Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos’s reading habits

When Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show last October to discuss the Kindle e-book reader, he mentioned in passing that he was reading a book on the history of cryogenics. Not your usual reading fare to be certain, even for a self-professed nerd like Bezos (and particularly when paired with the […]

Video: Whitehorn assesses the competition

Below is a brief snippet of Will Whitehorn’s speech at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference on Friday. In this segment Whitehorn examines some of the other ventures developing suborbital vehicles, including Rocketplane, EADS Astrium, Blue Origin, XCOR, Armadillo Aerospace, and Copenhagen Suborbitals, a little-known Danish firm developing a very minimalist suborbital system. Whitehorn’s theme […]

Bezos: “My passion is for space”

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos appeared on The Charlie Rose Show Monday night, primarily to talk about the new electronic book reader that Amazon unveiled earlier in the day. However, at the very end of the show Rose did ask Bezos some questions about Blue Origin, Bezos’s spaceflight venture. A lot of the interview covered familiar […]

Blue Origin “merchandise” on Amazon.com

You can buy a lot of things on Amazon.com, from books and DVDs to clothes and jewelry. Did you know that you can also buy a full-scale replica of Goddard, the Blue Origin spacecraft? It’ll only cost you $9,999,999.00 (on sale from $11,999,999.00!). The product description: “A full sized replica of Goddard. This is a […]

Blue Origin successful test flight

During her presentation at the Space Access ’07 conference this afternoon, Michelle Murray of FAA/AST mentioned that Blue Origin had a successful* test flight yesterday (March 22), their second under their experimental permit and the first since their initial flight in November. No other information about the flight is available, but I’ll update this as […]

Time reviews the industry

The website for Time magazine has a fairly detailed review article about the emerging space tourism industry. Writer Cathy Booth Thomas talks with a number of the leading companies, including Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, and Benson Space Company, and also covers the more secretive Blue Origin; there’s also coverage if Bigelow Aerospace and developing spaceports, […]

Blue Origin opens up

I was just sitting down to lunch when a coworker came up to me and asked, “Have you checked out Blue Origin’s web site recently?”

“Umm, no,” I responded.

“You should,” he responded. And I did, and you should, too: the company has provided a major new update on its web site, in the form […]

Another Blue Origin test upcoming

MSNBC’s Cosmic Log reports that the FAA has issued a temporary flight restriction for the airspace around Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas. The restriction, in effect from 7:30 am through 12:30 pm CST on Thursday through Saturday, is similar to one in effect earlier this month for Blue Origin’s first low-level flight test. […]

Blue Origin flies

According to MSNBC and the AP, Blue Origin performed its first low-level flight test on Monday morning at about 7:30 am EST from its test site in West Texas. The company, not surprisingly, has released few details about the flight. FAA officials said that the flight lasted “one or two minutes”, but we don’t know […]

Blue Origin tests impending

MSNBC’s Cosmic Log reports that Blue Origin plans to conduct flight tests in the next few days from its West Texas spaceport. A notice to airmen (NOTAM) issued by the FAA sets aside airspace over about 15 square kilometers centered on the launch site up to an altitude of about 3,000 meters, although the flight […]