The New Shepard reusable launch system is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL), suborbital manned rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos, as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. The New Shepard makes reference to the first United States astronaut in space, Alan Shepard. On 23 November 2015, after reaching altitude (outer space), the booster successfully performed a powered vertical soft landing.