As you just said, affordable access to space. That is one what we really need. But also for all the founders here in the room, what kind of what an amazing opportunity this will offer once there is affordable access to space. What kind of business models we can come up with that you yeah, you you can just that can fuel your your fantasy and and bring you new topics on that that is a huge opportunity, I think. It's all about an ecosystem play as we just talked about decentralized tech ecosystems and and and tech hubs that needs to align. But on the other hand, it's kind of even if there is a new basic technology like AI, like kind of topics like like space that opens up huge opportunities for either suppliers. There are kind of regular regulator topics. There might be lawyers be specialized in in topics that regulate um yeah, business models you cannot even think of um right now. So, I think also this shedding a light on the whatever comes up is a huge opportunity not only from a value and integrity perspective for um for Europe, but it's also a huge potential for economic growth, which also protect is kind of a foundation to protect our values slightly.
We have to come to an end, but I think very very important points that were raised here at the very end. And I think Alain, this is a fantastic example of what you are showing with your company that kind of speaks to the mindset topic Sebastian that you were mentioning before. It's not that we're just competing in the race. I think to give a European stamp, our own take on building smarter solution, not you know, burning cash like Open AI is at the moment. For example, the interoperability that you have, you know, a launcher agnostic system. That is something that makes it a lot smarter than maybe, you know, what the big corporates have built over the years. And if we think in what is that smartness USP that we can bring to the table, I think that combined with the European values that we have, this is really going to move the needle for us. Just not just competing with a lot of cash, you know, in in races that may ever not ever be won. This will be I don't know. Sebastian, do you
No, I mean um uh quickly, we have to choose our battles wisely. I mean, right now we're following we try to so oh, we missed out here, we missed out there. We need to identify what we want to do, where we want to go, and then focus on it and become the best in that field. And I think this is this is the most important and that's actually about sovereignty as well. We lost that for a long time. We have to acknowledge that we lived in a globalized world that was on trust, but a lot of trust relationships are not there anymore. So, now we are a little bit in panic. Oh my god, where we where do we get the chips? Where do we get the raw material and so forth? Or how do we get sovereignty? Well, not so easy right now, but in the future, yes, and it's just starting. AI is coming. The world will be turned upside down. In 2 years, maybe Anthropic is the is not working anymore because there's a new algorithm coming around. This is all possible. So, it's all about just picking your battles and focusing in and just growing the business from there.
And by the way, for example, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft has already built their own LLM. It's trained in 24 European languages, but people don't know about it. So, I'm like, this is such a smart much smaller, but better trained solution, you know? So, let's get the word out, you know?
Exactly. We invest a lot of AI, even large language models, and we're doing due diligence. And they said, 'Yeah, but you know, Anthropic is better.' And then the the The scientist says, 'Yes, but we have this and this.' It's It's a We have to believe in ourselves. There's something more coming and that's most important, let the founders found and start and support them, but the whole society, every company needs to give them contracts. The politics needs to celebrate them, celebrate entrepreneurship. I mean, it's a race. It's the race for the future and the race for our children that has been just started and it's it's it's it's fascinating to be in that time. You know, but we have to understand where that we are in this race and not just looking, oh, what's happening around us.
I think you just started the round of closing words. So, Jan, because this was like the call to action, I feel like from Sebastian. What would be your closing word, that one thing that we should really leave the stage with for audience?
Well, now I would love to start talking about quantum computing and explain to everybody how that works and what that will will bring to us and so on, but I think it's something much, much bigger. I think it's not about industry politics anymore. I think it's about technology politics and I think technology is the new currency we have. There are already countries which don't receive the fastest chips today, right? And when we now talk about sovereignty and for me sovereignty is to be able to survive without any help, right? And I think we as Europe and every country country has its own problems, usually old economy, far right politics and so on, right? But we somehow need to bring that together because that's the only possibility to survive and to build this this this small plant of sovereignty and do it. Yeah, I think do it is the main topic because we have everything.
Thank you. Very quickly, Helene and then Diva as we have to make room for actually Helene you could almost stay put here on the stage hey it's uh
It's another astronaut afterwards and Jeff Bezos following us here on this topic with the spaceship.
So perhaps um three very quick calls to action two are important for the whole ecosystem. The first one is we really need to work together. And it's true for politicians it's true for entrepreneurs. We are at the time because of the wars at our frontier where this is the moment to prove to our children and our citizens what Europe is about. And if we work only with this nationalism spirit we already experienced twice in Europe the horrors that this will bring. So let's please work together and this is not only true for politicians this is true for every entrepreneur every CEO. I had the choice to build a French company or a German company I decided to build a European company. It is by sharing dual use technologies together across countries that we will demonstrate to our children and the European citizens what Europe is about.
We need to get off stage.
Yeah I and I will yeah I will just close it out it's all about the ecosystem just to summarize it.
Fantastic. Thank you so much all of us this is your applause.
Thank you for having us VivaTech we wish you a fantastic day.
Want to get out of here?
I want to get out of
Okay. This is the session you are all waiting for. Uh and uh uh I I'm asking for a little bit of your attention. So, Vivatech started with a simple audacious idea. The future doesn't just built. Built by people bold enough to imagine it and stubborn enough to make it real. The founders, the risk-takers, the ones who look at impossible and hear not yet. Jeff Bezos is one of these people. A remarkable entrepreneur who started a simple idea of everything in store online with books. And you know what happened with Amazon. Now flying rockets to new frontiers and step-by-step, or ferociously, together with David Limp, they are building a new road to space with Blue Origin. Please join me in welcoming to the Vivatech stage in conversation with former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who helped save the Hubble Space Telescope, the CEO of Blue Origin, David Limp, and the founder of Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos. You will see a short film and immediately after that short film, they will be joining on stage.
We have a gift. This nearby body called the moon. But if we move out into the solar system, we have unlimited resources.
Man, that engine just started. All that energy that solar brought.
This is Blue Moon. It's a very large lander. It will be the largest lander to ever land on the moon. That opens up huge possibilities.
It'll soft land in precise way onto the lunar surface. None of this is easy. All of it is hard. There's still a lot of work to do and a lot of hard work to come.
Mark 1 is a Blue Origin funded mission. High risk, high reward.
Mark 2 is a complete Blue Origin solution. Very ambitious. Reliable, repeatable, low-cost access to the moon. We will now have lunar permanence.
It's time to go back to the moon. This time to stay.
Okay. Well, thank you very much for that warm welcome. Uh thanks Evan Jeff for having me join you up here on the stage. It's a real honor for me to be here with you guys. Uh we're going to start off with um talking about a little bit of what we saw in the video, anomalies and in-response resiliency. If you look across the history of space flight, you know, this is nothing new, right? There's been setbacks going back to Mercury, Apollo, Space Shuttle. I'm certainly familiar with those setbacks that we had. And from the outside, people might look at that and think of that as a failure. But for those of us on the inside, you know, in the industry, it's kind of part of the engineering development process. You know, you want to learn from it and and move on if you can. Um as we saw in the video a few weeks ago, you guys had had a setback. And uh now you're in the beginning phases of rebuilding your launch pad. What have you learned since? And how does the path forward look?
Well, let me start by saying that was a rough moment. Nobody likes that. It was a gut punch for the whole team. Uh but uh what we've learned since then is we got really lucky. Uh the some of the long lead items on the on the in the launch infrastructure were uh preserved. Uh the for example, the propellant tank farm, all the liquid hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, liquid oxygen, all those tanks. Those are you know, very long lead items, and and they were fortunate undamaged. The booster we had a booster in the integration facility, which is right there at the launch pad, and various pieces of structural missed the boosters. There was a lot of good luck in that incident. Uh you know, at in the big picture, kind of what you're saying, uh God knows how to appropriately price his goods, and uh space travel is hard, and it's worth it. And so, you know, we uh By the way, by the end of that incident, at the end of the day that that incident occurred, within 24 hours, completely spontaneously, the Blue Origin team, and this is a team of just incredible people, they were making themselves T-shirts that say, 'It's worth it.'
And uh I think the other thing is that we're busily rebuilding it. We we got lucky in another way. There was a construction crew just down the road, and so we brought in 400 pieces of heavy equipment, uh brought in uh construction workers. They were working 24/7, and so the pad has now been cleared of all the debris. It's it's amazing how quickly that's happened, and just yesterday we started the reconstruction, and uh I think you've said it best, we're going to fly this year.
Yeah. We'll fly before the end of the year.
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I I think what you said about your team uh is very meaningful. And I look back at my my time at NASA and you know, the highlights of course successful space flights. But when you look at the setbacks, the way you respond to them, you find out what your team is made of, right? You you don't find out necessarily in the good times, but in those times that are a little bit tougher and you guys have gotten got a great team and a lot of support from NASA on this and it sounds great with the plan moving forward. Jeff, I want to pick up on something you you you said um about that it's worth it. It's kind of like you're now, even though this happened, you're doubling down on it's worth it. When others might not have continued, right? Is you could also have decided not to move forward. Share with us your vision uh and why it is worth it to you.
Well, uh you know, what we're trying to do is build all the infrastructure so there can be a completely dynamic space economy. Uh today, the cost of admission to space is still very high. If you look back at what I witnessed in the internet space over the last, you know, two and a half decades, you saw an environment where because all this infrastructure existed, the global networks and so on and so on, very small companies could build very large enterprises. You know, two kids in a dorm room could build a giant company. And we want space to be like that. You want space to be this dynamic entrepreneurial place where two kids in a dorm room can build an incredible space company. And and that's that is going to happen. Uh you know, so the job of a company like Blue Origin is to help build the road to space, that heavy infrastructure so that many other companies can do incredible things. And there's so many resources in space. You're seeing that now with, you know, Leo constellations and the the potential for orbital compute. Uh we have the moon as a gift. It's right there. Uh and so we're we're working on all these things. We're We're We are uh we're building a lunar lander. We are uh, building a uh, working on in situ resource uh, project. So, we're learning how to build uh, solar cells out of lunar regolith. And and and there are many other initiatives that we're undertaking, but all of them are focused on building this infrastructure so that there can be dynamism in the space economy.
Yeah, so this is this is all great news and I'm so grateful you guys are moving forward learn with you. These are not things you'd want to have happen when you have an anomaly when you have a setback, it's uh,
They're They're going to happen.
They're going to happen. You don't want them to happen, but when they do happen, it's how you react to it.
It's how you you get you gives gives you a chance to gives the whole team a chance to show everyone who we are and what we're made of.
Right. Yeah, looking back years from now, I think.
And I the team at Blue is the most missionary team I've ever worked for because you know, we've you've been part of this, but we've explored every planet. Uh, we've we've we've been to the the deepest parts of the solar system and and this is the good one. All right, this is the planet you want to be on. It's it's beautiful. And as we build this infrastructure, you can move polluting industry into space and you can turn you know, every every uh, place on Earth like the parks in this city, this beautiful city here. And and we could support three times the population on the on this planet. And that's that's the long-term goal. That's what we're trying to do.
That's why it's worth it.
Okay. All right. So, I am very excited uh, to see New Glenn fly again. But maybe not everyone in the room has familiar with what a launch looks like. So, we're going to roll a little tape so that everyone can see how epic one of these launches are. We'll roll the tape now.
And it's not just a launch, it's a landing, too.
Ah, yes. This is There you go.
We didn't miss it, did we? Jump back in, I guess.
Okay. All right. Well, eventually we will get get that going. Okay. So, uh Okay. We're good. We'll proceed. All right. Uh so, Jeff, you mentioned earlier about the space economy, and I think to some of us that might be kind of like a uh like a science fair People might hear that as like almost like science fiction. Is it real, you know? Is that Is that something that we that is that is for real? Um but sitting where you sit, what evidence do you see every day that convinces you that the demand for access to space is real and accelerating?
Well, there's uh This is a great question. The The evidence right now is very obvious. If you look at demand for launch, demand for launch is insatiable right now. Uh we have a tremendous backlog already on our books for launch. Every space launch company has tremendous backlog. We are supply constrained. We are not demand constrained. And uh you know, it's being driven by uh communications with Leo constellations. It's being driven by national security missions, and it's being driven in the future by things like orbital compute and and lunar uh and lunar resources and NASA programs to return to the moon this time to stay. There's just a tremendous amount of uh demand for launch.
Yeah. Yeah, I I think it was sort of underestimated at some point when we you know years ago when the government our government was looking for what they would need. I think it would Is it fair to say they underestimated what the real demand would be?
100% yeah. I think people underestimated it tremendously.
Yeah. And I think there might be an element to it I think in some ways like if you build it they will come. You know that if people if you can't get to a place you can't even imagine what you would do there. But now that you've increased the access all types of Even my my students at Columbia have flown an experiment on one of the new Shepard rockets. That would have been impossible. Uh even you know that 7 years ago this is a few years ago they did this but can you imagine that even thinking that when we were students or in the not too distant
And it's a circle too. It if you if if launch is very very expensive
then the satellites have to have really long lifetimes and they have to be very exquisite.
And so it it in but if if the launch starts to get cheaper then the satellites can get cheaper and if the satellites get cheaper there's more demand for launch. If there's more demand for launch then you get more practice with launch and launch gets cheaper.
So there is a virtuous circle there.
That once you get it spinning in the right direction that's where we want to go.
Yeah. And you had this vision you it's not you can count on that happening but you were confident of course that this would
You know it's going to happen. You just don't know the exact timing. So you get you get out there and you get ready.
And you know by getting reusable rockets you you lower the costs cuz you you know you you you these boosters want to be reused. They're they're expensive and when we land them then we can reuse them many many many times and these as you said these constellations want to be gigantic. You know I especially communications it's people are insatiable on how much bandwidth they want to use. I when I had a 300 baud modem I wanted to use all of it. When I had a gigabit at my home I wanted to use all of it and when I go all the way uh these constellations want to be very, very large.
Okay, guys. I think we're going to cut to the tape now for real. All right. We had a little setback, but here we go. Let's give it a shot.
For today's launch, NG-2, we have two goals. This first is to safely deploy the payload, which is NASA's ESCAPADE, which is heading out on a mission to Mars. And the second is to land the booster for the first time.
NASA's new ESCAPADE mission will help us understand Mars' climate history using two spacecraft in orbit for the first time.
Here's to a flight level. Auto pilot enabled.
All right. At 9 minutes is when we're expecting the first stage to touch down on Jacqueline.
Station, thanks for the landing burn ignition. See three good engines.
We've got our booster landing burn.
Great shot from our booster.
Standing by for touch down. Standing by for touch down.
Congratulations ESKAPADE. Both blue and gold have successfully deployed. We have successfully landed with the booster and we have successfully deployed satellites for ESKAPADE.
So, when you're doing hard things, you also get great moments like that.
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. extraordinary. That is then you said when I said it was a launch, it's also the landing, which amazes me. That's on on the ocean, right on on Jacqueline, the the recovery ship. Amazing.
And this is a very large vehicle. That this vehicle will take 45 metric tons to LEO. It'll take the the variant we're working on right now, the 9 by 4 variant, will take over 70 metric tons to LEO. This this is a super heavy class booster and to watch it land like that on an ocean-going platform is is all inspiring and the team is is really very proud of themselves for it.
And the ocean doesn't always cooperate. That thing moves.
No, it's the ocean is highly uncooperative.
So, to be able to do that like that is so impressive. So, all right, Dave, this is all incredibly ambitious, right? And so, the question is, because you're the CEO here, what what keeps you up at night when you think about all this stuff coming together, the the whole operation, the the manufacturing, the talent pipeline, getting getting the right people in, the supply chain, all this coming together. What what is it that's foremost on your mind with this? Or is it everything combined?
There is a little bit of everything. I I I I've only been doing aerospace for 2 and 1/2 years. I'm traditionally trained in consumer electronics, but I I think people underestimate how hard it is to build a rocket. Uh these these are incredibly complicated vehicles pushing pushing the boundaries of what, you know, physics allows. And And so, to to see success like this and and see how space is becoming more normal is is amazing. But, the to build one off of anything, whether that would be an engine or it would be a rocket, that that doesn't really keep me up at at night much. It It What the hard part is is building the machine that builds the machines.
You really want to That takes a lot of time and a lot of thought. And that's the factories that are pushing these out because you don't want it to meet the vision that Jeff talked about. You don't want to build just one rocket. We want to build We want to fly 100 times a year. And that means 100 second stages. That means uh That means hundreds of engines. And so, building our engine factory in Huntsville and our uh rocket factory down in Orlando and getting those to rate, which includes the supply chain, that includes the raw materials, and heavy vertical integration is how you build that machine. And we we're making a huge amount of progress. Uh but, you can always get better.
We're We're now building a BE-4 engine. This is our the heavy uh you know, LNG LOX engine. Uh every 4 days coming off the line now, a BE-4 engine. So, rate manufacturing is critical to this. You know, space travel is a solved problem for, you know, six decades. We're not trying to invent space travel. We're trying to make it cost-effective. And that's the key. That's why you need reusability, as Dave was saying, and why you need rate manufacturing. And so, it really is about being world-class manufacturers. And Dave and the team are are crushing that. They're doing an amazing job.
When When Dave uh visited us at at Columbia, where I'm on the faculty, that was a talked about the manufacturing. I do want to mention something about your pipeline. When you I don't know if you knew this, but when we were looking for someone to come speak, we had a CEO lecture series and we did a poll within our our student body and what if you can listen hear from the the head of any company, what would it be? And it was Blue Origin came out number one. So, thanks for accommodating us. So, I think your pipeline is of of talent is is excited to to come join you and be a part of this.
