So, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, formed a aeronautics company called Blue Origin a few years back. They’ve been working on the ugliest personal spacecraft ever for a while. Virgin definitely has the edge on design here, but check out what Bezos’ little egg can do in the above video. I don’t see many-a-flame, do you? It only got 85-meters high though, so don’t get too excited to hop in and head to the Moon just yet.
The flight was done on November 13th, 2006 and the ship is called Goddard. If you still think it’s cooler than the Virgin space stuff, check out the BBC article.
I think you’re missing the point here! This is a big step, and if you look at the Blue Origin website that’s obvious to people in the business (or on the edges of the business like myself).
http://www.babilim.co.uk/blog/2007/01/first-launch-for-blue-origin.html
Jeff has run the entire thing as a skunk works project, nobody really knew what he was doing. It appears to be that he’s only released this footage so that he can recruit some new people with heavy lifter experience. He’s looking for people with experience with Delta IV or Atlas V. Those aren’t small vehicles. He isn’t in the sub-orbital business like Scaled and Branson, he’s going for an single stage to orbit lifter.
From the looks of things he’s basically up to where NASA and McDonnell Douglas was with the DC-X back in 1993. The Scaled design can’t scale to a craft which can obtain orbit, the Blue Origin design certainly can. That’s big news…
Come on this has got to be a joke.
I wouldn’t step foot in that clunker.
Nanoo Nanoo… time to bore audiences on another planet!
Seriously though, I don’t care what something looks as long as it works… it does have very big advantages over Virgins, no need for runway etc… but alas, each benefit also has a cost. Regardless, it will stir up competition leading to lower prices.
Jon