While Richard Branson plans to shoot off into space on his Virgin Galactic shuttle, Internet Mogul Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com, has his own plans for private space flight.
According to Space.com, Bezos, has rolled out a new website for his private entrepreneurial space group “Blue Origin.” The recently relaunched site, Blue Origin provides glimpses into the group’s past and future. According to Space.com, Blue Origin is one of four companies that has received NASA funding to develop commercial space taxis to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.
From the Blue Origin site:
We’re working to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. Accomplishing this mission will take time, and we’re working on it methodically.
Blue Origin is focused on developing reusable launch vehicles utilizing rocket-powered Vertical Take-off and Vertical Landing (VTVL) technology. In June, the company successfully flew its second test vehicle in a short hop mission, but then lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet.
The company is working on two different space vehicles. Its first, the New Shepard system, will take astronauts to space on suborbital journeys and includes a Crew Capsule carrying three or more astronauts atop a separate rocket-powered Propulsion Module. In the future, it will also launch its orbital program, which will use some of the same reusable launch vehicle technologies from its suborbital program.
Want to pursue your dream of becoming an astronaut? Blue Origin is hiring immediately.
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