Sunday, January 16, 2005
Blue Origin joins the space race
After Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and Richard Branson, it is now the turn of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to get serious about the space race. Until now, Blue Origin, a private firm promoted by Bezos existed on paper, but about which not much was known publicly. All that changed today with the announcement that Bezos has bought 165,000 acres of land in west Texas.
Bezos intends to build a rocket-testing range — and possibly a spaceport — on the high desert north of town. The plans are part of Bezos' secretive Blue Origin operation, headquartered in a warehouse on East Marginal Way in Seattle. The company has no listed phone number, and Bezos and his spokespeople have steadfastly declined to reveal many details.
The company's first project will be a reusable spaceship to carry three people or more to the edge of space and safely back to Earth, said Bruce Hicks, a Blue Origin spokesman. The craft will launch vertically, like the classic rocket ship of science-fiction movies, and will land vertically as well. West Texas is a good place to do that, Hicks said. "It's isolated, and that has a distinct advantage in development and testing of rockets." Van Horn has a population of 3,000 and is about 120 miles east of El Paso.
Blue Origin's research and development work will remain in Seattle, Hicks said. The company has assembled a small staff of top-notch designers and engineers, many of them veterans of the space-shuttle program and other projects, such as the DC-X, a vertically launched rocket developed for a missile-defense system. Newsweek magazine reported last year that developing the suborbital spaceship will cost Blue Origin about $30 million. Allen spent $20 million to develop Rutan's SpaceShipOne.
Whatever it is with the ex-tech millionaires (Paul Allen, Elon Musk and now Jeff Bezos) and space flight, this is excellent news for space freaks. Burt Rutan's crew managed to do the sub-orbital thing just to claim the Ansari X-Prize. Imagine what 3 competing visions, backed by deep pockets, could do to shake up the space industry. Someone should actually put up some money like the X-prize did as a reward for a full orbit of earth.
Bezos intends to build a rocket-testing range — and possibly a spaceport — on the high desert north of town. The plans are part of Bezos' secretive Blue Origin operation, headquartered in a warehouse on East Marginal Way in Seattle. The company has no listed phone number, and Bezos and his spokespeople have steadfastly declined to reveal many details.
The company's first project will be a reusable spaceship to carry three people or more to the edge of space and safely back to Earth, said Bruce Hicks, a Blue Origin spokesman. The craft will launch vertically, like the classic rocket ship of science-fiction movies, and will land vertically as well. West Texas is a good place to do that, Hicks said. "It's isolated, and that has a distinct advantage in development and testing of rockets." Van Horn has a population of 3,000 and is about 120 miles east of El Paso.
Blue Origin's research and development work will remain in Seattle, Hicks said. The company has assembled a small staff of top-notch designers and engineers, many of them veterans of the space-shuttle program and other projects, such as the DC-X, a vertically launched rocket developed for a missile-defense system. Newsweek magazine reported last year that developing the suborbital spaceship will cost Blue Origin about $30 million. Allen spent $20 million to develop Rutan's SpaceShipOne.
Whatever it is with the ex-tech millionaires (Paul Allen, Elon Musk and now Jeff Bezos) and space flight, this is excellent news for space freaks. Burt Rutan's crew managed to do the sub-orbital thing just to claim the Ansari X-Prize. Imagine what 3 competing visions, backed by deep pockets, could do to shake up the space industry. Someone should actually put up some money like the X-prize did as a reward for a full orbit of earth.
