While Jeff Bezos has spent $14 billion to achieve his first space launch, his billionaire rival has built a thriving business, mostly with other people’s money.

Shrugging off bad weather, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched its powerful New Glenn rocket on its maiden flight early Thursday, lighting up a cloudy overnight sky as it climbed away from Cape Canaveral in a high-stakes bid to compete with Elon Musk's industry-leading SpaceX.

Founded 25 years ago by Bezos, Blue Origin has been launching paying passengers to the edge of space since 2021, including himself. The short hops from Texas use smaller rockets named after the first American in space, Alan Shepard. New Glenn, which honors John Glenn, is five times taller.

The uncrewed New Glenn rocket took off at 2:03 a.m. EST from Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Blue Origin said.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit early Thursday, in a critical milestone that comes some 25 years after the billionaire founded the company with the goal of reducing the cost of access to space.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket safely achieved orbit during its inaugural NG-1 mission, marking a significant milestone for the company and the commercial space industry.

NASA announced Tuesday it may turn to Elon Musk's SpaceX or Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin to help reduce the soaring costs of returning Martian rocks collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth.

Years in the making with heavy funding by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the 320-foot rocket carried an experimental platform designed to host satellites or release them into their proper orbits.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are years away from putting astronauts on the moon. Four other companies may get there first.

Spectators on Saturday watched as Jacklyn, Blue Origin's rocket landing vessel, returned to Port Canaveral just as it left.

SpaceX dominates this week’s launch manifest with three Falcon 9 missions and the seventh flight of its Starship rocket. The three Falcon 9 missions will see the launches of a batch of Starlink satellites, a Transporter rideshare mission, and two Moon landers.