Is it a new James Bond thriller, an unfinished Philip K. Dick manuscript, a newly found episode of The Avengers or The Twilight Zone? Not exactly.
But, brought to us thanks to the profits of Amazon.com, we now have an actual secretive billionaire with a "special project" of his own and big plans for the world of tomorrow. Just today, in fact (November 14, 2006), Jeff Bezos, the founder of the famous online books and everything else business, reached a milestone in his goal to operate his own space fleet -- Blue Origin, Bezos' space company founded in 2000, launched its first rocket.
Today a rocket launch, tomorrow space colonies!
Is it just me, or does something seem a little ominous about a space corporation called Blue Origin? Or worse, a spacecraft in the works called The New Shephard?
The mystical-engineering mix seems like another development to be wary of, if just out of prudence and history.
Bezos operates out of Seattle, but he's scarfed up 165,000 acres of land way out in West Texas near the town of Van Horn and the Guadalupe Mountains called The Corn Ranch. This is, in Texas terms, not too far from El Paso, not too far from the Mexican border. Unlike Dr. No and other grand-scale (and usually fictional) schemers, Bezos actually has the audacity to aim at creating a private fleet of spaceships that reportedly will launch more than fifty flights per year by 2010 -- from within the United States. Compared to NASA or those various fictional masterminds, that would be astonishing.
Meanwhile, other wealthy visionaries have joined the Major Tom club. Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, has worked on developing SpaceShipOne rockets (at least one has already been tested, successfully). Elon Musk of Pay Pal is playing with military satellites near Fort Hood, Texas, and video game entrepreneur John Carmack runs Armadillo Aerospace, headquartered in Mesquite, Texas, a Dallas suburb. According to the A.A. website: "The team currently consists of a bunch of guys, a girl, and an armadillo named Widget." That's comforting.
As for Blue Origin, let's hope they have better ideas than Heaven's Gate. That group, led by Bo and Peep, developed a manual on How to Build a U.F.O. before committing mass suicide at the coming of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997. The "Heaven's Gate Away Team" got the clever idea to kill themeselves (while wearing Nikes -- "just do it," indeed) as a way to transport their spirit bodies to a spaceship hidden behind, in or under the comet. The cosmic results of this mission are still pending.
Today's Rune: Partnership.
Eyes on the Skies (II).
5 comments:
Fascinating news Erik!
But yes, I am wary of The New Shephard and would not like to fly inside such a craft. Couldn't there be a less loaded name to use
I didn't realsie that provate space flights were so near to becoming reality! This will finally put pay to the sceptics who believed the moon landings were false and that Kubrick filmed them!
Can an armadillo called Widget exist? Surely not!
Could a team of deluded fools called Heaven's Gate commit mass suicide in today's enlightened times? Surely not!
Would you board one of these private crafts?
As for Blue Origin, let's hope they have better ideas than Heaven's Gate. That group, led by Bo and Peep, developed a manual on How to Build a U.F.O. before committing mass suicide at the coming of the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997. The "Heaven's Gate Away Team" got the clever idea to kill themeselves (while wearing Nikes -- "just do it," indeed) as a way to transport their spirit bodies to a spaceship hidden behind, in or under the comet. The cosmic results of this mission are still pending.
I've been on Disney's "Mission Space" ride; that's enough for me. As for The New Shephard, the name blends right in with all those other crazy religious sects such as Heaven's Gate. If they want to be taken more seriously, I'd change the name--and of course, prove myself with a few successful missions.
As far as I know, nobody's received a postcard from that Heaven's Gate crew. And you're right, The New Shephard is a name that sends shudders down one's spine.
maybe I'm just crazy but I'm not that into James Bond....
I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old, but after Sean Connery as James Bond, no one else quite measures up.
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