Bezos' Blue Origin offers new details on space project |
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Bezos' Blue Origin offers new details on space project
Blue Origin vehicle test launch day, west Texas, November 13, 2006. Courtesy Blue Origin.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has kept a tight lid on his commercial space flight project, Blue Origin. But with the Obama administration looking to outsource astronaut transport duties to private space contractors, the company is talking a bit more about it plans. Space.com reports Blue Origin will use a recently announced $3.7 million grant from NASA to "develop an astronaut escape system and build a composite space capsule prototype for ground-based structural testing."
More details:
The company will develop a so-called "pusher" escape system for a spacecraft for NASA. The system places the escape rockets around the base of a capsule, rather than a tower mounted on the top like those used during NASA's Apollo and earlier spacecraft.
The Obama administration, as part of a broad revamp of NASA programs, plans to use commercial "space taxi" services to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. That's creating opportunities for Blue Origin and other space startups.
Blue Origin, which is based in Kent, Wash., and has a launch pad in west Texas, is developing a "vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing" vehicle called New Shepard designed to take space tourists and scientists into suborbital flight.
Gary Lai, a Blue Origin engineer, recently told a research conference in Boulder, Colo., that New Shepard's early test vehicle, the egg-shaped Goddard rocket, is "not necessarily" what the final spacecraft will look like, according to Space.com.
But in keeping with Bezos' penchant for secrecy, Lai said there will be no sneak peaks: "The first time most of the public will see that vehicle is when it's in the air and is flying."
Bezos is one of several business moguls — including PayPal co-founder Elon Musk and British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson — bankrolling space projects.
See related story: Bezos' Blue Origin gets NASA funds for human space flight.
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