Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has unveiled his space travel company Blue Origin’s new rocket – as well as launch plans from Cape Canaveral
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos unveiled his space exploration company Blue Origin’s new rocket, announcing plans to fly from a classic launch pad in Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The space travel startup announced a $200m investment to build a rocket manufacturing plant in the area, with plans to launch them from a pad that hasn’t been used in several years.
Bezos said in a statement:
As a kid, I was inspired by the giant Saturn V missions that roared to life from these shores. Now we are thrilled to be coming to the Sunshine State for a new era of exploration.
Blue Origin, Bezos’ privately-funded space travel travel company, hope to get ahead in the commercial space race. As the company write on their website:
Earth, in all its beauty, is just our starting place.
In this, Bezos is competing against other space explorer billionaires, like Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk with SpaceX. And the race really is on: Virgin Galactic said last week its SpaceShipTwo would be unveiled "within months".
At the launch Bezos also confirmed he wants to go into space himself:
I definitely plan to go at some point. I want to go on a Blue Origin vehicle.