The Amazon Spacecraft (Your space tourist carrier?)
Mr Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the intention of developing a vertical take-off and landing vehicle, called New Shepard, able to take passengers to the edge of space. No timescale for commercial trips has been announced but documents released by the US Federal Aviation Administration suggest they could start as early as 2010.
The launch, described by Mr Bezos as "both useful and fun", was watched by friends, family and a team of engineers. "My only job at the launch was to open the champagne," said Mr Bezos. Mr Bezos now hopes to recruit a team of engineers to the New Shepard programme to develop the design and increase the altitude and duration of flights.
Blue Origin is one of several private companies vying to open up space to the public. US-based Space Adventures has already taken four space tourists to the International Space Station, while in September 2006, Sir Richard Branson unveiled a mock-up of a rocket powered vehicle that will carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 140km (85 miles). His Virgin Galactic design is based on SpaceShipOne, the craft designed by Scaled Composites that won the Ansari X-Prize in 2005. The first passengers could take off in 2009. Other entrepreneurs jostling for their place in space include hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow who launched Genesis 1, an experimental inflatable spacecraft, in July 2006. Mr Bigelow hopes the water-melon shaped craft could form the basis of a future space hotel. This was seized 4 u at BBC tags: reseize,spacecraft,amazon,space+tourist,goddardLabels: amazon, goddard, reseize, space tourist, spacecraft |
My only job at the launch was to open the champagne 
posted by Roland at 1/04/2007 02:02:00 PM
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