Blue Origin is a privately-funded aerospace company initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight. The company is owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and headquartered in a warehouse in Seattle, Washington, where its research and development is located. It has its testing and operations center in Culberson County, Texas, on a portion of the Corn Ranch, a 165,000 acre (668 km²) spread north of Van Horn and 15 miles south of Guadalupe Mountains.

A 2004 article in The Economist reports additional rumors that the company's vehicle will take off and land under its own propulsion, using a liquid rocket. In January 2005, Bezos told the editor of the Van Horn Advocate that Blue Origin is developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically and carry three or more astronauts to the edge of space. That same article noted that the first flights for space tourists could begin by 2011 or 2012.

The company has released very few details regarding its development. As of January 2005, the company's website announces that it hopes to establish an "enduring human presence in space"; Bezos told Reuters in November 2004 that his company hopes to progress to orbital spaceflight.

Employees of Blue Origin include Rob Meyerson (program manager), Ed Rutkowski (launch manager), and science fiction author Neal Stephenson (part-time advisor).

External links

• Official site
• Newsweek article: Bezos in Space (May 7, 2003)
• Amazon Enters the Space Race Wired Magazine (July 2003)
• Amazon CEO gives us peek into space plans, a January 2005 article from the Seattle Times
• Van Horn Advocate
• Amazon.com founder's space venture has West Texas county abuzz (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 12, 2005)