Originally published February 16 2006
Entrepreneur looks to build a private rocket enterprise in Seattle
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Reports have surfaced that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is founding a private rocket enterprise called Blue Origin, which will design and build spacecraft in a suburb of Seattle.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos expects a rocket-ship complex for his aerospace venture Blue Origin to open in the south Seattle suburb of Kent early next year, city records show.
The records show that an office and warehouse the billionaire is revamping will be used to design and build spacecraft and engines, The Seattle Times reported on Sunday.
Blue Origin has released few details about the project.
But a Texas newspaper editor who interviewed Bezos earlier this year said the billionaire talked about sending a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket, and eventually building spaceships that can orbit the Earth -- possibly leading to permanent colonies in space.
Bezos paid $13-million for nearly 10ha of industrial land, where city records indicate he's spending up to $8-million to remodel an office building and warehouse.
Plans also call for construction of an experimental stand where rocket engines will be tested in three-minute-long trial runs.
Long-term plans for that site include a spaceport where three-person space-tourism flights could blast off once a week.
Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Music and Virgin Atlantic Airways, licensed the technology from Allen and vowed to start taking passengers into space by 2009.
John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, DC, said competition among the groups will raise the odds of success.
Bezos has been the most secretive of all the rocketeers, revealing little about the technology he's exploring.
The only interview Bezos has granted about his space plans was with Larry Simpson, the editor of the weekly Van Horn Advocate.
In 1982, during the valedictory speech he gave at his high-school graduation, Bezos stressed the need for space colonisation.
Blue Origin spokesperson Bruce Hicks said officials don't want to discuss the project.
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