Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in September 2020. Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket carried a crew capsule 66 miles into space and successfully landed.
The objective of the New Shepard is to provide safe and reliable space travel.
Numerous investors have shown interest in Blue Origin after demonstrating a reusable rocket similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9.
Blue Origin is a private spaceflight firm founded and led by Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). The tech mogul started the corporation in 2000 to lower the cost of space travel and accelerate our solar system's exploration.
Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, is the company's leader. The firm is competing against competitors such as SpaceX, the private space corporation launched by Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), and Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), the space tourism company founded by billionaire Richard Branson. In October 2019, Virgin Galactic began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bezos has expressed his intention to invest at least $1 billion annually in the spaceflight enterprise. That money has come from his Amazon interests, which account for the great bulk of his riches.
Between 2017 and 2018, Bezos sold approximately $2 billion worth of Amazon stock in three deals to fund Blue Origin. "Every time you purchase shoes, you're contributing to the funding of Blue Origin, so thank you," he told Amazon consumers at a February 2019 event. "I am quite appreciative."
Who Is the Owner of Blue Origin?
Blue Origin is a privately held enterprise founded by Jeff Bezos.
The business was founded in 2000 by the former CEO of Amazon to investigate next-generation spaceflight technology.
When Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, he said that one of his future intentions would be to concentrate more closely on Blue Origin.
The history of Blue Origin
Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin is the brainchild of the guy who founded Amazon.
Bezos has been fascinated by space and orbital travel from a young age, and in 1999, he took a risk and discreetly founded a space corporation.
The firm started with ten workers in Kent, Washington. The public was unaware of the company's existence until 2003 when Bezos started acquiring property in Texas for the company's usage.
Bezos started openly discussing the initiative in 2005.
He expressed his ambition to develop vertical takeoff and land reusable launch vehicles, claiming that the present space exploration technique was too costly due to the use of pricey disposable rocket boosters.
He also introduced the world to the New Shepard rocket, one of his envisioned reusable launch vehicles. who intended to assist in lowering the cost of spaceflight and increasing the accessibility of space travel.
Bezos also discussed his desire to make human travel of the solar system a feasible effort.
In 2008, the space corporation released plans and timelines for the New Shepard, saying that unmanned flights would begin in 2011 and human flights would begin in 2012. The intentions were audacious, as one would expect from someone who helped build Amazon.
By 2011, Jeff Bezos had made his ambition for the firm public, indicating that he wanted to enable space research and commercialize space travel, offering consumers the opportunity to fly into space on the New Shepard.
His objective was quite clear: to reduce the expense of space travel while boosting its safety.
Companies specializing in space technology, such as Blue Origin and SpaceX, have made enormous strides in recent years.
However, such businesses have not shown their ability to generate revenue. One reason SpaceX and Blue Origin have remained private is that their founders are more concerned with space travel than with profit.
Jeff Bezos earns as much money as he wants from Amazon (AMZN). I believe Bezos considers Blue Origin as a charity endeavor aimed at benefiting mankind rather than a for-profit enterprise.
As a result, investors must contemplate the likelihood that Blue Origin may never earn a profit and that Bezos would be unconcerned. Blue Origin is more than two decades old; Bezos founded it in 2000, and there is no hint of an initial public offering. I believe the absence of an initial public offering demonstrates that Bezos' purpose at Blue Origin is not financial gain.
Investors interested in space should disregard Blue Origin and focus on publicly listed aerospace companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop-Grumman. Investors may profit from space exploration but not from Blue Origin.
Blue Origin, like SpaceX, is now a privately owned and run enterprise. There are currently no intentions to list on a publicly listed stock exchange. As a consequence, there is no stock in Blue Origin. The closest you can get to investing in a firm like Blue Origin is to purchase shares of Amazon since the two are connected via Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
The closest you can go to supporting a business is by purchasing things on Amazon's eCommerce site. Indeed, Bezos has indicated that Blue Origin is entirely supported by the proceeds from the sale of part of his Amazon stock.
Whichever is the case, there is currently no direct method to invest in Bezos' outer space project. As a result, it's impossible to predict how Blue Origin stock would fare if it were publicly listed.
Is Blue Origin publicly traded?
No, Blue Origin remains a privately held company. Blue Origin is not a publicly listed firm, which means that its stock cannot be purchased directly on stock markets. Blue Origin is backed and controlled by Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon and the world's wealthiest person. Blue Origin is an aeronautical firm headquartered in Kent, Washington. Jeff Bezos owns 100% of Blue Origin, which means the corporation is independent of Amazon.
Until Blue Origin files for an initial public offering, it is difficult to predict the stock's legal name. However, since Bezos started the firm in 2000, it has functioned under the same name. Blue Origin lacks a ticker symbol. In the case of an initial public offering, the firm will be listed on its preferred stock market. Certainty is one thing.
The ticker symbol for Blue Origin will not be BLUE since that symbol has been reserved by a firm named bluebird bio. With little more to go on, it's reasonable to infer that the company's public version would keep the Blue Origin moniker.
How much does Blue Origin stock cost?
Any Blue Origin stock price is completely speculative since there are no plans for an initial public offering. Bezos has no need to divulge Blue Origin's financials in the absence of an IPO strategy. Boeing Company (NYSE: BA), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), and Northrop Grumman are all publicly listed firms that build space capsules and rockets (NYSE: NOC).
Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin are poor benchmarks for Blue Origin because of their diverse income streams. Boeing makes commercial aircraft, while Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are significant military contractors that create a variety of planes and armaments. Boeing is also a significant military contractor and a manufacturer of freight planes.
Bezos, the primary investor in Blue Origin, controls a corporation that is a significant Boeing client. Prime Air, a subsidiary of Amazon, leases Boeing cargo planes from Air Transport Services Group. In April 2020, Amazon operated more than 80 freight flights. As a result, Bezos is a Boeing client as well as a Boeing rival.
Blue Origin has no intention of issuing a public offering (IPO). Bezos has made no public statements about an IPO. A Blue Origin initial public offering appears doubtful between 2021 and 2022 since Bezos will be the world's wealthiest man on November 11, 2020, with a fortune of $184.1 billion. Bezos supplies the majority of Blue Origin's finance, and he has the ability to invest large sums in the firm.
SpaceX vs. Blue Origin
Space stocks are gaining popularity as the race to space continues. As a result, it's unsurprising that investors are searching for a Blue Origin initial public offering. Former President Trump launched the Artemis mission to the moon in order to return humans to the moon. He also laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Space Force, the armed forces' sixth branch.
Analysts were unsure if these initiatives would continue under President Biden's new government. However, it looks as if Trump's space projects were two initiatives that Biden might support. The White House has said that it will continue to support these initiatives. Additionally, the global space sector is expected to reach a value of $1 trillion by 2040.
Blue Origin lags behind its competitor. SpaceX has previously successfully launched a rocket that will carry passengers to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020. Additionally, it has been using its reusable rockets to deliver cargo to the ISS.
Bezos' business is collaborating with Amazon on Project Kuiper, a constellation of satellites that will offer internet access to distant parts of the planet. Does this sound familiar? That is because SpaceX is already well on its way to achieving this goal via its subsidiary, Starlink. Indeed, investors may get a Starlink initial public offering before a Blue Origin offering since the project has already launched over 1,300 satellites and is accepting orders and pre-orders for its service.
Investors are compelled to make comparisons between the two firms. They share a lot of the same objectives — but use quite different tactics. Blue Origin's cautious strategy, on the other hand, may keep it behind rivals like Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE).
Blue Origin's Future
As previously mentioned, Bezos intends to utilize Blue Origin to reduce the cost and complexity of commercial space travel by recycling rockets. Bezos and his crew want to link a passenger capsule to a booster rocket and launch it into suborbital space from 62 miles above the Earth's surface.
While there, the capsule will separate from the remainder of the rocket, providing passengers with around four minutes of weightlessness. Before the capsule starts to descend back into the atmosphere, Blue Origin will enable passengers to unbuckle their seat belts, float about the cabin, and stare out the window at the Earth's curvature. Parachutes will then be deployed to gradually lower the capsule.
According to insiders close to Blue Origin, the whole journey will take around 11 minutes, with a ticket on the company's New Shepard passenger rocket estimated to cost more than $200,000, or more than $18,000 per minute. The New Shepard is intended to transport up to six passengers and has done well in all of its testing so far.
Bezos has said that he planned to launch the first space tourism mission in 2017. However, owing to delays, the plan has been put back till at least 2020.
Additionally, Blue Origin is developing a new rocket dubbed the New Glenn. According to the corporation, the New Glenn will be strong enough to carry out more demanding tasks, such as orbiting satellites.
Additionally, Blue Origin is hard at work developing its rocket engines, which will power both the New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur. The engine business is one of Blue Origin's initial income streams and a significant basis for the company's $200 million investment in a 200,000-square-foot engine complex in Huntsville, Alabama.
Invest a Space Investment Businesses such as Blue Origin
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE: SPCE)
Virgin Galactic, another significant participant in the global space business, is a publicly listed company that may be worth investing in.
This business, founded in 2004, was another early entrant into the aerospace sector.
Its primary mission is to provide suborbital flights and space tourism.
By 2021, the business will have conducted two human test flights.
In 2018, the first test sent two pilots to a height of 82.7 kilometers, officially putting them in outer space.
Two pilots and a passenger were on board the second flight.
The passenger floated in the cabin during the journey, exhibiting the weightlessness experienced at the aircraft's altitude.
Boeing (NYSE: BA)
Boeing (BA) is constructing the Starliner, a 21st Century Space Capsule that NASA intends to deploy on future voyages to the International Space Station (ISS).
Boeing and NASA astronauts will travel to the International Space Station aboard the Starliner. The Starliner, unlike the SpaceX Dragon, has never transported humans into space. NASA has set a 2021 launch date for a manned Starliner mission.
The Starliner test has been postponed multiple times due to coronavirus and other complications. In December 2019, during the maiden test flight, an unmanned Starliner veered off course and burnt up in orbit. Boeing is resurrecting the Starliner in order to avert another disaster.
Boeing is facing several challenges, including the collapse of air travel and airlines, as well as accidents of their 787 Dreamliner aircraft. According to The Guardian, a coronavirus pandemic might force Boeing to lose 30,000 employees by 2020.
Boeing's famed 747-8 jumbo aircraft will cease manufacturing in 2022 due to the travel industry's downfall. Instead, the business will concentrate on developing more fuel-efficient next-generation airliners.
Boeing is the only commercial space corporation with a capsule capable of competing with SpaceX's Crew Dragon. While Boeing's Starliner is an unknown and untested technology, space capsules are a well-established technology.
For over 50 years, the Russians have flown space capsules without incident. Boeing's Starliner images mimic America's famous Mercury capsules that carried John Glenn and Alan Shepard into space.
Boeing has a lengthy history of developing sophisticated vehicles, including commercial aircraft, rockets, missiles, and satellites. They created Boeing in 1916, giving it a far longer history than SpaceX.
Contrarian investors may purchase Boeing if they believe the aviation sector will rebound as a result of the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Such a rehabilitation might take many years or perhaps longer if individuals are fearful of traveling.
Additionally, I believe that certain nations may face political pressure to maintain travel restrictions and quarantines after the epidemic. Brexit in the United Kingdom and Donald Trump's election victory in the United States demonstrate that anti-internationalism was increasing prior to the coronavirus. I believe that antipathy against travel will be far stronger after the epidemic.
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)
Lockheed Martin is a member of Blue Origin's National Team, which is developing NASA's Human Landing System (HLS) lunar module.
Lockheed Martin (LMT) is involved in a variety of space projects, most notably the OSIRIS-Rex asteroid tagging mission. The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft touched down on the surface of asteroid Bennu, collected samples then flew away. Lockheed Martin's TAGSAM technology is critical to the mission's success.
United Launch Alliance is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing (BA) (ULA). United Launch Alliance is responsible for the development and sending of the Delta and Atlas rockets used to launch satellites into space. Boeing's Starliner space capsule will be sent into orbit by a United Launch Alliance rocket.
Lockheed Martin will establish its own rocket facility on Florida's Space Coast near Titusville to support NASA. According to Bizjournals, Lockheed Martin's space business increased revenues by 6% to $2.85 billion in the third quarter of 2020.
Lockheed Martin is a prominent manufacturer of aircraft, including fighter jets, helicopters, airships, drones, and freight planes. Lockheed Martin, which manufactures cargo aircraft, might benefit from the rise of Amazon (AMZN) and e-commerce.
Final Remarks
Blue Origin is not publicly traded at the time, and it does not seem to be in the process of filing for an initial public offering. Blue Origin has been mostly sponsored by Jeff Bezos, who has maintained the company's secrecy and supported it with his own money. Despite the fact that Blue Origin stock is now unavailable, it is projected to become accessible in the near future as interest in space travel continues to increase.
Real-time News
