December 28, 2005

Blue Origins is Getting Serious

Blue Origins, Jeff Bezos' rocket company, is getting serious. In this article, and this other one, it seems that he is busy buying up land for development and testing. I have spoken to him briefly about this venture while talking to him at a speach he gave a few years ago: he is serious, and has always been interested in space exploration.

The new space race has touched down in Kent, where Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos is building a rocket-ship complex set to open early next year.

Blue Origin, Bezos' aerospace company, will use the facility to design and build spacecraft and engines. The company's near-term goal is to develop a vehicle that can take passengers on a thrill ride to the edge of space.

But eventually, Bezos has said, he wants to build spaceships powerful enough to orbit the Earth. He even hopes to establish permanent colonies in space someday.

Bezos paid $13 million for just less than 25 acres of industrial land next to the railroad tracks in the Kent Valley. City records show he is spending up to $8 million to remodel an existing office building and warehouse and build an experimental stand where rocket engines will be tested in three-minute-long trial runs. Among the upgrades spelled out in the plans: installation of aircraft hangar doors.

Test launches will be conducted in West Texas, where Bezos recently bought a 165,000-acre ranch near the small town of Van Horn, about 110 miles southeast of El Paso. Long-term plans for that site include a spaceport where three-person space-tourism flights could blast off once a week.

Posted by elkaim at December 28, 2005 6:37 PM