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Jeff Bezos to Build Space Center
An anonymous reader writes "Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos will build a space facility in west Texas to develop a commercial suborbital spaceship. His space company, Blue Origin, is 'developing vehicles and technologies that, over time, will help enable an enduring human presence in space.'"
One lucky Amazon customer will win a free trip to Mars! w00t w00t!
Am I karma whoring? Possibly. :)
Please don't sue me, Microsoft.
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Amazon founder unveils space center plans
Bezos' Blue Origin venture to build West Texas rocket facility
By Alan Boyle
Science editor, MSNBC
Updated: 4:58 p.m. ET Jan. 13, 2005
[Image: Jeff Bezos, who heads Amazon.com and is bankrolling the Blue Origin space venture, strikes a pose at the Seattle headquarters of Amazon.com. Andy Rogers / AP file]
AFTER YEARS OF WORK BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has gone public with a plan to build a suborbital space facility on a sprawling ranch under the wide open skies of West Texas.
Bezos' Seattle-based Blue Origin suborbital space venture is starting the process to build an aerospace testing and operations center on a portion of the Corn Ranch, a 165,000-acre spread that the 41-year-old billionaire purchased north of Van Horn, Texas. Over the next six or seven years, the team would use the facility to test components for a craft that could take off and land vertically, carrying three or more riders to the edge of space.
Blue Origin's team has been laying the groundwork for the hush-hush project from a 53,000-square-foot warehouse in Seattle, but this week's announcement fills out a puzzle that previously could only be guessed on the basis of isolated rumors. Blue Origin has been the most secretive of several space ventures bankrolled by deep-pocketed private backers -- a club that also includes software pioneer Paul Allen (SpaceShipOne), Virgin Group entrepreneur Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) and video-game genius John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace).
Details of Bezos' plan were first reported in this week's edition of the Van Horn Advocate, the community's newspaper, and confirmed Thursday by Blue Origin spokesman Bruce Hicks.
Contacts with FAA
Bezos told the Advocate that Blue Origin already has contacted the Federal Aviation Administration, which plays a lead role in regulating nongovernmental launch facilities. FAA spokesman Hank Price confirmed that Blue Origin was in the midst of the pre-application process for a launch site license.
But Hicks said Blue Origin was just starting to work on getting the necessary clearances. "Obviously a lot of work needs to be done, including the environmental assessment work, the FAA work and so on," he told MSNBC.com.
Hicks said the first elements of the facility, including an operations building, an engine test stand and storage tanks for fuel and water, could be built in the next year or two. The facility, along with all the buffer zones required for safety, would take up "maybe 5 percent" of the Corn Ranch acreage, he said.
Hicks said Bezos and Blue Origin's other principals, program manager Rob Meyerson and launch manager Ed Rutkowski, were not available for comment Thursday.
Bezos' Southwestern roots
With an estimated worth of $5.1 billion, Bezos is ranked No. 82 on Forbes magazine's latest list of the world's richest people. Amazon.com, the company he founded in 1994, is one of the world's leading online merchants. Bezos still serves as Amazon's president, chief executive officer and chairman, but in the year 2000 he used millions of dollars from his personal fortune to start up Blue Origin as well, following through on a boyhood dream.
[Image]
Although Amazon.com and Blue Origin are both headquartered in Seattle, Bezos' roots go back to the American Southwest. He was born in New Mexico and spent childhood summers on his grandfather's ranch in South Texas. Bezos told the Advocate that he learned much from those expe
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So this uh, "suborbital spaceship," has the range to make it to, I don't know... Crawford Texas? Because that would be grand, I have a pretty good idea of what the payload would be as well.
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I don't need a signature.
...if he can manage to get a patent for the "one-click launch button". There's prior art for that!
I mean, look around. When you have several of the worlds extremely wealthy throwing money at something this big, independently (rather than teaming their efforts), you know that A. there's a SHITLOAD of money to be made, and B. that it has more than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding because of the pure amount of money that is going to be thrown at it.
I know some people are worried about the privatization and commercialization of spaceflight, but I think those are perfectly fine methods of bringing this about. Properly regulate it and do it on a global scale. And always remember that populating space is a human quest, not a Bezos quest. He may get us there, but we all win in the end.
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We can launch all the chimps from Texas into space... now who do we know like that?
Quoth the server, "404."
"Over the next six or seven years, the team would use the facility to test components for a craft that could take off and land vertically, carrying three or more riders to the edge of space."
Carmack Envy.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I would like to see uncle Sam send Gates, Ballmer and Darl on a space mission to visit our nearest star, "to bravely be the first humans to put their feet on the surface of the sun".
I wasn't going to respond, but then I became afraid you'd get modded up. Maybe you're right and the whole thing is a PR stunt for Amazon. Maybe not (unless you think only non-billionaires can have "boyhood dreams"). But in the end, who cares? I don't see how the founder's motivations detract from the (very real) accomplishments of Blue Origin's engineers and other employees. Similarly, is Richard Branson funding SpaceShipOne just for the PR, or because he wants to fly, or because he has a vision of affordable space travel within a generation? In a lot of ways, it's irrelevant. And, I might add, it's not like you or I are doing anything to further space colonization, pontificating here from our living rooms.
Your empty rage reminds me of this guy's, who makes a bizarre call for companies to stop soliciting donations for tsunami relief, because the "faceless corporation[s] are only doing it for the PR." Not particularly helpful.
Me, I don't care. I buy from Barnes & Noble.
Bezos seems to be cornerning the markets on futurism and "backing" here. Not too bad a plan, at least for now.
I hate to say this, but the problem with human space travel is that there is just nowhere to go. There are no alien civilizations (or even alien plant life) within reach. There are no habitable planets within reach (unless you count Mars or Venus, but as wastelands go, Antartica is paradise in comparison with either of those in terms of human habitation). It sucks, but it's true.
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration (particulary human-based) before, and I think the major flaw in all these 'arguments' why we shouldn't go into space is that they always set economic factors as a premise.
;-)
But, although economic viability is important to create a mass-usuage of space(travel), I fail to see why it should be the only possible motive to start exploring space. It's a pretty narrowminded, materialistic and typical capitalistic view on things. It's the same view that makes progress on medication for very rare diseases, or for diseases that are prevalent in continents that are poor, so slow: corporations can't see how they are ever going to get profit out of it, so they all turn their backs on it.
If ppl (including states) are only going to do something when they are sure of an immediate profitable return, the world has become a sad place. (And we should leave it the sooner
Arguments based on such a viewpoint fail to recognise other incentives apart from economical ones.
The reason why we shouldn't (only) rely on robots? You can explore, but you can not colonise with robots. The will to explore is deeply entrenched in the human race, but with a reason: it has survival advantages.
A species that doesn't colonise new territory and adapt, will perish. I think it's paramount that humans always keep their adventurage spirit and keep exploring and expanding, because the moment we will go "ah, let's sit back in our sofa's and let our robots/droids do it", we're basically finished, even when not being aware of it at that moment.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I don't know what Bezos is like as a person, but I guess he's not an attention hog (unlike some Apple/Pixar execs) and he doesn't mind quietly working in the background while his competitor (Burt) steals all the limelight and wins public adulation. One good thing for sure, if Bezos gets his bird airborne, the competition might force Virgin Galactic to lower their $190,000 ticket price :)
Building a stupid little ship to put a couple of rich people into suborbit for a few minutes gets us no where in the grand scheme of things. I'm rather dumbfounded as to why none of these guys are trying to bankroll a space elevator. That's when you can do some serious space stuff and become richer than Bill. I've read various places that it could be done in the very near future for as little as $10 billion. When I read that someone isn't dicking around with suborbital vehicles and is behind this, I'll get excited. Otherwise, all this has already been done for the past 60 years.
Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
So far, only one company, Scaled Composites, seems to be successful at this although I did see a reference about a year ago to some other company that towed their spacecraft out into the sea and launched from a floating platform but I don't recall if they've had successful launches.
There's certainly no guarantee that Blue Origins or Armadillo will ever make it into space. It may get too expensive.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Why does everyone have to start their own space thing? Space travel is freaking expensive -- Jeff would be smarter to partner with virgin galactic, so that they could potentially "get there" 2x as fast with 2x as much money + no impedance from the gov't like NASA runs into.
stuff |
When humans get to Mars, keeping it Antarctic-pristine will be the last thing on their minds. A leaked document the Guardian has obtained from the year 2600 spells out the whole remarkable story.
Talk is cheap, websites are cheap, real estate (in West Texas) is pretty cheap.
Until they start bending tin and launching things they are just another bunch of wannabees.
Nothing To See Here (yet).
You know, he's just doing it to patent independant space travel.
Why choose a site just west of three of the ten most populous cities in the United States?
From Wikipedia:
"Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the earth's rotation. At the equator, the centrifugal force of earth's rotation is the maximum. The direction of earth's rotation is such that to take advantage of the rotation, rockets should be launched eastward. It is also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, ideally an ocean, in case of accidents. Thus rockets should be launched from a continent's east coast as close to the equator as possible. For the United States, Florida is the most southerly east coast location."
While it is true that this site is for suborbital flights, it will still be necessary to expend energy NOT to fly westward toward the population centers.
We all heard the reasoning for abolishing space-exploration
What's worrying is that there are people out there who actually think they have the right to ban others from going into space. Don't want to go into space? Fine - don't go? But when it comes to others going into space, bugger off and mind your own business.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Here's my submission, which has some more information:
After years of secrecy and much speculation, Blue Origin has finally announced its plans to build and operate a privately-funded aerospace testing and operations center in West Texas. The company, run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is "currently developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically to take three or more astronauts to the edge of space." Flight operations could begin as soon as six years from now. Hopefully this will be a significant step towards Bezos's dream of enabling "an enduring human presence in space."