Amazon founder Bezos unveils rocket plant, launch pad in Florida

[bananas]

Source: Reuters

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday unveiled plans to build a rocket manufacturing plant and launch site in Florida, a business that will compete against fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Bezos’ space startup, Blue Origin, intends to invest more than US$200 million to build a rocket manufacturing facility adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, state officials said. The rockets will fly from a refurbished launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the NASA spaceport.

The announcement follows last week’s opening of a Boeing commercial spaceship assembly plant at the Kennedy Space Center. Both projects included financial backing from state, local and regional economic development agencies. So far, Florida has invested about US$2 billion to lure aerospace companies to the state.

Blue Origin has been developing and testing a small rocket, called New Shepard, that can travel about 100 miles (62 km) above the planet before returning to Earth. The company’s new rockets will be able to reach orbital altitudes, such as the 250- (400 km) mile-high perch of the International Space Station, and beyond.

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Read more: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/amazon-founder-bezos-unve/2128634.html

[bananas]

1. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company to launch from historic pad at Space Coast

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/09/15/jeff-bezoss-blue-origin-space-company-to-launch-from-historic-pad-at-space-coast/

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company to launch from historic pad at Space Coast

By Christian Davenport September 15 at 10:52 AM

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company will take over a launch pad at Cape Canaveral and open a manufacturing site nearby, bringing another high-profile tenant to the Florida Space Coast.

Standing on a stage fit for a rock star, Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com, said Tuesday that Blue Origin would fly its orbital launch vehicle from space launch complex 36, a historic launch pad that was home to 145 launches, including the Mariner missions and Pioneer 10.

But, as Bezos noted, “the pad has stood silent for more than 10 years — too long. We can’t wait to fix that.”

He said that Blue would be “launching from here later this decade” but didn’t provide any other details about the company’s timing. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

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[Marrah_G]

2. I'm glad to see a push towards space research and exploration again

[bananas]

3. Surrounded by Florida Governor Rick Scott and various national and local politicians...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bezos-space-startup-blue-origin-lifting-off-in-florida-1442329226

Bezos’ Space Startup Blue Origin Lifting Off in Florida

A $200 million investment will create 300 jobs in state to build rockets, capsules in state

By ANDY PASZTOR
Updated Sept. 15, 2015 11:13 a.m. ET

A space startup run by Amazon.com Inc. Chairman Jeff Bezos announced a roughly $200 million investment to build rockets and capsules in Florida, and then launch them from a nearby Cape Canaveral pad which hasn’t been used for a decade.

Surrounded by Florida Governor Rick Scott and various national and local politicians, Blue Origin LLC’s chief said his closely held company plans to create 300 jobs as part of its initiative. Florida bested roughly a dozen other states to snare the production facility, and Gov. Scott said it highlights the state’s position in the “forefront of new space technologies.”

Mr. Bezos, who over the years has kept many details of Blue Origin’s plans private, said Blue Origin will use historic Launch Complex 36, located on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which among other firsts launched the initial American spacecraft to visit other planets.

“We’re not just launching from here, we’re building here,” Mr. Bezos said. The pad has been quiet for “too long,” he added. “We can’t wait to fix that.”

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[yeoman6987]

4. Since we can't afford space program anymore according to GOP

We're going to have to have liberals get creative which they are. Liberals know how to get things done. I wish voters could see that.

[maxsolomon]

15. You're not calling Bezos a Liberal, are you?

He's a Libertarian who bankrolled the opposition to an initiative to create a state income tax in WA.

[hibbing]

6. $666,666 Per Job

Gotta love American capitalism, socialize the cost and privatize the profits. I'm all for space exploration, but I'd rather pay for it through taxes than more giveaways to billionaires.

Peace

[KansDem]

5. "Commercial space industry?"

“This is a translational moment ... the evolution of a new commercial space industry in Florida,” said Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida, an economic development agency.

What plans do the billionaires have for space?

[killbotfactory]

10. low orbit mini-satellites to bring high speed internet access everywhere

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/21/technology/internet-in-space/

datamine the planet!

[global1]

11. Ah Yes - Corporations In Space.....

I can envision the Trump Space Condo & Hotel Space Station now. No bibles in the nightstands because your closer to God.

[PSPS]

7. Another under-taxed billionaire

[Nye Bevan]

18. Creating lots of jobs in Florida

as opposed to parking his money offshore. Could be worse.

[Chef Eric]

8. "My rocket will be bigger than his rocket!" -Undertaxed Billionaire

[global1]

12. Richer Boys Have Bigger Toys......nt

[valerief]

9. Ah, billionaires making toys for their ilk. nt

[chapdrum]

13. What a complete and utter

crock.

Bezos and Eric Schmidt should put their uber heads together, figure out a way to colonize a planet large enough to implement their fascist dreams, and promptly f*ck off.

[rockfordfile]

14. Nothing like

Nothing like having a anti science idiot like rick scott with you on stage, while talking about rockets.

[OakCliffDem]

16. Bezos will never get off a single launch

Sea Level rise due to global warming will flood his launch pad before it can be put to use.

[FarrenH]

17. This might excite me but...

It's Bezos, not Musk. Musk is genuinely motivated by a desire to get build a working economy in space so that we can establish self-sustaining colonies off-planet for the long term survival of the human race (and in fact the ecosystems we live in). Because like most people with a keen interest in our evolutionary history, he's acutely aware that there have been five great extinctions that killed most large life-forms on the planet. And some of the possible events that can cause such extinctions (very large rocks, gamma ray bursts from dying stars) we are powerless to stop.

Bezos is motivated by nothing other than filthy lucre. Musk is a technological and social visionary and while I strongly disagree with his more market-oriented views, I can see that the reason he holds them is that he wrongly projects his own work ethic and motives beyond business onto other winners in the capitalism game, and discounts the fact that it produces more predators than Tony Starks. But i'm certain he's sincere and of all the new billionaires of our century, is the one doing the most good.

Whatever Bezos does in space, if it is successful it will fuck over the little people and spread the worst features of our current systems of corporate capitalism into some future space economy. The last thing on earth I want to see is Bezos becoming a major player in that industry. I do not, and will not, buy from Amazon because of the way he runs his business and the sociopathic form of capitalism it represents.