Blue
Origin is the space transport company founded
by Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief of the on
line retailer Amazon.com.
Blue Origin is developing fully reusable space
vehicles that will take off and land vertically
using rocket power alone. They plan to test a
series of prototypes that will lead to the suborbital
New Shepard vehicle in 2010 that will be
capable of carrying several passengers to over
100 kilometers in altitude. The tests will be
carried out at a huge private site in West Texas.
(See this lengthy Environmenal
Impact Statement (pdf) for more information
about the company's spaceport and the New Shepard
vehicle.)
The company has been very quiet about its program
but has now released photos and videos on its
web
site of a recent flight test of its first
large prototype vehicle called Goddard.
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