Closing Bell - Manifest Space: New Glenn’s Maiden Flight with Blue Origin CEO David Limp 1/13/25

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

A decade in the making, Jeff Bezos' powerful orbital rocket New Glenn is poised to make its maiden flight. Standing 32 stories tall and packing more than twice the thrust of SpaceX's Falcon 9, Blue Origin's heavy lift rocket will launch uncrewed from Florida's Space Coast as soon as Monday morning. The mission is ambitious. New Glenn will fly another company creation, a Blue Ring space tug pathfinder, to orbit. And since it's designed to be partially reusable, Blue Origin will also attempt to land its first stage booster on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean. On the eve of the launch from the rocket factory just outside of Kennedy Space

Center, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp laid out the high stakes. We're trying to build a road to space and to do that we have to lower the cost as I mentioned to space and there have been literally thousands of people inside of Blue working on this for the past eight, seven, eight years and it's a big moment for us you know it to be able to see the first launch here and you know we're hoping to get to orbit. We would consider that a success. And everything on paper and our simulations and our tests

say that we're going to be able to do that. But we're also audaciously trying to land the vehicle onto the barge. That would be icing on the cake if we were able to make that happen. New Glenn is key to unlocking Bezos' vision of millions of humans living and working in space with heavy industry transferred off of Earth. Blue Origin is also developing commercial space stations and lunar landers, but the rocket will unlock the access to space. Other customers, ranging from NASA and the Space Force to sister company Amazon, are also signed up for launches. So New Glenn becomes a foundation because it brings

the price down for a kilogram to any of those locations whether it be low Earth orbit for a space station, the moon for our lunar vehicle which you saw when you walked in the lobby today. We want to be able to take payloads and eventually people back to the moon and to do that we just have to lower the cost so that we can do it over and over again in a reliable way. And it looks more like flying airliners than it does look like traditional aerospace in the 60s. On this episode, a rare interview in a rare factory visit with the CEO of Blue Origin about this highly anticipated first flight, how he sees competition evolving with market-dominating rival SpaceX,

and the long-term plan for the company with a, quote, shareholder of one. I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is Manifest Space. Joining me now, Dave Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, on the eve of New Glenn's maiden flight. Such a big moment, a decade in the making. I want to get into the details of that, but first, just the fact that we're standing inside the rocket factory. This is a rare interview inside this rocket factory. Tell me a little bit about what's behind us. It is an actual rocket factory, and you're seeing the main floor, which is where we build the boosters and the second stage.

So we have booster number two. Obviously, booster number one's out on the pad, and I think right now we have probably seven or eight second stages in various forms of production right now and we're just trying to increase the rate of manufacturing because the best thing to do is to be able to build these rockets fast and in high quality and you do that by building the machine that makes the machine, in this case the factory. How automated is it? It's pretty automated, especially the feeder shops, because when you're building rockets in a new way to lower the cost, and we have to take one or two orders of magnitude out

of the cost of rockets, you have to be very vertically integrated. So we make the valves, we make the batteries, we make the avionics, and it's all vertically integrated and it comes to the, and that's all very automated and it comes to the fruition here in final assembly of the actual boosters. Okay, before we get to this milestone moment, just one more question on this and that is as New Glenn gets operational and as this factory gets fully up and running and the full, I guess, promise is realized, how many rockets will you be able to crank out of here in a year? Oh, I think we're going to be able to, over time, get to 48 second stages a year. Now, that's probably take us a couple of years to get to that rate. And, you know, the boosters are reusable. So at some point, we will not have to build as many boosters. But I think we can do, you know, three, four a year easily, if not more.

So let's talk about this key moment. As I mentioned, a decade in the making. What's at stake with this first launch of New Glenn, both for the company and also for this broader, longer-term vision of the company's founder, Jeff Bezos? Yeah, you know, we're trying to build a road to space. And to do that, we have to lower the cost, as I mentioned, to space. And there have been literally thousands of people inside of Blue working on this for the past eight, seven, eight years. And it's a big moment for us, you know,

to be able to see the first launch here. And, you know, we're hoping to get to orbit. We would consider that a success and everything on paper and our simulations and our tests say that we're gonna be able to do that. But we're also audaciously trying to land the vehicle onto the barge. That would be icing on the cake if we were able to make that happen, but we're going to give it a shot. Yeah, and you're flying the pathfinder of another Blue Origin creation, which is

your space tug Blue Ring. But to your point, reusability, it's key to how this rocket of the booster, it's key to how this rocket was designed. Nobody, including SpaceX, has been able to land a booster on the first Nobody, including SpaceX, has been able to land a booster on the first try. In fact, it took them a number of years. So given the fact this is a very ambitious goal, how confident are you in it and how key is that realization of reusability to the business model for the rocket? Well, reusability is absolutely critical to the business model. That's foundational. And even if we're not successful on this first flight,

over time, we'll figure out how to land it. We land our tourism rocket, New Shepard, and so it's a tractable problem. Whether we get it right the first time, there's some new things that we can't test on the ground and we'll see. That being said, I would say that we wouldn't try to land on the barge if we didn't think

there was a good shot at it. It's certainly not up there with what we think the mission success to orbit is, but we, you know, we're going to, we're going to give it a shot and I guarantee excitement for sure. You know. Yeah. Can't wait to watch this. Yeah. This does inject new Glenn coming into the market, injects a new powerful rocket into a launch market that has been largely dominated by SpaceX. How quickly can you ramp launches and how competitive can you be? Well, I think the ramping is just a function of the factories. And so, you know, I spend a lot of time here. We build our engines in Huntsville. And I think in the past year, we've made a lot of progress on ramping up our manufacturing. And

we have to continue to make progress each year to get to kind of rates that we're going to need to, to satisfy the demand that I think that's out there for space. And as it relates to SpaceX or any other provider, I think people underestimate how big the market for space is going to be. As the price comes down, you see this in every industry, when the price comes down, innovation and demand goes way up. And so I don't think it's going to be like a sporting event where there's going to be one winner here, even though that might make a good headline. I think SpaceX is going to be successful. We're going to be successful. You'll see new companies that haven't even thought up yet be successful. And I just, you know, personally as a space enthusiast, I'm just excited that space is

successful in general. So more demand than capacity you see for the foreseeable future. That's been the case for a long time, and I think that's going to continue to be the case in the foreseeable future as people innovate in ways that we just haven't thought about. Just if you think about today, that there are now thousands of satellites circling the Earth, if you had said that 10 years ago that that was going to be the new normal, you would have been called a heretic. And I think in 5 years hence or 10 years hence, it'll be tens of thousands of satellites.

And to make that happen, we need lots of great launch vehicles, and I think New Glenn is the top of that list. How does New Glenn unlock some of the other businesses that Blue Origin is working on, including commercial space stations and a lunar lander? Yeah, you know, most of the physics of space was solved in the late 50s and early 60s. It just was super expensive. So New Glenn becomes a foundation because it brings the price down for a kilogram to any of those locations, whether it be low Earth orbit for a space station, the moon for our lunar vehicle, which you saw when you walked in the lobby today.

We want to be able to take payloads and eventually people back to the moon. And to do that, we just have to lower the cost so that we can do it over and over again in a reliable way. And it looks more like flying airliners than it does look like traditional aerospace in the 60s. We're a week out from inauguration. What are your expectations for space policy from the incoming Trump administration? I'm optimistic. You know, if you go back to the first Trump administration, they did a lot of good for space. They created the Space Force. They were very, very proactive with

the Space Council. They gave the first lunar commercial contract for space through NASA. And so those are things that are still continuing today that have been really boons to the U.S., and I think they'll continue that momentum. What's different this time around, though, is that, you know, one of your rivals, one of Blue Origin's rivals, SpaceX's founder and CEO Elon Musk, has the ear of the incoming president. He's got a role in this administration through Doge. How do you navigate that? What does that mean? Well, you know, I think Elon has been very forthright saying that, you know, he is doing it for the public good, whether it be Doge or his other work. And he's not trying to,

you know, put his thumb on the scale of his own private companies. And I take him at his word. And I think it's going to be great. So we'll see how it goes, but I'm optimistic. So when you look at all of the businesses of Blue Origin, whether it's New Glenn, New Shepard with a space tourism business, Blue Ring with a space tug, commercial space stations, Lunar Lander, how do you see this portfolio evolving? Where do you see the most opportunity, the most demand both in

near term and long term? Well, you know the mission of the company is to build a road to space for millions of people in the future and that allows us to take this pristine planet we have here and turn it into you know light industry and parks and move that heavy industry off the planet. That's generations ahead but I feel like our opportunity here and the thousands of other people at Blue that we're gonna build that foundation. So it means build engines that are very low cost,

that are very efficient. It means build boosters that can lower the price of tonnage to any orbit or to the moon or to Mars or other planets. And if we can do that, then we build this foundation that allows entrepreneurs to rethink about how space can be used. And you don't have to worry about the core infrastructure anymore. You just have to worry about the applications you want to

build on top of that. And that could be compute in space. That could be farms in space, that could be power in space. The ideas are endless. Is there a scenario in which Blue Origin opens up to outside investment or outside capital? I don't think I'm going to touch on that one today. We have a very good shareholder, one shareholder in Jeff, and he's super involved day to day. I mean, this is his full-time job, so better question for him over time. You've been here, you came here a little over a year ago from sister company, Amazon, where you ran devices and services. How has that transition been? And what have you brought from Amazon to this company in terms of culture change and operational change?

I think, you know, maybe three things where I've tried to help a little bit on the edges here, which is, you know, first, more customer centricity. You know, as we've moved from an R&D company to a company that's delivering on services, that, you know, I want to put the customer front and center. They are divinely discontent. They push you. You never satisfy them. And so putting them front and center and delivering on their behalf, I think, is really important. I think, secondly,. I think secondly,

decisiveness. Jeff has said he wants to make this the most decisive company in the world. And so how do we add a little urgency here? How do we add some decisiveness to everything we do and make decisions faster and hence move a little bit faster? And then finally, just become a world class manufacturing company. I've said, I said it back when I was at Amazon. I said it when I was at Apple. Making the machine that makes the machine is often harder than making the thing itself. And so how to build a world-class factory, especially in one that's very vertically integrated, has a whole host of challenges. But I feel like we've made a huge amount of progress in the last 12 months.

We have more to do, but I think we've made great progress. Final question for you. When you were at Amazon, you stood up Project Kuiper, which is the broadband satellite constellation that's being developed that will rival Starlink and others. New Glenn will be used to launch some of those satellites. How quickly does that get deployed? Well, I think it's a function. Our contracts are in place,

and I think it's a function for Amazon to choose when they want to do it. If we have, I think, one or two successful missions and we show that New Glenn is a viable vehicle, we're open for business, and I hope that Andy and the rest of the Kuiper team come a-calling. Well, good luck. Congratulations. Godspeed. Thank you. And so great to speak to you on the eve of the maiden flight of New Glenn. Thank you so much, Dave Lemp, CEO of Blue Origin. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space.

Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.