Blue Origin Employees ‘Would Not Fly’ Rocket Over Safety Fears, Per Open Letter
Image via Blue Origin
A group of former and current Blue Origin employees has released a shocking open letter with regards to the company’s safety measures. It said the space venture’s upper management had ignored safety concerns, just so it could schedule more New Shepard launches.
According to Insider, the only person named in the letter is Alexandra Abrams, who had been working as Blue Origin’s Head of Employee Communications, though it did state that 20 other people took part in penning the reveal.
Though the others have chosen to remain anonymous, CBS News confirmed it had spoken to at least five of the other authors. The authors’ suspicions date back in 2018, when a new executive took over a team and had discovered “more than 1,000 problem reports,” related to rocket engines.
Apart from safety concerns, the letter also highlighted issues such as sexism and harassment within the organization. Plus, it seems upper management often denied requests “for additional engineers, staff, or spending,” despite adding more work to the existing teams.
This scandal comes as Blue Origin is preparing for its next crewed flight aboard New Shepard, with the company releasing two of its next astronauts earlier in the week. It isn’t clear, however, if its founder—Jeff Bezos—will choose to delay it.
“Blue Origin has been lucky that nothing has happened so far. Many of this essay’s authors say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle,” read a section of the note. CBS News added that two different employees at the company had confirmed this statement to be true.
Naturally, Blue Origin is scrambling for ways to remove itself from this PR nightmare. It doesn’t help that over the summer, over a dozen executives left the company in a mass exodus.
“We stand by our safety record and believe that New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built,” the firm allegedly retorted.
In response to the explosive letter, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told Insider it would be open to investigating some of its claims.
“The FAA takes every safety allegation seriously, and the agency is reviewing the information,” it said.
Will Blue Origin see even more employees speaking up in the next few weeks? Or will records show that they’d been unfairly targeted?
[via Insider, cover image via Blue Origin]
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