The space venture of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is getting close to flying its first astronauts and the billionaire founder is feeling the significance of the company's ambition.
Blue Origin successfully completed its 10th flight on Wednesday. The company's livestream showed a video of Bezos speaking during the "Flight Readiness Review" of Blue Origin's ninth mission in July.
Here's what Bezos said to his employees:
"This flight is getting us so close to putting humans in space. It's a really important flight from that point of view and I just want to ask you guys, while you're doing all this tomorrow, to take a moment and not forget to reflect on the meaning and the beauty of what you're doing. So you'll be doing all the checklists and you'll be doing everything professionally but, also, step back a little bit and think about that. We're getting very close. I'm incredibly proud of this entire team. Go get 'em."
After the successful launch, the video shows Bezos cracking open the door of New Shepard's capsule.
"That never gets old," Bezos can be heard saying as the door opens.
Blue Origin's most recent mission sent eight NASA research and development experiments into space, with both the rocket's booster and capsule returning to land on Earth. Blue Origin, which Bezos founded nearly two decades ago, is developing the New Shepard rocket system for the company's space tourism business. Six passengers would ride past the edge of space, where they would spend about 10 minutes floating in zero gravity before returning back to Earth. The capsule features massive windows, providing expansive views of the Earth once in space.