Private space company, Blue Origin, just released incredible footage of their

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos proudly announced how his private spaceflight company, Blue Origin, made history Monday by successfully lreturning a used rocket to Earth and landing it.

New Shepard space vehicle is said to have the capability of carrying up to 6 crew members and can operate completely autonomously. But the Blue Origin rocket successfully vertically landed its first stage after a full scale launch up to 62 miles, the Von Karman line where space begins.

The achievement produced “the rarest of beasts: a used rocket”, Bezos said in a statement.

Bezos also shared the news in the only tweet on the Twitter account he set up in 2008.

“It’s really a major step forward toward reusability”, John M. Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, said of the Blue Origin landing.

SpaceX has tried on several occasions to land its rockets on Earth undamaged, but weather and technical problems have prevented it from doing so. Then, the crew capsule separated from the booster and coasted into its planned test altitude, before making a successful parachute descent.

Blue Origin has released a somewhat preposterous video of the mission.

The test flight was unmanned, but the rocket is topped with a capsule created to carry six.

Blue Origin made the successful landing in the space company’s launch site in the desert of West Texas. Most rockets today fly just once, crashing back to earth after exhausting their fuel.

Mr Musk congratulated Blue Origin, but pointed out that getting to space orbit rather than 100 kilometres in height needs about 100 times more energy.

But Elon Musk, who founded rival firm SpaceX, took exception to Mr Bezos’ claim.

And Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle is not powerful enough to make it -; yet.

In the 21st century space race, Jeff Bezos just leaped ahead of Elon Musk.

Musk’s tweet, however, makes an important point: Suborbital flights are insignificant for his ultimate goal, which is to send and return astronauts to Mars.