Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon and blue
origin this is his first time doing a
conversation of this kind and of this
length and as he told me it felt like we
could have easily talked for many more
hours and I'm sure we will this is the
Le stre podcast and now dear friends
here's Jeff
Bezos you spent a lot of your childhood
with your grandfather on a ranch here in
Texas mhm and I heard you had a a lot of
work to do around the ranch so what's
the coolest job you remember doing there
wow coolest um most interesting most
memorable most memorable it was a it was
real it's a real working Ranch um my and
I I spent all my Summers on that ranch
from Age 4 to 16 and my grandfather was
really taking me those in the summers in
the in the early Summers he was letting
me pretend to help on the ranch cuz of
course a four-year-old is a burden not a
help in real life he really just
watching me and taking care of me um and
he was doing that because my mom was so
young she had me when she was 17 and so
he was sort of giving her a break and my
grandmother and my grandfather would
take me for these Summers but as I got a
little older I actually was helpful on
the ranch and I loved it I was out there
like my grandfather had a huge influence
on me huge factor in my life I did all
the jobs you would do on a ranch I've
fixed when Mills and laid fences and
pipelines and you know done all the
things that any Rancher would do
vaccinated the animals everything um uh
but we had a you know my grandfather
after my grandmother died um I was about
12 and I kept coming to the ranch so it
was then it was just him and me just the
two of us and he was completely addicted
to the soap opera the days of our lives
and we would go back to the ranch house
every day around 1 p.m. or so to watch
Days of Our Lives uh like Sands through
an hourglass so are the days of our
lives just the image of that the two
sitting there watching slow popper had
big crazy dogs it was really a very
formative experience me but the key
thing about it for me the the great gift
I got from it was that my grandfather
was so resourceful you know he did
everything himself he made his own
Veterinary tools he would make needles
to suit the cattle up with like he would
find a little piece of wire and heat it
up and pound it thin and drill a hole in
it and sharpen it so you know you learn
different things um on a ranch than you
would learn you know growing up in a
city so self-reliance yeah like figuring
out that you can solve problems with
enough persistence and Ingenuity and my
grandfather bought a D6 bulldozzer which
is a big bulldozer and you got it for
like $5,000 cuz it was completely broken
broken down it was like a
1955 caterpillar D6 bulldozer knew it
would have cost I don't know more than
$100,000 and we spent an entire summer
fixing like repairing that bulldozzer
we'd you know use mail order to to buy
big gears for the transmission and
they'd show up they'd be too heavy to
move so we'd have to build a crane you
know just that kind of kind of that
problem solving mentality um he had it
so powerfully you know he
he did all of his own uh he just he
didn't pick up the phone and call
somebody he would figure it out on his
own he doing his own Veterinary work you
know but just the image of the two you
fixing a D6 bulldozzer and then going in
for a little break at 1 p.m. to watch so
laying on the floor that's how he
watched TV he was a really really
remarkable guy that's how I imagine
Clint Eastwood
also in all those westerns when he's
when he's not doing what he's doing he's
just just watching soap poers all right
uh I read that you fell in love with the
idea of space and space exploration when
you were five watching Neil Armstrong
walking on the moon so let me uh ask you
to look back at the historical context
and impact of that so the space race
from 1957 to
1969 between the Soviet Union and the US
was in many ways epic it was um a rapid
sequence of dramatic events for
satellite to space first human to space
first space walk first un crude landing
on the moon then some failures
explosions deaths on both sides actually
and then the first human walking on the
moon uh what are some of the more
inspiring moments or insights you take
away from that time those few years that
just uh 12 years well I mean there's so
much inspiring there um you know one of
the great things to take away from that
one of the great Von Brown quotes is I
have have uh I have come to use the word
impossible with great
caution yeah yeah and so that's kind of
the big story of Apollo is that things
you know the uh going to the moon was
literally an analogy that people used
for something that's impossible you know
oh yeah you'll do that when when you
know men walk on the Moon Yeah and of
course it finally happened um so you
know I think it was pulled forward in
time because of the Space Race I think
you know with the geopolitical
implications and you know how much
resource was put into it you know at the
peak that program was spending you know
two or 3% of
GDP uh on the Apollo program so much
resource I think it was pulled forward
in time you know we kind of did it ahead
of when we quote unquote should have
done it yeah um and so in that way it's
also a technical Marvel I mean it's
truly incredible it's uh you know it's
the 20th century version of building the
pyramids or something it's you know it's
an achievement that um because it was
pulled forward in time and because it
did something that had previously been
thought impossible it rightly deserves
its place as you know in the pantheon of
great human achievements and of course
you named uh the projects the rockets
that blue origin is working on after
some of the folks involved I don't
understand why I didn't say new gagaran
I is that there an American bias in the
naming I ologe very
strange just asking for a friend clarify
I'm a big fan of garens though and fact
I um I think his his first words in
space um I think are incredible he you
know he purportedly said my God it's
blue and that really drives home no one
had seen the Earth from space no one
knew that we were on this blue planet
yeah no one knew what it looked like
from out there and gagaran was the first
person to see it one of the things I
think about is how
dangerous those early days were for
gagaran for for Glenn for everybody
involved like how how big of a risk they
were all taking they were taking huge
risks I'm not sure what the uh Soviets
thought about gagarin's flight but I
think that the Americans thought that
the Allen Shepard flight the flight that
you know new Shephard is named after the
first American in space he went on his
suborbital flight they thought he had
about a 75% chance of
success um so you know that's a pretty
big risk a 25% risk it's it's kind of
interesting that Alan Shepard is not
quite as famous as John Glenn so for
people don't know Alan Shepard is the
first uh astronaut the first American in
space American in suborbital Flight
correct and and then the first orbital
flight is then John Glenn is the first
American to orbit the Earth by the way I
have the most Charming sweet incredible
letter from John Glenn which I have
framed and hanging on my office wall
what he say where he tells me how uh
grateful he is that we have named new
Glenn after him and they sent me that
letter about a week before he died um
and it's really an incredible it's also
a very funny letter he's he's writing
and he says you know this is a letter
about new Glenn from the original Glenn
and he's just he's got a great sense of
humor and he's very he's very um happy
about it and grateful it's very sweet
does he say PS don't mess this up or is
that no he doesn't make me look good he
doesn't do that but wa but John wherever
you are we got you covered good uh so so
back to maybe the big picture of space
when you look up at the
stars uh and think big what do you hope
is the future of humanity hundreds
thousands of years from now out in
space I would love to see you know a you
know a trillion humans living in the
solar system if we had a trillion humans
we would have at any given time a
thousand mozarts and a thousand
Einstein um that would you know our
solar system would be full of life and
intelligence and energy um and we can
easily support a civilization that large
with all of the resources um in the
solar system so what do you think that
looks like giant space stations yeah the
only way to get to that vision is with
giant space stations you know the
planetary surfaces are just way too
small um so you can I mean unless you
turn them into giant space stations or
something but but yeah we will take
materials from the Moon and from near
Earth objects and from the asteroid belt
and so on and we'll build uh giant
O'Neal style colonies um and people will
live in those and they have a lot of
advantages over planetary surfaces you
can spin them to get normal Earth
gravity you can put them where you want
them I think most people are going to
want to live uh near Earth not
necessarily in Earth orbit but in you
know uh Earth but near Earth vicinity uh
orbits and so they can move Qui you know
relatively quickly uh back and forth
between their station and Earth so I
don't I think a lot of people especially
in the early stages are not going to
want to give up Earth altogether they go
to Earth for vacation yeah same way that
you know you might go to to Yellowstone
National Park for vacation people will
uh and the ad and no one and people will
get to choose whether they live on earth
or whether they live in space but
they'll be able to use much more energy
and much more material resource in space
than they would be able to use on Earth
one of the interesting ideas you had is
to move the heavy industry away from
Earth so people sometimes have this idea
that somehow space
exploration is in conflict with the
celebration of the planet Earth that we
should focus on preserving Earth and and
basically your idea is that space travel
and space exploration is a way to
preserve Earth exactly this planet we've
sent robotic probes to all the planets
we know that this is the good
one yeah not the play favorites or
anything but but Earth really is the
good Planet it's an amaz it's it's
amazing the ecosystem we have here all
of the life and the Lush uh the plant
life and you know the water resources
everything this planet is really
extraordinary and of course we evolved
on this planet so of course it's perfect
for us but it's also perfect for all the
advanced life forms on this planet all
the animals and so on and so this is a
gym we do need to take care of it and as
we enter the anthropos as we get as we
humans have gotten so uh sophisticated
and large and impactful as we stride
across this planet you know it's
that that is going to as we continue we
want to use a lot of energy we want to
use a lot of energy per capita we've
gotten amazing things we we don't want
to go backwards you know if you think
about
um the good old days they're mostly an
illusion like in almost every way life
is better for almost everyone today than
it was say 50 years ago or 100 years we
all we live better lives by and large
than our grandparents did and then their
grandparents did and so on and you can
see that in global illiteracy rates
Global poverty rates Global infant
mortality rates like almost any metric
you choose we're better off than we used
to be and we get you know antibiotics
and all kinds of life-saving medical
care and so on and so on and there's one
thing that is moving backwards and it's
the natural world so it is a fact that
500 years ago pre-industrial age
the natural world was
pristine um it was incredible and we
have traded some of that pristine Beauty
for all of these other gifts that we
have as an advanced society and we can
have both but to do that we have to go
to space and all of this really the most
fundamental measure is energy usage per
capita and when you look at you know you
do want to continue to use more and more
energy it is going to make your life
better in so many ways but that's not
compatible ultimately with living on a
finite planet and so we have to go out
into the solar system uh and and really
you can argue about when you have to do
that but you can't credibly argue about
whether you have to do that eventually
we have to do that exactly well you
don't often talk about it but let me ask
you on that topic about the blue ring
and the orbital Reef uh space
infrastructure projects what's your
vision for these so blue ring is a very
interesting spacecraft that is uh
designed to take up to 3,000 kilograms
of payload up to geosynchronous orbit or
in lunar vicinity uh it has two
different kinds of
propulsion it has chemical propulsion
and it has electric propulsion and so it
can you can be you can use blue ring in
a couple different ways you can slowly
move let's say up to geosynchronous
orbit using electric propulsion that
might take you know 100 days or 150 days
depending on how much mass you're
carrying uh and then and reserve your
chemical propulsion so that you can
change orbits quickly in geosynchronous
orbit or you can use the chemical
propulsion first to quickly get up to
geosynchronous and then use your
electrical propulsion to slowly change
your ju synchronous orbit blue ring has
um a couple of interesting features it's
a uh it provides a lot of services to
these payloads so the payLo could be one
large payload or it can be a number of
small payloads and it provides thermal
management it provides electric power it
provides uh compute um provides
Communications and so when you design a
payload for blue ring you don't have
it's you don't have to figure out all of
those things on your own so kind of radi
tolerant compute is a complicated thing
to do and so we have a an unusually
large amount of radiation tolerant
compute on board blue ring and you can
your payload can just use that when it
needs to so it's a uh uh it's sort of
all these Services it's you know it's
it's like a set of apis it's a little
bit like Amazon web services but for
face payloads that need to move about in
Earth vicinity or lunar vicinity uh a
WSS space okay so uh so Compu in space
so you get you get a giant chemical
rocket to get a payload out to and then
you have these admins that show up this
blue ring uh thing that manages various
things like compute exactly and it can
it can also provide transportation and
move you around to different orbits
including humans you think no but blue
ring is not designed to move humans
around um it's designed to move payloads
around so we're also building a lunar
Lander uh which is of course designed to
to land humans on the surface of the
Moon I'm going to ask you about that
well let me let me actually just uh step
back to the old days you were at
Princeton uh with aspirations to be a
theoretical physicist yeah um What
attracted you to physics and why did you
change your mind and not become why why
you're not Jeff bezos's the famous
theoretical physicist so I loved physics
and I studied physics and computer
science and I was proceeding along uh
along the physics path I was planning to
major in physics and I wanted to be a
theoretical physicist and I and the
computer science was sort of something I
was doing for fun I really loved
it um and I and I was very good at the
the programming and doing those things
and I enjoyed all my computer science
classes
immensely but I really was determined to
be a theoretical physicist I it's why I
went to Princeton in the first place it
was definitely and then I realized I was
going to be a mediocre theoretical
physicist and there were um uh there
were a few people in my classes like in
quantum mechanics and so on who they
could effortlessly do things that were
so difficult for me and I realized like
you know there are a thousand ways to be
smart and to be a really you know
theoretical physics is not one of those
fields where the uh you know only the
top few percent actually move the State
ofthe art forward it's one of those
things where you you have to be really
uh just your brain has to be wired in a
certain way and there was a guy named um
one of these people who was uh convinced
me he didn't mean to convince me but
just by observing him he convinced me
that I should not try to be a
theoretical physicist his name was Yos
Santa and Yos
Santa um was from Sri Lanka and he's he
was one of the most brilliant people I'd
ever met my uh friend Joe and I were
working on a very difficult partial
differential equations problem set one
night and there was one problem that we
worked on for three hours MH and we made
no Headway what soever and we looked up
at each other at the same time and we
said Yos Santa so we went to Yos Santa's
dorm room yeah and he was there he was
almost always there and we said y Santo
we're having trouble solving this
uh partial differential equation would
you mind taking a look and he said of
course by the way he was the most humble
most kind person and so he took our he
looked at our problem and he stared at
it for just a few seconds maybe 10
seconds and he said coine and I said
what do you mean yant what do you mean
cosine he said that's the answer and I
said no no no come on and he said let me
show you and he took out some paper and
he wrote down three pages of equations
everything came cancelled out M and the
answer was cosine and I said y Santa did
you do that in your head and he said oh
no that would be impossible a few years
ago I solved a similar problem and I
could map this problem onto that problem
and then it was immediately obvious that
the answer was cosine I had a few you
know you have an experience like that
you realize maybe being a theoretical
physicist isn't your isn't what your
your your what the universe wants you to
be and so I switched to computer science
and um and you know that worked out
really well for me I enjoy I still enjoy
it today yeah there's a particular kind
of intuition you need to be a great
physicist in applied to physics I think
the mathematical skill required today is
so high you have to be a worldclass
mathematician to be a successful
theoretical physicist today and it's not
you know it uh probably need other
skills too intuition lateral thinking
and so on but without the without just
topnotch math skills you're unlikely to
be successful and visualization skill
you have to be able to really kind of do
these kinds of thought experiments and
if you wanted truly great creativity
actually Walter Ison writes about you uh
it puts you on the same level as
Einstein well he's that's very kind I
have I'm an inventor if you if you want
to boil down what I am I'm really an
inventor and I look at things and I can
come up with atypical Solutions and you
know and then I can create a hundred
such atypical solutions for something 99
of them may not survive you know
scrutiny but one of those 100 is like hm
maybe there is maybe that might work and
then you can keep going from there so
that kind of lateral thinking that kind
of uh inventiveness in a high
dimensionality space where the search
space is very large that's where my
inventive skills come that's the thing
I'm if if I I self-identify as an
inventor more than anything else yeah
and he describes in all kinds of
different ways Walter Ison does that uh
creativity combined with childlike uh
Wander that you've maintained still to
this day all of that combined together
is there like if if you were to study
your own brain introspect how do you
think what's your thinking process like
we'll talk about the writing process of
putting it down on paper uh which is
quite rigorous and
famous at uh Amazon but how do you when
you sit down maybe alone maybe with
others and thinking through this High
dimensional space and looking for
Creative Solutions a creative paths
forward is there something you can say
about that process it's such a good
question and and I honestly don't know
how it works if I did I would try to
explain it I know it involves lots of
wandering yeah so I you know when I sit
down to work on a problem I know I don't
know where I'm going so to to go in a
straight line to be efficient efficiency
and invention are sort of at odds
because invention real invention not
incremental Improvement incremental
Improvement is so important in in every
endeavor everything you do you have to
work hard on also just making things a
little bit better but I'm talking about
real invention real lateral thinking
that requires wandering and you have to
give yourself permission to wander I
think a lot of
people
um they feel like wandering is
inefficient and should you know like
when when I sit down at a meeting I
don't know how long the meeting is going
to take if we're trying to solve a
problem because if I did then I'd
already I i' know there's some kind of
straight line that we're drawing to the
solution the reality is we may have to
wander for a long time and I do like
group invention I think there's really
nothing more fun than sitting at a
whiteboard with a a n you know a group
of smart people and spitballing and
coming up with new ideas and objections
to those ideas and then solution to the
objections and going back and forth so
like um you know sometimes you wake up
with an idea and the middle of the night
and sometimes you sit down with a group
of people and go back and forth and both
things are really pleasurable and when
you wander I think one key thing is to
notice a good idea and to to to maybe to
notice the kernel of a good idea maybe
pull at that string cuz I don't think uh
good ideas come fully
formed 100% right in fact when I come up
with what I think is a good idea and it
survives kind of the first level of
scrutiny you know that I do in my own
head and I'm ready to tell somebody else
about the idea I will often say look it
is going to be really easy for you to
find objections to this idea but work
with me there's something there there's
something there and that is intuition
yeah you because it's really easy to
kill new
ideas in the beginning because they do
have so many so many easy objections to
them so you need to uh you need to kind
of forwarn people and say look I know
it's going to take a lot of work to get
this to a fully formed idea let's get
started on that it'll be fun so you got
that ability to say cosign in you
somewhere after
all maybe not on math in a different
domain yeah there are a thousand ways to
be smart by the way and that is a really
like when I go around you know and I
meet people I'm always looking for the
way that they're smart and you find it
is that's one of the things that makes
the world so interesting and fun is that
it is not it's not like IQ is a single y
Dimension there are people who are smart
and so such unique ways yeah you just
gave me a good response when somebody
calls me an idiot on the internet you
know there's a thousand ways to be smart
sir well they might tell you yeah but
there a million to be ways to be done
yeah right I feel like that's a Mark
Twain quote okay all right you gave me
an amazing tour of blue origin rocket
Factory and launch complex in the
historic Cape
Canaveral uh that's where new Glenn the
the big rocket we talked about is uh
being built and will launch can you
explain what the new Glenn rocket is and
uh tell me some interesting technical
aspects of how it works sure um uh new
Glenn is a uh a very large a heavy lift
launch vehicle it'll take about 45
metric tons to Leo very uh very large
class um it's about half the thrust a
little more than half the thrust of the
Saturn 5 uh Rockets so it's about 3.9
million pounds of thrust on
liftoff the booster has seven be four
engines the each engine generates a
little more than 550,000 lbs of
thrust the engines are fueled by liquid
natural gas liquefied natural gas LG as
the fuel and locks as the
oxidizer the cycle is an oxr stage
combustion cycle it's a cycle that was
really pioneered by the Russians it's a
very good cycle um uh and that engine is
also going to power the first stage of
the Vulcan rocket which is the United
launch Alliance rocket um then the
second stage of new Glenn uh is powered
by two b3u engines which is a upper
stage variant of our new Shephard liquid
hydrogen engine so the b3u has 160,000
lounds of thrust so two of those 320,000
lounds of thrust and hydrogen is a very
good propellant for upper stages because
it has has very high ISP it's not a
great propellent in my view for booster
stages because the stages then get
physically so large hydrogen has very
high ISP but liquid hydrogen is uh very
is not dense at all so to store liquid
hydrogen you know if you need to store
many thousands of pounds of liquid
hydrogen your tanks your liquid hydrogen
tank it's very large so uh you really
you get more benefit from the higher
isps specific impulse you get more
benefit from the higher specific impulse
on the second
stage and that stage carries less
propellant so you don't get such
geometrically gigantic tanks the Delta 4
is an example of a vehicle that is all
hydrogen the booster stage is also
hydrogen and I think that it's a very
effective vehicle but it never was very
cost effective um so it's operationally
very capable but not very cost effective
so size is also costly size is costly so
it's interesting Rockets love to be big
everything works better what do you mean
by that you've told me that before it
sounds epic but was
it I mean when you look at the kind of
the physics of Rocket
engines uh and also when you look at
parasitic Mass it doesn't if you have
let's say you have an avionic system so
you have a guidance and control system
that is going to be about the same mass
and size for a giant rocket as it is
going to be for a tiny rocket and so
that's just pardic mass that is very
consequential if you're building a very
small rocket but is Trivial if you're
building a very large rocket so you have
the parasitic Mass thing and then if you
look at for example rocket engines have
turbo pumps they have to pressurize the
fuel and the oxidizer up to a very high
pressure level in order to inject it
into to the thrust chamber where it
burns and those pumps all rotating
machines in fact get more efficient as
they get larger so really tiny turbo
pumps are very challenging to
manufacturer and any kind of gaps you
know uh are like between the housing for
example and the rotating impeller that
pressurizes the fuel there has to be
some Gap there you can't have those
parts scraping against one another and
those gaps drive
inefficiencies and so you know if you
have a very large turbo pump those gaps
and percentage terms end up being very
small and so there's a bunch of things
that that you end up loving about having
a large rocket and that you end up
hating for a small rocket but there's a
giant exception to this Rule and it is
manufacturing so manufacturing large
structures is very very challenging it's
a pain in the butt and so you know it's
just you know if you have if you're
making a small rocket engine you can
move all the pieces by hand you can
assemble it on a table one person can do
it um you know you don't need cranes and
heavy lift operations and tooling and so
on and so on when you start building big
objects infrastructure civil
infrastructure just like the launch pad
and the you know all this we we went and
visited I took you to the launch pad and
you can see it's so Monument mental yeah
it um and so just these things become
major uh undertakings both from an
engineering point of view but also from
a construction and cost point of view
and even the uh the foundation of the
Launchpad I mean this is Florida like
isn't it like swamp land like how deep
go you have at Cape Canaveral yeah um in
fact most ocean you know most launchpads
are on beaches somewhere on the oceans
side because you want to launch over
water for safety reasons um the uh yes
you have to drive pilings you know
dozens and dozens and dozens of pilings
you know 50 100 150 ft deep to get
enough structural Integrity for these
very large you know it's it's uh yes
these turned into major civil
engineering projects I just have to say
everything about that factory is pretty
badass you said tooling the bigger it
gets the more the more epic it is it
does make it epic it's fun to look at
it's extraordinary it's humbling also
cuz your humans are so small compared to
it we are building these enormous
machines that are harnessing enormous
amounts of uh chemical uh Power um you
know in very very compact packages it's
truly extraordinary but then there's all
the different components uh and you you
know the materials involved is there
something interesting that's you can
describe about the
materials uh that comprise the rocket so
it has to be as light as possible I
guess whilst withstanding the Heat and
the harsh conditions yeah I play a
little kind of game sometimes with other
rocket people that I run into where say
what are the things that would Amaze the
1960s Engineers like what what's changed
cuz surprisingly some of Rocket tre's
Greatest Hits have not changed they are
still they would recognize immediately a
lot of what we do today and it's exactly
what they pioneered back in the 60s but
a few things have changed um uh you know
the use of carbon composits is is very
different today um you know we can build
very sophisticated you saw our carbon
tape laying machine that builds the
giant fairings and we can build these
incredibly light very stiff fairing
structures out of carbon composite
material that they could not have
dreamed of I mean the the efficiency the
structural efficiency of that material
is so high compared to any you know
metallic material you might use or
anything else so that's one um uh
aluminum lithium and the ability to
friction stir weld aluminum lithium do
you remember the friction stir welding
that I showed you this this this is a a
remarkable technology it was invented
decades ago but has become very
practical over the just the last couple
of decades and instead of using heat to
weld two pieces of metal together it
literally stirs the two pieces there's a
a pin that rotates at a certain rate and
you put that pin between the two plates
of metal that you want to weld together
and then you move it at a at a very
precise speed um and instead of heating
the material it Heats it a little bit
because of friction but not very much
you can literally immediately after
after welding with stir friction welding
you can touch the material and it's just
barely warm um it's it literally stir
the molecules together it's quite
extraordinary relatively low temperature
and I guess high temperature is what
makes them the the that's the we that
makes it a weak point exactly so in with
traditional with traditional welding
techniques you may have whatever the
underlying strength characteristics of
the material are you end up with weak
regions where you weld and with Fric and
stir welding the weld are just as strong
as the bulk material so it really allows
you and so because when you're you know
let's say you're building a tank that
you're going to pressurize you know a
large you know liquid natural gas tank
for our for our booster stage for
example you know if you are welding that
with traditional methods you have to
size those weld lands the thickness of
those pieces with that knockdown for
whatever damage you're doing with the
Weld and that's going to add a lot of
weight to that tank I mean even just uh
looking at the fairings the result of
that the the complex shape that it takes
and yeah and like what it's supposed to
do is is kind of incredible CU so people
don't know it's on top of the rocket
it's going to fall apart that's its task
but it has to stay strong sometimes yes
and then uh disappear when it needs to
that's right which is a very difficult
task yes when you need something that
needs to have 100% integrity and tell it
needs to have 0% Integrity it needs to
stay attached until it's ready to go
away and then when it goes away it has
to go away completely you use explosive
charges for that and so it's a very
robust way of separating
structure uh when you need to exploding
yeah a little tiny bits of explosive
material um and uh it just it'll sever
the whole connection so if you want to
go from 100% structural Integrity To
Zero as fast as possible possible is
explosives use
explosives the entirety of this thing is
so badass okay so we're back to the two
stages so the the first stage is
reusable yeah second stage is Expendable
second stage is liquid hydrogen liquid
oxygen so we get take advantage of the
higher specific impulse um the uh the
first stage uh lands downrange on a
landing platform in the ocean um comes
back for maintenance and get ready to do
the next mission um I mean there's a
million questions but also is there a a
path towards reusability for the second
stage there is and we know how to do
that um right now I we're going to work
on manufacturing that second stage to
make it as inexpensive as possible sort
of two paths for a second stage make it
reusable um uh or work really hard to
make it inexpensive so you can afford to
expend it and th that trade is
actually not obvious which one is better
even in terms of cost even like time
even in terms of I'm talking about cost
is you know space flight getting into
orbit is a solved problem we solved it
back in you know the 50s and 60s you're
making it Sol easy the only thing that
the only interesting problem is
dramatically reducing the cost of access
to
orbit which is if you can do that you
open up a bunch of
new uh you know Endeavors that lots of
startup companies everybody else can do
so that's we really that's our one of
our missions is to you know be part of
this industry and lower the cost to
orbit so that there can be you know a
kind of a Renaissance uh a golden age of
people doing all kinds of interesting
things in space I like how you said uh
getting to orbit is a solved problem
it's just the only interesting thing is
reducing the C you know you can describe
every single problem facing human
civilization that way way the physicist
would say everything is a solved problem
we've solved everything the rest is just
uh what the ruford said that it's just
stamp collecting it's just the detail
some of the greatest Innovations and
inventions and you know Brilliance is uh
in that cost reduction stage right and
you you've had a long career of cost
reduction for sure and if you know when
you what does cost reduction really mean
it means inventing a better way yeah
exactly right and when you invent a
better way you make the whole world
richer so you know whatever it was I
don't know how many thousands of years
ago somebody invented the plow and when
they invented the plow they made the
whole world richer because they made
farming less
expensive um and so it it is a big deal
to to invent better ways that's how the
world gets
richer so uh what are some of the the
biggest challenges on the manufacturing
side on the engineering side that you're
facing in uh working to get uh to the
first launch of new Glenn the first
launch is one thing we and we'll do that
in 20124 coming up in this coming year
the real thing that's the bigger
challenge is making sure that our
Factory is efficiently uh uh
manufacturing at rate so rate production
so consider if you want to launch new
Glenn you know 24 times a year you need
to
manufacture a upper stage since they're
Expendable uh every you know twice a
month you need to do one every two weeks
so you need to be you need to have all
of your manufacturing facilities and
processes and inspection techniques and
acceptance tests and everything
operating at rate and rate manufacturing
is at least as difficult
as designing the vehicle in the first
place and the same thing so every every
uh uh upper stage has two b3u engines so
those engines you know you need if
you're going to launch this the vehicle
twice a month you need four engines a
month so you need an engine every week
so you need to be that engine needs to
be being produced at rate and and that's
a um and there's all the things that you
need to do that all the right Machine
Tools all the right fixtures uh the
right people process Etc
so it's one thing to build a first
article right so that's you know we to
launch new Glenn for the first time you
need to produce a first article but
that's not the hard part the hard part
is everything that's going on behind the
scenes to build a factory that can
produce new glends at rate so the first
one is produced in a way that's enables
the production of the second third and
the fourth and the fifth and sixth you
could think of the first article as kind
of pushing it it pushes all of the rate
manufacturing uh technology along you
know in other words it's kind of the uh
you know it's the test article in a way
that's testing out your your
Manufacturing Technologies the
manufacturing is the Big Challenge yes I
mean I don't want to make it sound like
any of it is easy I mean the people who
are designning the engines and all this
so all of it is hard um for sure but the
but the challenge right now is driving
really hard to get to uh is to get to
rate manufacturing and to do that in an
efficient way again kind of back to our
cost point if you get to rate
Manufacturing in an inefficient way you
haven't really solved the cost problem
and maybe you're haven't really moved
the state-ofthe-art forward all this has
to be about moving the state-ofthe-art
forward there are easier easier
businesses to do I always tell people
look if you are trying to make money you
know like start a salty snack food
company or or something you know you you
write that idea
down like make the Lex Friedman potato
chips you know this don't don't say it
the people going to steal
it but yeah it's hard you see what I'm
saying it's like there's nothing easy
about this business and um but but it's
its own reward it's it's it's uh it's
fascinating it's worthwhile it's
meaningful and so you know I you know
not I don't want to pick on salty snack
food companies but I think it's it's
less meaningful you know at the end of
the day you're not going to you're not
going to have accomplished something
amazing yeah there's even if you do make
a lot of money out it yeah there's
something fundamentally different about
the quote unquote business of space
exploration yeah it's for sure it's a
grand project of humanity yes it's one
of Humanity's Grand challenges and
especially as you look at going to the
moon and going to Mars and building
giant O'Neal colonies and unlocking all
the things I you know I won't live long
enough to see the fruits of this but the
fruits of this come from building a road
to space getting the
infrastructure I give you an analogy
when I started Amazon I didn't have to
develop a payment system it already
existed it was called the credit card I
didn't have to develop a transportation
system to deliver the packages it
already existed it was called the postal
service and Royal May and Deutsche Post
and so on so all this heavy lifting
infrastructure was already in place and
I could stand on its
shoulders and that's why when you look
at the internet um you know by the way
another giant piece of infrastructure
that was around in the early I'm taking
you back to like
1994 people were using dialup modems and
it was piggybacking on top of the
long-distance phone network that's how
the internet that's you know how people
were accessing servers and so on and
that again if if that hadn't existed it
would have been hundreds of billions of
capex to put that out there no startup
company could have done that and so the
problem you know you see in if you look
at the dynamism in the Internet space
over the last 20 years it's because you
know you see like two kids in a dorm
room could start an Internet company
that could be successful and do amazing
things because they didn't have to build
heavy infrastructure it was already
there and that's what I want to do I
take you know my Amazon winnings and use
that to build heavy infrastructure so
the Next
Generation you know my the generation
that's my children and their children
these you know th those Generations can
then use that heavy infrastructure then
there'll be space entrepreneurs Who
start in their dorm room yeah like that
that will be a marker of success
when you can have a really valuable
space company started in a dorm room
then we know that we've built enough
infrastructure so the Ingenuity and
Imagination can really be Unleashed I
find that very exciting as they will of
course as kids do uh take all of this
hard infrastructure ability for granted
of course which is the entrepreneurial
Spirit that's a um an inventor's
greatest dream is that their inventions
are so successful that they are one day
taken for granted you know nobody thinks
of Amazon as an invention anymore nobody
thinks of customer reviews as an we
pioneered customer views but now they're
so commonplace same thing with oneclick
shopping and so on but that's a
compliment that's how you know you you
you invent something that's so used so
beneficially used by so many people that
they take it for granted I don't know
about nobody I every time I use Amazon
I'm still amazed how does this work the
logistics that proves you're a very
curious Explorer all right all right
back to Rockets
timeline you said
2024 uh as it stands now are both the
first test launch and the launch of
Escapade explorers Tom Mars still
possible in 2024 yeah I think so um for
sure the first launch and then we'll see
if if Escapade goes on that or not I
think that the first launch for sure and
I hope Escapade too hope well I just
don't know which Miss it's it's actually
going to be slated on so we also have
other things that might go on that first
mission oh I got it but you're
optimistic that uh the launches will
still oh the first launch I'm very
optimistic that the first launch of new
Glenn will be in 2024 and I'm just not
100% certain what payload will be on
that first launch are you nervous about
it are you kidding I'm extremely nervous
about
it oh man 100% I've you know every uh
every launch I go to you know for new
Shepard for other vehicles too I'm
always nervous for these launches but
yes for sure a first launch to have no
nervousness about that would be you know
some sign of derangement I think so well
I got to visit the launch but it's
pretty um I mean it's epic you know we
have done a tremendous amount of ground
testing a tremendous amount of uh
simulation so uh you know a lot of the
problems that we might find in Flight
have been resolved but there are some
problems you can only find in flight so
you know cross your fingers uh I
guarantee you you'll uh you'll have fun
watching it no matter what happens 100%
when the thing is fully assembled and
comes up yeah the the transporter
erector just the transporter erector for
a rocket of this scale is extraordinary
that's an incredible machine vehicle uh
travels out horizontally and then kind
of yeah you know comes up over a few
hours yeah it's a beautiful thing to
watch uh speaking of which if that makes
you nervous I don't know if you
remember but you uh were aboard a new
Shepherd on this first crude
flight uh how was that experience were
you were you terrified then you know
Strangely I wasn't you know I you ride
the
rocket okay watched other people ride in
the rocket and I'm more nervous than
when I was inside the rocket
myself um it was a difficult
conversation to have with my mother uh
when I told her I was going to go on the
first one and Not only was I going to go
but I was going to bring my brother too
this is a tough conversation to have
with a mom and there's a long pause told
her she like both of you um
H it was an incredible experience and we
were we were were laughing in inside the
capsule and you know were not
nervous um the people on the ground were
very nervous for us um U it was actually
one of the most emotionally powerful
parts of the experience was not happened
even before the flight at 4:30 in the
morning brother and I are getting ready
to go to the launch site and Lauren is
going to take us there in her helicopter
and we're getting ready to leave and we
go outside outside the ranch house there
in West Texas where the launch facility
is and all of our family my kids and my
brother's kids and our you know our
our parents and uh close friends are
assembled there and they're saying
goodbye to us but they're kind of saying
maybe they think they're saying goodbye
to us
forever and you know we might not have
felt that way but it was obvious from
their faces how nervous they were that
they felt that way and it was sort of
powerful because it allowed us to see it
was almost like attending your own
memorial service or something like you
could feel how loved you were in that
moment um and it was uh it was really
amazing yeah and I mean there's just a
epic nature to it too the asent the
floating of zero gravity I'll tell you
something very interesting zero gravity
feels very natural I don't know if it's
because we you know it's like return to
the womb it just confirmed You're an
Alien but
that's I think that's what I think
that's what you just said feels so
natural to be in Zurg it was really
interesting and then what people talk
about the overview effect and seeing
Earth from space I had that feeling very
powerfully I think everyone did um you
see how fragile the Earth is if you're
not an environmentalist it will make you
one uh the the great Jim level quote you
know he looked back at the Earth from
space and he said he realized you don't
go to heaven when you die you go to
heaven when you're born and it's just
you know that's the feeling that people
get when they're in space you see all
this Blackness all this nothingness and
there's one Gem of life and it's Earth
it is a gem uh what you know you're
you've talked a lot about decision-
making throughout your time with Amazon
what was that decision like to uh to
ride to be the first to ride your
Shepherd like what just be before you
talk to your mom yeah what what like the
pros and cons like actually as one human
being as a as a leader of a
company um on all fronts like what was
that decision make you like I decided
that first of all I knew the vehicle
extremely well I know the team who built
it I know the
vehicle um the uh I'm very comfortable
with the like the Escape system we put
as much effort into the Escape system on
that vehicle as we put into all the rest
of the vehicle combined it's one of the
hardest pieces of Engineering in the
entire new Shepard architecture can you
actually describe what do you mean by
Escape system what's involved we have a
solid rocket motor in the base of the
crew capsule so that if anything goes
wrong on
asent you know while the main rocket
engine is fired
Ing we can ignite this solid rocket
motor in the base of the crew capsule
and escape from the booster it's a very
challenging system to build design
validate test all of these things it is
the reason that I am comfortable letting
anyone go on new Shephard so the the the
booster is as safe and reliable as we
can make it but um we are harnessing
whenever you're talking about rocket
engines I don't care what rocket engine
you're talking about you are harnessing
such vast power in such a small compact
geometric space the power density is so
enormous that it is impossible to ever
be sure that nothing will go wrong and
so the only way to um improve safety is
to have an escape system and you know
and
historically Rockets human rated Rockets
have had Escape systems only the space
shuttle did not and um but Apollo had
one um the you know um all of the
previous you know Gemini Etc they all
had Escape
systems and uh we have on new Shephard
unusual escapes most Escape systems are
Towers we have a pusher Escape system so
the solid rocket motor is actually
embedded in the base of the crew capsule
and it pushes and it's reusable in the
sense that if we don't use it so if we
have a nominal Mission we land with it
the tower systems have to be ejected at
a certain point in the mission and so
they get wasted even in a nominal
Mission and so again you know costs
really matters on these things so we
figured out how to have the Escape
system be a reusable uh in the event
that it's not used you can reuse it um
and have it be a pusher system it's a
very sophisticated thing so I knew these
things you asked me about my decision to
go and so I know the vehicle very well I
know the people who uh designed it I
have great trust in them um and in the
engineering that we did uh and I thought
to myself look if I am not ready to go
then I wouldn't want anyone to go a
tourism vehicle has to be designed in my
view to have very to be a safe as one
can make it you can't make it perfectly
safe it's
impossible but you know you know you
have to you people will do things people
take risk you know they climb mountains
they you know they Skydive they you know
do deep underwater scuba diving and so
on people are okay taking risk you can't
eliminate the risk but it is something
because it's a tourism vehicle you have
to do your utmost to eliminate those
risks and I felt very good about the
system I think it's one of the reasons I
was so
calm inside and maybe others were just
calm they didn't know as much about it
as I did who was in charge of engaging
the Escape system did you have it's
automated okay the Escape system is
visualizing is completely automated
automated is better because it can react
so much faster so yeah for for tourism
Rockets safety is a huge huge huge
priority for space exploration also but
a a tin you know a Delta less yes I mean
I think for you know if you're doing you
know there are human activities where we
tolerate more risk if you're saving
somebody's life you know it um if you
are you know engagin