Elon Musk's SpaceX made history late last year when they successfully launched a Falcon 9 in space and landed it safely back on Earth. Musk has since decided to decommission the Falcon 9 used last December deeming it as such an important part of history to be used again.
More recently, another company seems to be chiming in on developing a reusable rocket. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin successfully relaunch and landed the same New Shepard rocket the company deployed for a suborbital mission last November. The occasion marks the first time a rocket has completed two missions.
"I'm a huge fan of rocket-powered vertical landing. To achieve our vision of millions of people living and working in space, we will need to build very large rocket boosters. And the vertical landing (system) scales extraordinarily well" explained Jeff Bezos.
Unlike the Falcon 9 which is designed to carry cargo, Blue Origin's new Shepard rocket and capsule is capable of carrying up to six passengers. Furthermore, Blue Origin's rockets are only able to fly a suborbital distance.
Bezos has since reassured interested parties that his company is trying to develop bigger and more powerful rockets that would send passengers to space. According to him, the company is already in the thick of research and it is only a matter of time before they unveil their new space faring rocket.
"We're already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle. Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it's still many times larger than New Shepard. I hope to share details about this first orbital vehicle this year" said Bezos in a blog post.
Likewise, SpaceX are in the midst of planning to modify their Falcon 9 rocket in order to accommodate a human crew. Currently, their prototype is dubbed as the "Dragon 2."
