What does Blue Origin mean?

The company takes its name from the blue planet: Earth is the origin of life and humanity, and the company holds that it must be preserved by moving heavy industry and energy production into space. Jeff Bezos founded it in 2000 in Kent, Washington, and worked for years in near-total secrecy. Its stated vision is that millions of people will live and work off-planet, with Earth reserved for housing and light industry. Hence the play on the name: it doesn't point to a distant destination, but to the starting point.

The company's motto translates as "step by step, ferociously," and describes a way of working: each rung is secured before climbing the next one. The crest pairs it with two tortoises looking up at a planet, an allusion to the fable of the hare and the tortoise, and with a feather, a symbol of light, mastered flight. The motto shows in the company's trajectory: more than two decades of tests and suborbital flights before putting a rocket into orbit, a pace that has earned it as much criticism for slowness as defense for caution.

The vehicles honor American astronauts. New Shepard, suborbital and reusable, recalls Alan Shepard, the first American in space in 1961; it first flew with a crew on July 20, 2021, with Bezos himself aboard. New Glenn, the heavy orbital launcher, evokes John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, and debuted in January 2025. These are joined by the BE-4 engines, which also power ULA's Vulcan, and the Blue Moon lander, selected by NASA for the Artemis program.