Q&A with Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin

SpaceX chief Elon Musk said last week he is “fairly confident” his company’s Falcon rockets can be made fully reusable within a couple of years, suggesting a renewed emphasis on outfitting upper stages for a scorching re-entry after engineers shelved the idea to focus on landing the launcher’s bigger booster stage.

After a one-day delay to wait for improved conditions in the offshore abort zone, SpaceX and NASA launched four astronauts at 5:49 a.m. EDT (0949 GMT) Friday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spaceship from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts docked with the International Space Station at 5:08 a.m. EDT (0908 GMT) Saturday for a planned six-month mission.

On the eve of the launch of his country’s first communications satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket, the chief executive of BulgariaSat credited SpaceX’s cost-cutting ways with making space accessible for small nations and money-conscious companies like his own.