in terms of the
Speaker 2: number of launch vehicles that we have right now, and
Speaker 2: our adversaries around the world are not standing still.
Speaker 1: They're putting hundreds of billions.
Speaker 2: Of dollars into launch and into space, and especially as
Speaker 2: it relates to the Moon, which we haven't been on
Speaker 2: the Moon for fifty years. We think it's really important
Speaker 2: for Blue, for the country, and it just made prudent
Speaker 2: sense from our standpoint to take the brilliant people that
Speaker 2: we're working on New Shepherd, pause that for a while
Speaker 2: we're planning for at least two years, and then repurpose
Speaker 2: them to even further accelerate our efforts in lunar and launch.
Speaker 3: There was all this excitement I think about New Shepherd,
Speaker 3: especially because Katie Perry went to space and for civilians
Speaker 3: who maybe want to have that moment like Mark Bezos had.
Speaker 3: So do you think you'll go back to that at
Speaker 3: some point?
Speaker 1: Point?
Speaker 3: Is it really just a pause?
Speaker 1: I think we will.
Speaker 2: I think there's still you know, we had multiple years
Speaker 2: of backlog and that it was the easiest ticket to sell,
Speaker 2: was that, And so I think we'll likely come back
Speaker 2: into that into that business. But again at the moment
Speaker 2: in time right now, it just makes more sense to focus.
Speaker 1: On on the Moon.
Speaker 3: So it really is a space race right now.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I'm very much pro America and
Speaker 2: a capitalist, but I don't think we want another Spotnik moment.
Speaker 2: And we were the first to put boots on the Moon,
Speaker 2: and I really feel like we want to put you know,
Speaker 2: we want to put boots on the moon. And this
Speaker 2: time the name of our group inside of Blue is
Speaker 2: the Lunar Permanence. So we're not only racing to the
Speaker 2: Moon to get there back again for the first time,
Speaker 2: but we want.
Speaker 1: To keep people on the moon, you know, the moon.
Speaker 2: If I don't know where you stand on the Fermi paradox,
Speaker 2: but if you're in the this is all a simulation
Speaker 2: camp the moon. The Moon would have been a it's
Speaker 2: a cheat code in the game that we're living in.
Speaker 2: It's literally three days away, it has no atmosphere, it's
Speaker 2: got one sixth gravity, it's been around for four billion
Speaker 2: plus years. It has every mineral on that that we
Speaker 2: could probably think of. It has water, and we would
Speaker 2: be crazy as a nation not to figure out how
Speaker 2: to use that as a stepping stone to the rest
Speaker 2: of the Solar System and beyond.
Speaker 3: So when you have this visit from the Secretary Hegsath
Speaker 3: and you're talking about going to the moon, what is
Speaker 3: the Department of Defense, Department of War, What is the
Speaker 3: US administration asking of you?
Speaker 2: I think the Department of War is a little separate
Speaker 2: from NASA, is really the leading the sphere for going
Speaker 2: to the moon, and we're very supportive of that. But
Speaker 2: in general, when you talk to Secretary Hegseath Feinberg at all,
Speaker 2: what you find, especially in air gerospace, is that we've
Speaker 2: ten twenty thirty years ago, we mortgaged our future a
Speaker 2: bit as a country in that if you looked at
Speaker 2: the industrial base of the United States coming out of
Speaker 2: World War Two, for the next ten to twenty years,
Speaker 2: our aerospace industry was incredibly vertically integrated, all the way
Speaker 2: down to the supply chain components, to the raw steel,
Speaker 2: to the raw aluminum, to the titanium. And we somewhere
Speaker 2: a couple decades ago, lost the formula and we outsourced
Speaker 2: that supply chain.
Speaker 1: And so what I think we're seeing is a renewed interest.
Speaker 2: And I can certainly say that for Blue that we're
Speaker 2: trying to bring that manufacturing back to the United States
Speaker 2: and our allies. And the fact of the matter is
Speaker 2: that it's often lost on people. Building a prototype or
Speaker 2: one or ten of something is easy. Building the machine
Speaker 2: that makes hundreds of those things, thousands of those things
Speaker 2: in my last job at Amazon, tens of millions of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 1: That is hard and so uh and part of that.
Speaker 2: Part of that being hard is understanding your supply chain
Speaker 2: and being able to very vertically integrate and when somebody says,
Speaker 2: build a new version of this rocket, can you do
Speaker 2: it in a period.
Speaker 1: Of time that's tractable.
Speaker 2: And right now, for the most part, we we have
Speaker 2: lost our way and we're really about trying to pivot
Speaker 2: and get that supply chain, get that manufacturing capability, and
Speaker 2: make Blue Origin and hopefully others will follow our follow
Speaker 2: our lead the world's best manufacturing partner.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to going to the Moon, what
Speaker 3: is the status of the launch, Launder I know apparently
Speaker 3: it is in the works right now being tested in Houston.
Speaker 3: I've been told what's the timeline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have we have a couple of different fire
Speaker 2: irons in the fire right now, so we have what
Speaker 2: we call m K one mark one of our lander,
Speaker 2: which is a very large cargo lander. It can three
Speaker 2: metric tons to the lunar surface. That vehicle is in
Speaker 2: just in cryovac testing right now. It'll come back and
Speaker 2: our hope is to launch that in the next you know,
Speaker 2: three to six months, and you know, to put that
Speaker 2: in perspective, that's completely funded by Blue Origin, and it
Speaker 2: is it will be by far the largest thing that
Speaker 2: has ever landed on the Moon. Now it's cargo only
Speaker 2: and so but it is a pathfinder mission. It's going
Speaker 2: to test our avionics, our light, our system, our landing systems,
Speaker 2: our engine, our B seven engine, and to allow us
Speaker 2: to test all those de risk those things for when
Speaker 2: we try to get boots on the Moon. As we
Speaker 2: move forward, I think, you know, it's it'll take an
Speaker 2: all out effort, but I think there's a path where
Speaker 2: we could get we could get people back to the
Speaker 2: Moon and twenty twenty eight if if NASA wants us
Speaker 2: to and we think we have an architecture that would
Speaker 2: allow us to do that, we'll see what the new
Speaker 2: administration has to say, but we're ready and willing to
Speaker 2: give it a shot.
Speaker 3: So the cargo lander is the first step before human lander.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they share a huge amount of the same
Speaker 2: architectural features. As I said, all those subsystems. What you
Speaker 2: have to add to it is and obviously launch. You
Speaker 2: saw the vehicle launch that wasn't Ai by the way.
Speaker 1: That's a real rocket, and you never know these days.
Speaker 1: You don't know these days.
Speaker 2: But the fact of the matter is what we have
Speaker 2: to add on top of that is life supports systems
Speaker 2: and systems that can support docking with Orion as Orion
Speaker 2: comes together to bring the astronauts from Earth to the
Speaker 2: lunar lander before we land on the moon.
Speaker 3: You mentioned others will follow, and recently Jeff Bezos, who
Speaker 3: never tweets, this was his first tweet of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 3: posted a photo of this black tortoise, which goes along
Speaker 3: with blue origins. I think motif of slow and ferocious, methodical.
Speaker 3: But a lot of people have viewed it as a
Speaker 3: warning shot to Elon Musk, which really was focused on
Speaker 3: SpaceX going to Mars and now he's saying we're going
Speaker 3: to focus on the Moon. What do you make of
Speaker 3: that tweet and what is the competition right now? Do
Speaker 3: you think you're going to be the first.
Speaker 2: Well, it gives me an opportunity to put on a
Speaker 2: T shirt for you, So there you go. That's nothing else.
Speaker 1: Let me do that. I get to keep this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all yours.
Speaker 2: And that's the first one off the presses too. By
Speaker 2: the way, I think everybody's going to want one of those.
Speaker 2: But gratitum ferosit is the sort of our internal statement
Speaker 2: about and it sort of stands for step by step ferociously,
Speaker 2: which is that you want when you're building space vehicles,
Speaker 2: when you're going to space, you want to do it
Speaker 2: in a way that you're testing as much as you
Speaker 2: can on the ground. Obviously some point you have to
Speaker 2: launch a rocket and see if it works. But we
Speaker 2: want to just move to it and steadfasting, holding within
Speaker 2: reason to our mission. And for the last fifteen years
Speaker 2: we've been saying that. As I said, this moon that's
Speaker 2: out there is amazing place as a stepping stone for us.
Speaker 1: What we're trying to do as a company is again.
Speaker 2: We've visited all the planets in the Solar System with
Speaker 2: probes or in some cases you know, satellites and flybys,
Speaker 2: and we.
Speaker 1: Now know this planet is the good one you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's got an atmosphere, it's got water, it's a
Speaker 2: pretty good place to live, especially down here in South Florida.
Speaker 2: And what we want to do is preserve this planet
Speaker 2: and move heavy industry off of this planet so that
Speaker 2: we can support double, triple, quadruple the population on this planet.
Speaker 1: And that's doable, by the way. That's a very tractable problem.
Speaker 2: And the Moon is an incredibly important part of that.
Speaker 2: And so for us, it's not about did SpaceX change
Speaker 2: their mind or did a lawn change their mind?
Speaker 1: If they did, thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you're going in this direction because I
Speaker 2: think that's what's right for this planet. I would say
Speaker 2: though that, you know, it makes for good headlines that SpaceX.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have to lose for Blue to succeed.
Speaker 2: What the US needs is it needs two Spacexes.
Speaker 1: It needs two launch companies that are.
Speaker 2: Competing vigorously against each other to try to give us
Speaker 2: the most capabilities as a country, commercially, civilly from a
Speaker 2: defense perspective, because our adversaries aren't standing still and so
Speaker 2: we need to be moving very quickly.
Speaker 1: Healthy competition.
Speaker 3: But I think a lot of people run into that
Speaker 3: as the tortoise being blue origin and the hair being
Speaker 3: Elon Musk and SpaceX because it also comes after Secretary
Speaker 3: Duffy had said that SpaceX is behind, so they were
Speaker 3: opening up for everyone in terms of Artemis and Jared Isaacman,
Speaker 3: who's now the administrator, also said essentially, yeah, whoever can
Speaker 3: get there first is going to get the contracts.
Speaker 1: So do you think you're going to get there first?
Speaker 2: I think, if asked, we will make it. We'll give
Speaker 2: it a run for our money. I like our architecture.
Speaker 2: I like our odds of getting there very quickly. I
Speaker 2: don't have a crystal ball into what SpaceX is doing.
Speaker 2: I think again, Gwenn and Alan are competent, and they
Speaker 2: showed every day by launching rockets. But I love the
Speaker 2: fact that the US would compete us against each other.
Speaker 2: They are for sustainability on lunar, we're talking about who
Speaker 2: could get there in twenty twenty eight. If asked, we
Speaker 2: will step up and we will move Heaven and Earth
Speaker 2: to get to the Moon first.
Speaker 3: When it comes sustainability and actually being on the moon,
Speaker 3: you talk about the minerals that are on the moon,
Speaker 3: what we can do. What is your thinking of the
Speaker 3: possibilities and know people talk about.
Speaker 1: Data centers in space.
Speaker 3: I think Jeff Bezos wrote about that in high school,
Speaker 3: so he was really a foresight for sure on his side.
Speaker 3: What would be the next phase of this.
Speaker 2: Well, in the near term, there are some incredibly strategic
Speaker 2: places on the Moon. We now know at the p
Speaker 2: there is water, and there are these points on the
Speaker 2: Moon called eternal peaks of light where you get sunlight
Speaker 2: for basically twenty four by seven lunar days or days
Speaker 2: however you want to look at it. But there are
Speaker 2: a few of those places, you know, many but not thousands,
Speaker 2: where they're also very close to these valleys and these
Speaker 2: caves where we know that there's water.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to build.
Speaker 2: Moon Base one Alpha, where you want to do it
Speaker 2: is next to these eternal peaks of light, so you
Speaker 2: can get power from solar panels and that you can
Speaker 2: harvest the water for both obviously human survival systems ecless systems,
Speaker 2: but also for fuel for rockets. You know, are our
Speaker 2: rocket that lands, are lander that lands on the Moon.
Speaker 2: That engine uses hydrogen and oxygen from basic chemistry, you
Speaker 2: should remember that's just water cracked and so we can
Speaker 2: be able to be able to pull that, pull that
Speaker 2: aside and make more fuel to return from the moon,
Speaker 2: go to different places on the Moon.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of phase one.
Speaker 2: Find these unbelievably strategic locations, get permanence nearby of these locations,
Speaker 2: and build habitats. Once you're there, then you can start
Speaker 2: thinking about that as a lifting off point for all
Speaker 2: sorts of other things. You can build data centers there,
Speaker 2: you can build whole colonies there.
Speaker 1: You can mine the moon.
Speaker 2: As I said, we don't know everything that's on the Moon,
Speaker 2: but it's been bombarded by asteroids for four point five
Speaker 2: billion years.
Speaker 1: Pretty much everything is likely to be there, as my.
Speaker 2: Prediction, And so how do we utilize that and then
Speaker 2: build manufacturing, build data inference in space? Those are all
Speaker 2: great places to start from when you look at the Moon.
Speaker 3: I was telling Mark Bezos earlier that I was one
Speaker 3: of those skeptic journalists when everyone was going to space.
Speaker 3: So you know, I've seen abject poverty around the world
Speaker 3: traveling with my job, and I would.
Speaker 1: Think, why are they going to space? We have so
Speaker 1: much to.
Speaker 3: Fix on Earth. But what you're describing is actually making
Speaker 3: Earth better by going to space using all those resources.
Speaker 3: You mentioned adversaries, How can you ensure that the US
Speaker 3: is going to get there first?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that might be a better question for
Speaker 2: Jared and for the President, and but you know, we're
Speaker 2: prepared to do everything we can, including our own investment,
Speaker 2: to try to make that happen.
Speaker 1: But I you know, I'm not going to candy coat it.
Speaker 2: Our adversaries are investing incredibly into space, way more than
Speaker 2: the United States is, even with all the private investment
Speaker 2: that has come in from SpaceX and Jeff with Blue
Speaker 2: and others. It's and so I you know, the if
Speaker 2: you look at it from a defense perspective, forget about
Speaker 2: the civil applications, which is more the moon, but just
Speaker 2: the defense perspective. You know Sons who said it best
Speaker 2: high ground matters, and you know in World War two
Speaker 2: and post World War two, the you know, the skies
Speaker 2: were high ground and having control of the sky was
Speaker 2: really important.
Speaker 1: Space is the new high ground.
Speaker 2: And if we do not think about space as a
Speaker 2: domain that we have mobility in, that we have awareness in,
Speaker 2: then our adversaries could take that high ground. And I
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a firm believer in freedom and democracy
Speaker 2: and this republic that we live in and I do
Speaker 2: believe that making sure you have good deterrence against your
Speaker 2: adversary matters. And I think our job as a manufacturer
Speaker 2: and a space provider is to give our war fighters,
Speaker 2: to give our civil astronauts the best technology possibles.