They’re calling it the “most dramatic and powerful rocket explosion since the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket was destroyed during a launch attempt in 1969.”
“We experienced an anomaly during today’s hotfire test,” Blue Origin announced on X. “All personnel have been accounted for.”
The premature fireworks happened just days after NASA awarded Bezos’ space company a contract worth up to $468 million to take its rovers to the moon. The New Glenn rocket, named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth, was going to be central to that effort. The 322-feet tall structure will reportedly take months to repair, delaying NASA’s already tight deadlines further as a full investigation into what went wrong gets underway.
“Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly,” Elon Musk wrote on X.
The viral launch misfire occurred the same month Bezos praised President Donald Trump and defended billionaires, arguing that taxing his roughly $275 billion fortune more wouldn’t do anything to help a nurse in Queens. He suggested people who are poor should just start selling chicken sandwiches.
“The way … you make $1 billion, or $100 million or $10 million or anything, is you create a service that people love, and if millions of people choose your service, you’re going to end up with a billion dollars,” Bezos told CNBC. “Just try it with a chicken franchise.”