Jeff Bezos' rocket ship achieved a breakthrough Monday by traveling 329,839 feet into outer space and then landing upright upon its return to Earth. 
 
 In the past, rockets were disposed of after launching space craft into outer space. Reusable rockets would substantially reduce the cost of space flight. 
 
 Amazon (AMZN) founder Bezos started his space company, Blue Origin, in the hopes of using his New Shepard rocket to carry tourists into space. 
 
 "Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts -- a used rocket," Bezos said. "Full reuse is a game changer, and we can't wait to fuel up and fly again." 
 
 Bezos, in an interview with CNN, said current space flight is inefficient -- as if airlines discarded 747 jets after each cross-country flight. 
 
 "You can imagine how expensive your ticket would be," he said. 
 
 Rival rocket business SpaceX, which was started by Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, has been trying to land rockets upright as well. 
 
 Some SpaceX rockets have landed upright in test flights that never left the atmosphere. But SpaceX's attempts to travel to outer space and return to upright landings have so far been unsuccessful. The rockets have toppled over while attempting to land on a platform in the ocean. 
 
 Blue Origin and SpaceX are two of the main players in the new business of private space launches. Another is Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which hopes to carry passengers to space in a vehicle launched from an airplane and that lands like a plane on a runway. 
 
 Bezos said he doesn't consider those companies Blue Origin competitors. 
 
 "I think of our competition primarily as Earth's gravity," he said. "Space is a big place. There's room for all of us." 
 
 The aim eventually is to carry astronauts, including tourists, into space -- something NASA no longer does with its own rockets. 
 
 Blue Origin is taking names of people interested in hopping aboard a future flight. But it has yet to announce how much it will cost or how many people have signed up. 
 
 SpaceX and Boeing (BA) have won contracts from NASA to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX is already carrying supplies to ISS. 
 
 Related: Amazon CE Jeff Bezos moves up to world's fourth richest man 
 
 Musk tweeted congratulations to Bezos and Blue Origin early Tuesday. But he also took a dig at Blue Origin. Musk noted that rockets that reach the space station have to go 10 times as fast, and use 100 times the energy, of suborbital rockets that reach the edge of space as Blue Origin did. 
 
 "It is ... important to clear up the difference between 'space' and 'orbit,'" he tweeted. 
 
 It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://t.co/7PD42m37fZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015 
 
 But Bezos said the part of the rocket that Musk is attempting to land is pretty much the same kind of spacecraft as Blue Origin's. 
 
 "What SpaceX is trying to do is very similar," he said. 
 
 Musk also responded to Bezos' tweet by claiming that an earlier SpaceX rocket had completed six "suborbital" flights and successfully landed. But none of those flights got close to outer space. The longest of them only went 744 meters high. That's less than 1% of the altitude that Blue Origin's flight reached on Monday. 
 
 @JeffBezos Not quite "rarest". SpaceX Grasshopper rocket did 6 suborbital flights 3 years ago & is still around. pic.twitter.com/6j9ERKCNZl — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015 
 
 All three companies have had setbacks in their efforts to carry people into space. 
 
 A Virgin Galactic spaceship crashed during a test flight in October 2014, killing one of the two pilots. An unmanned SpaceX supply flight to ISS exploded soon after launch in June. And New Shepard had its first successful launch into space in April, but the rocket was not recovered because of a problem with the hydraulic system. 
 
 Bezos said this time his rocket performed exactly as planned, traveling into the edge of outer space before returning. 
 
 The rocket's engines reignited at 5,000 feet above ground to slow descent, and it was traveling at only 4.4 mph during its final 100 feet. It landed only 4-1/2 feet off the dead center of the the landing pad. 
 
 The space capsule on the top of the rocket that will someday carry space tourists separated from the rocket once it reached space and returned to Earth via parachute. 
 
 The New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to go to outer space. 
 
 Bezos said he has wanted to travel into space himself since, as a five-year-old, he watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in 1969. Like Branson and Musk, Bezos said he plans to take one of his own rockets into space as soon as possible. ||||| Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company has landed its rocket back on Earth for the first time after flying to space. 
 
 According to a thrilling new video released by Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company launched its New Shepard rocket to the edge of space and then land it back on the planet during the vehicle's first successful uncrewed reusability test Monday. 
 
 See also: Jeff Bezos wants millions of people to live in space 
 
 "Rockets have always been expendable. Not anymore," Bezos wrote in a blog post announcing the rocket test Tuesday. 
 
 "Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts, a used rocket." 
 
 Other companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX have attempted to land rocket stages coming back from space before, although Musk's rocket company hasn't yet attempted to land the first stage of their Falcon 9 on land after flying a payload to space. 
 
 Blue Origin tested the space system earlier this year, but the company wasn't able to land the rocket back on the ground due to hydraulics issues. 
 
 "Full reuse is a game changer, and we can’t wait to fuel up and fly again," Bezos added. 
 
 For the test, the New Shepard rocket brought the space system's capsule about 100.5 kilometers into the air, reaching a max speed of Mach 3.72. 
 
 The capsule — the part of the craft designed to eventually carry six people to suborbital space — then gently landed back on Earth after deploying its parachutes, but the rocket had a different path to the ground. 
 
 The New Shepard's engine kicked back on about 5,000 feet above its landing pad and, after some maneuvering, and deploying its landing legs, the rocket made a soft touchdown back on Earth. The vehicle was moving at just 4.4 mph when it made its landing, Blue Origin said. 
 
 "This flight validates our vehicle architecture and design," Bezos wrote. 
 
 Eventually, Blue Origin plans to offer suborbital flights to space aboard New Shepard, but the company's ambitions don't stop there. Blue Origin also plans to build and launch an orbital rocket that would fly people and cargo to space from Florida. 
 
 All of these projects focus around Bezos' vision for the future. 
 
 Bezos and others claim that reusable rockets could greatly lower the cost of access to space. Instead of effectively throwing away rocket components after one use, Bezos hopes to use those rocket parts again and again over the course of at least a few missions. 
 
 "The vision for Blue [Origin] is pretty simple," Bezos said during a media roundtable in September. "We want to see millions of people living and working in space, and that’s going to take a long time. It’s a worthwhile goal." 
 
 Bezos' fellow charismatic spaceflight enthusiast and rocket company owner Elon Musk sent some words of congratulation (and a few words of clarification) to Blue Origin Tuesday via Twitter. 
 
 Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015 
 
 It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://t.co/7PD42m37fZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015 
 
 Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30. The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015 
 
 For what it's worth, Musk knows what he's talking about. SpaceX also wants to create a fleet of reusable rockets to lower the cost of access to orbit. 
 
 SpaceX has attempted to land their Falcon 9 rockets on a drone ship in the ocean after to orbit, although those tests have not yet been totally successful. 
 
 Updated at 1:33 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include a little more information about Blue Origin and SpaceX.
– Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space firm beat Elon Musk's SpaceX to the punch and launched its Blue Shepard reusable rocket into outer space, then returned to its landing pad in its "first successful uncrewed reusability test," Mashable reports. The BE-3 rocket and empty crew capsule flew to a suborbital height of about 62 miles, at which point the capsule and rocket separated, Engadget reports. The capsule landed on Earth with the help of parachutes, the rocket's engines roared back to life about 5,000 feet above the landing pad, and the rocket touched down at 4.4mph. "Rockets have always been expendable," Bezos wrote in a Monday blog post. "Not anymore. Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts, a used rocket." Bezos also tweeted a video of the event Tuesday morning, noting "Controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy." Bezos notes how reusable rockets could economize space travel, telling CNNMoney that current space travel is akin to airlines throwing out every 747 jet after it makes a cross-country journey. "You can imagine how expensive your ticket would be," he notes. Elon Musk tweeted kudos Tuesday, posting, "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster," though he turned that compliment into a backhanded one with a tweet that read, "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between 'space' and 'orbit.'" His point: that even though SpaceX's rockets have yet to nail an upright landing after leaving Earth's atmosphere, at least his rockets leave the atmosphere—a task requiring 10 times more speed and 100 times the energy of suborbital rockets, per CNN. But Bezos says he doesn't even consider Musk's company, or Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, to be competitors. "I think of our competition primarily as Earth's gravity," he says. "Space is a big place. There's room for all of us." (The last Virgin Galactic launch didn't go well.)