Amazon CEO’s Blue Origin successfully launches reusable rocket

PanARMENIAN.Net - Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos has claimed serious bragging rights over real-life Iron Man Elon Musk after his company Blue Origin successfully launched and landed a reusable space rocket, Digital Spy reports.

In a move that could pave the way for affordable space flight, Bezos's independent firm sent a BE-3 rocket into suborbital space and brought it safely back down to Earth.

The BE-3 soared to 5,000 feet before making a controlled landing at 4.4mph, coming down just 4.5 feet away from the original launch pad.

The plan is for the BE-3 to eventually hold astronauts or cargo in a detachable capsule called New Shepard, but as this was a test flight, the pod parachuted to the ground empty.

Launching and landing a reusable rocket is a feat that Musk has been trying to achieve with his higher-profile Space X project for some time, but his Falcon rockets haven't been able to nail the landing part.

Classy guy that he is, Musk has taken to Twitter to congratulate Bezos on his rocketry accomplishment: "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster," he wrote.

Blue Origin is expected to be a major player in space tourism when the discipline gets off the ground in the not-too-distant future.