Space dreams boost tiny Texas town

By Michael Graczyk

updated 1:48 p.m. ET March 13, 2005

VAN HORN, Texas - Even skeptical locals, who’ve become wary over the years of city slickers with big ideas for their town, perked up when Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos made his pitch — a spaceport for commercial travel into the beyond.

Bezos flew into this West Texas town a few weeks ago to tell key leaders how he planned to use his newly acquired 165,000 acres (66,774 hectares) of desolate ranch land, known as the Corn Ranch. He also gave his only interview so far on the spaceport to the Van Horn Advocate, the weekly newspaper Larry Simpson runs from the back of his Radio Shack store.

“He walked in and said: ’Hi, I’m Jeff Bezos,’ and sat down right in that chair there,” Simpson said, pointing to spot in his small cluttered office.

Over the next 30 to 40 minutes, Simpson said Bezos told him the goal of his venture — known as Blue Origin — was to send a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket.

“He told me their first spacecraft is going to carry three people up to the edge of space and back,” Simpson said. “But ultimately, his thing is space colonization.”

Starting with the basics
Bezos, 41, was accompanied by Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin’s program manager, whose history includes stints as a manager on the space shuttle emergency return vehicle project and lead aerodynamics engineer developing the shuttle’s parachute landing system.

Bezos said Blue Origin would first build basic structures at the Texas site, such as an engine test stand, fuel and water tanks and an office building, then begin flight tests in six to seven years, Simpson said.

He said most of its initial research and development would be done in Seattle, where Bezos and his companies are based.

Bezos has said nothing else publicly about his project, and did not grant an interview request made by The Associated Press.

A Houston-based spokesman for Blue Origin, which was incorporated in September 2000 in Washington state, said there was “not much to see or tell” and that the project “won’t go anywhere any time soon.”

The spokesman, Bruce Hicks, provided a short news release and a company fact sheet, which included Blue Origin’s mission statement — to “facilitate an enduring human presence in space.”

More space-oriented millionaires
Bezos isn’t the only tech industry tycoon with stars in his eyes and ties to Texas, where Bezos attended elementary school for three years in Houston while his stepfather was an engineer at Exxon.

Tony Gutierrez / AP The Corn Ranch, now owned by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, sprawls over 165,000 acres of Texas' Culberson County.

SpaceX, started by PayPal founder Elon Musk, plans to launch and deploy a military satellite this year using a rocket. The California-based company has conducted much of its testing in McGregor, Texas, near the Fort Hood military base.

John Carmack, who made a fortune on “Doom” and “Quake” through his video game company ID Software, owns Armadillo Aerospace based in suburban Dallas. The venture also hopes to launch its own brand of space rockets.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen spent $20 million to fund the SpaceShipOne rocket plane that last fall successfully reached the edge of space and returned. It was dropped from beneath a flying craft and landed like a plane. (The NASA space shuttle, which takes off vertically, also lands like a plane.)

Winning the space race takes talented people, and Blue Origin’s Web site lists several job ads for engineers — “highly qualified and dedicated individuals ... among the most technically gifted in his or her field.”

MORE FROM THE NEW SPACE RACE

The New Space Race Section Front

Low-cost rocket finally gets to orbit Strike three for SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket Aircraft for space tourism to be unveiled Flight attendant gets a shot at final frontier Google co-founder aims for space SpaceShipOne tales revealed N.M. spaceport tax wins key vote Orbital wins NASA grant for cargo spaceship First look at SpaceShipTwo Rocketplane adds seats to spaceship The New Space Race Section Front   Add The New Space Race headlines to your news reader: