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Bezos's Blue Origin Prepares Launch Facility
mhteas writes "Jeff Bezos's very quiet and private spaceship company Blue Origin is preparing to set up a launch facility in west Texas on 165,000 acres Bezos bought. There's a little more information about Blue Origin's plans too."
Yes, so quietly that we've been hearing about this for the better part of a week!
A similar story was reported previously on Slashdot here.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Blue Origin's Web site says the company doesn't intend to stop with a suborbital vehicle. The ultimate goal is to establish an "enduring human presence in space," and Bezos told Reuters in November that his company hopes to progress to orbital vehicles.
Sounds like he might be trying to obtain the Bigelow space race for a space station. 50 million dollars is a nice prize.
On a side note Google buys enough dark fibre to make a space elevator thus obtaining total control of the globe with the only cheap way to get to orbit.
UID 1000000 is just around the corner.
You can read more about this here.
JAMWiki Java-based Wiki engine
Mars Explorer Getaway
Mercury Asbestos Slide
Venus "Green with Envy" Tour
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.
Let's go someplace private and quiet. Like a spaceship.
Unknown host pong.
the patented one click launch button?
Re-Post - yet again. Way to go SD editors.
Am I the only one to believe that this kind of projects will soon be featured in not-so-future sci fi movies ??
Guess what item I will be adding to my "Amazon Wish List"
??????
If only our community supports bezos as much as they support (steve) jobs, we'd actually be getting somewhere.
Apple is launching the Mac mini.
In the mean time, there's 165,000 acres of land wasting away. Free stay at the guest ranch with each space ticket purchase.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
Bezos has probably been listening to Kanye West's song Spaceship a little too much:
"I've been workin' this graveshift and I ain't made shit
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky"
"buffalo as far as the eye can see"!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Blasting off into space is now as easy as 1-click!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Unless it runs on MacOS or will be available in a smaller form factor of varying stylish colors, I fail to see how this is postworthy on Slashdot.
Haw Haw.
Man dreams of space, begins pouring concrete for launch pad. Big deal. Does he have a ship? A design? Anything?
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Really shitty analogy.
We're talking about another PLANET'S worth of metals and ores. We haven't done much more than scratch the surface of our own...
Asteroids don't decompose when you 'kill' them, either. They'll still be there even if you just take half of one.
So if I sign up for Amazon Space Services, can I use my referral ID to generate revinue whenever someone goes to space after clicking on one of my links?
This flies in the face of science.
We could visit the black monoliths on Titan.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
One click Ticketing!
One click launch!
The only space center one with the one click difference!
Perhaps Bezos may have to delay this venture a bit, after his prodigy (Amazon) cash's out my $10 billion credit on file? Either that, or it's time to audit the accounting system... Excerpt below from my latest Amazon order confirmation (today, 1/17/05)...LOL "...Shipping Method: Standard Shipping Shipping Preference: Group my items into as few shipments as possible Subtotal of Items: $39.94 Shipping & Handling: $12.45 ------ Total before tax: $52.39 Estimated Tax: $3.61 ------ Total: $56.00 Gift Certificates: - $9,999,999,999.00 ------ Total for this Order: $-9,999,999,943.00 Shipping estimate for these items: January 20, 2005 - January 20, 2005..." Who Hoo, now I can afford a ticket on his future space liner!
Funny how /. accepts space travel as an acceptable way to use/abuse land.
/. would scream 'ecological destruction' sky is falling if someone was about to build an oil well in Alaska.
it said Blue Virgin
The craft will launch vertically, like the classic rocket ship of science-fiction movies, and will land vertically as well.
So do non-fiction rockets. Something tells me the author of the article may not realize this.
It seems every Richie Rich is trying to go to Mars these days. My prediction is after $100 million and no results, Bezos will get tired of it and close up.
Hmm. I'm ALL for stuff like this, but I'm feeling a little gun shy after the last quiet thing into which he pumped a lot of money.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This bezos sure is a pro at getting the media to eat out of his hand. He sure has balls! Runs a fucking full blown PR campaign all the while telling the media how hush-hush it all is.
Maybe he just PAYS THE MEDIA MONEY to write whatever he wants? Didja ever think of that?
Anyway, my bet is that this is just a PR stunt to boost brand name value of Amazon....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I know! Who tha fuck says Haw Haw anymore, outside of old JOhn Wayne movies?!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Have you been to West Texas? Come on. I think if it (somehow) managed to fall into the Gulf of Mexico nobody would miss it for a month.
Well, at least with space travel.. Once we screw the world up enough, we can just move to another planet (which we will screw up.. And simply hop to another one)
But if we just pump oil, we'll ruin the environment then run out of oil and be stuck on this planet as we all die from economic collapse and cancer
I say we build space ports EVERYWHERE and kill as many endangered species as we can.. Because I'm sure Mars has a lot cooler animals than we'll ever have anyway!
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its the question of scale.
The above post is the funniest thing I've read here in a week.
12 minutes earlier...
OTOH, I don't know if having a science fiction writer in the payroll helps its credibility or just the opposite.
Again, here's my rejected submission from the last time this story was run. The info in it is somewhat better, IMHO.
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."
I'd also like to remind the reader that Neal Stephenson (author of Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, and many pieces of quality sci-fi literature) works for Blue Origin. Here's what he said when asked about it in a slashdot interview from last year:
Like Spock on the deck of the Enterprise, I sit in the corner and await opportunities to jump out and yammer about Science. Unlike Spock, I don't have anyone reporting to me and I never get to sit in the captain's chair and aim the phasers. This is probably good.
Though the X-Prize is cool and good, Blue Origin never intended to compete for it. Consequently, it has had no effect, other than destroying productivity whenever a SpaceShipOne flight is being broadcast.
As for my visions of future private space flight: here I have to remind you of something, which is that, up to this point in the interview, I have been wearing my novelist hat, meaning that I talk freely about whatever I please. But private space flight is an area where I wear a different hat (or helmet). I do not freely disseminate my thoughts on this one topic because I have agreed to sell those thoughts to Blue Origin. Admittedly, this feels a little strange to a novelist who is accustomed to running his mouth whenever he feels like it. But it is a small price to pay for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a minor character in a Robert Heinlein novel.
I felt better before I knew there were Boeing people involved. That company seems to think that, with enough lobbying muscle in Washington, they can paper over all sorts of engineering and management problems. Maybe they're right, but I'd rather fly with a product that got the engineering right in the first place.
* - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_20 /b3783001.htm
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
This is one of the most important things that we, as the human race, need to be exploring at this point. The obvious (and not so obvious to some) realities we're facing will be here to haunt us at some point. We can't stay here forever.
The only problem I'm seeing is that Jeff isn't allowing people from the 'outside' to join or help at all (AFAIK). I'd give my left testicle to join.
Imagine that a big asteroid is going to hit the Earth in a few years.
Now, imagine the only way to survive is to leave the Earth.
Now, imagine who can afford to do such a thing...
Now, imagine that to avoid global panic governments decide not to disclose the issue.
I guess this is too far fetched, but something tells me that because of the software they'll be running, once they take off they won't be going too far... especially after everybody discovers what they're up to =P
...Amazon Women on the Moom.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
they will just take your order, barcode your forehead and send you to your galactic destination via FedEx.
For any geek who thinks this would be the ultimate job:
Apparantly they want YOU..
Personally, I can't even understand all of the job descriptions... so I don't think it's for me.
Has anyone considered that this might all be a ploy to create a space-borne vessel capable of taking over the world? Yeah, I figured I was the only one. Just wait and see...
Oops, here's the link
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Problem? When people go into space, and stay in their hotel rooms, what do you think they'll do? HAVE SEX!! Only the foolish will not consider this when designing their space industry at this point in history. I predict that psace tourism won't be too popular unless peopel have access to zero-gravity sex.
.
-shpoffo
We would need to vixit the one on the moon first.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I read they were having some issues finding an appropriate launch site, and Mojave is too far for them to travel all the way from Mesquite, TX.
This looks like a good chance for Carmack & Co. to secure a decent launch site, if Bezos decides to rent out space (no pun intended) to third-parties to launch from their base.
No, thats 15 miles square. 15 square miles would be 9,600 acres. 16 miles square is 256 square miles, or 163,840 acres (close enough for this article).
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
But Larry D. Simpson respected the billionaire's privacy. "I have not been real pushy, like maybe a big-city newspaper guy would be," he said. He thinks that's why Bezos decided to give him the story . . . Kind of hypocritical that the owner of Amazon.com would give the story to someone who respects someones privacy. Shouldn't he have sold the highest bidder? Or better yet thousands of low bidders?
I am sure everybody here remembers that the first space visitor was Dennis Tito, a millionaire. If Blue Origin does produce a commercial space flight, won't it be too costly for the common people?!
Consider the following:
Using a 40 foot cargo container willed with someones bottle water, Blue-0 demonstrates the following:
1. Said Container is loaded at the Blue-0 launch site.
2. Blue-0 then launches with said container.
3. Blue-0 then lands in some manner to some place like Sri Lanka.
4. Blue-0 then returns home in the same manner.
Why water? Because everyone knows long haul truckers get thirsty.