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PHOTOS COURTESY BLUE ORIGINS

on the cover

in
the

Space Odyssey

Former Detroiter
leads Blue Origin’s
privately funded
quest for space
flight.

ADAM FINKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

n Rob Meyerson’s bar mitzvah
Torah portion — read on a
colder-than-normal mid-April
in 1978 at Temple Israel — Moses
was given instruction on when
to release a bird from the city so
it could take flight over an open
field. Meyerson has devoted his
life to flight — not birds, but
rockets. His biggest missions are
yet-to-come.
Meyerson’s achievements
in aeronautics started early.
At 23, the Southfield High and
University of Michigan alum was

nies. The company is report-
edly planning its first manned
flight to take place by spring
2019. Headquartered in Kent,
Wash., the business is funded by
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
Meyerson has never forgot-
ten his family’s deep roots in
the Midwest. His grandfather,
Meyer S. Meyerson, left Russia
as a child with little money. He
came to the United States and
settled in Detroit, where he’d live
for 48 years. Often referred to as
“Buddy,” he had three sons with

“At Blue Origin, we visualize millions of
people living and working in space.”

— ROB MEYERSON, PRESIDENT, BLUE ORIGIN

TOP: Blue Origin funder
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon,
pops opens a bottle of
champagne to celebrate
the successful return of the
company’s reusable New
Shepard booster in 2015 in
West Texas.

an aerospace engineer at the LBJ
Space Center in Houston. He’d
work on various NASA projec-
tions throughout the United
States. During his first week, he
was sent to Reno, Nev., to give a
speech in front of 20,000 aero-
space engineers working on the
shuttle program.
Today, Meyerson is president
of Blue Origin, one of the world’s
most ambitious privately funded
aerospace manufacturing and
spaceflight services compa-

his wife, Mary. Meyer became
a restaurant legend in the area,
with Buddy’s Delicatessen and
Buddy’s Log Cabin Barbecue.
Meyerson’s parents, Arlyn and
Hester, continued the tradition
with Scotch ‘n’ Sirloin, Trio and
Buddy’s BBQ.
Rob Meyerson still has a keen
appreciation for his local roots.
In response to Detroit’s video
pitch for the second Amazon
headquarters, he remarked on
LinkedIn: “I know this is a pitch

for Amazon’s HQ2 but, damn, I
love this video. My hometown is
looking good! #movetheworld.”
The JN chatted with Rob about
his leadership at Blue Origin
and his Detroit roots. Here are
excerpts from the conversation.
As you look toward the 20th
anniversary of your leadership
at Blue Origin in 2023, what
do you envision your progress
will look like?
At Blue Origin, we visualize
millions of people living and
working in space. We can only
make that happen by dramati-
cally lowering the cost of access
to space. We simply can’t afford
to throw rockets into the ocean
after every launch.
As such, we’re making our
systems operationally reusable,
as we demonstrated with our
New Shepard launch system,
and our BE-3 and BE-4 engine
programs. New Shepard was the
first rocket in history to fly to
space, return to Earth and land
vertically, and then fly again and
again.
What we learned from
designing, building and flying
New Shepard, we’re applying
directly to our New Glenn Orbital
Launch System. By 2023, I hope
to see a future where we are reg-
ularly and reliably taking people
and payloads to space. If we can
do this, then we will be well on
our way to fulfilling our greater
vision of millions of people living
and working in space.
How has your approach to

innovation changed the most
since you joined Blue Origin?
I spent the first 10 years of
my career working in the NASA
human spaceflight culture, a
culture where changes and risk
are carefully managed. At Blue,
we have a culture of develop-
ment and invention, where new
ideas are tried on relatively short
timelines. This approach to inno-
vation has enabled Blue Origin
to develop and fly many unique
flight vehicles and technologies
over the course of a decade with
a small team. As we have grown,
we are maintaining this culture
of innovation while also serving
more traditional government
customers.
What has most surprised
you as you reflect on the past
decade of milestones?
Well, it wasn’t really a surprise,
but a very important step for
Blue Origin. It was two years ago
in November when New Shepard
became the first booster to
ascend into space and success-
fully return to Earth for a vertical
landing. Then, that same New
Shepard vehicle and BE-3 engine
made four subsequent flights last
year, historically demonstrating
vertical-powered landing after
return from space and re-flight
of a booster. I never doubted we
could do it, and to see it actu-
ally happen and to be the first
company in the world to achieve
such a milestone was truly
incredible.
What has been your proud-

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November 23 • 2017

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