LINE SPACE

Private space travel company expects its
first test flights with people sooner rather
than later.
Private space company Blue Origin expects its first test
flights with people in 2017, company founder
Jeff Bezos said Tuesday during a tour of the
venture's research and development site
outside Seattle.
And Bezos said thousands of people have
expressed interest in eventually paying for a
trip on a suborbital craft.
For now, the man who founded Amazon.com
is spending some of the billions earned from
the Seattle-based online retailer on high tech
equipment and about 600 employees working
in a former Boeing airplane parts facility.
Bezos said he's convinced the company — a
vision of his childhood dreams_will
eventually be profitable.
The company isn't taking deposits yet, so
it's unclear whether thousands of interested
space travelers will translate into sales.
Blue Origin, founded in 2000, has launched a
ship twice, and it landed safely. The
company plans to keep testing until its
usefulness is done then switch to other ships
being built to test human flight.
[ READ: Scott Kelly's Picturesque Year in
Space]
The real money will be made selling rocket
engines to others planning to launch
satellites and spaceships, Bezos said. United
Launch Alliance has asked Blue Origin to
build the engine for its new launch vehicle
so it can stop relying on Russian-made
engines.
Bezos, who still has his day job at Amazon,
said he's deeply involved at Blue Origin and
spends time in the Kent facility, about 17
miles south of Seattle. He enthusiastically
shared technical details and explanations
during a media tour and one engineer said he
was as knowledgeable about the technology
as anyone in the building.
"I only pursue things that I am passionate
about," Bezos said. He spoke of dreaming of
space travel and building rockets since he
was 5.
He said he wasn't ready to share exactly
how much he has invested in the space
venture, saying just that all the high tech
equipment and about 600 employees have
added up to "a very significant number."
The media-shy company said welcoming the
press to their development floor was a first
step toward more openness, but all but a
few photographs of the facility were
prohibited.
Bezos said he wasn't concerned about his
competition to build the next generation of
rocket engines because society will need lots
of help moving industry and people off the
planet.
A
handful of other U.S. companies are
currently competing in the private space
business, including SpaceX and Virgin
Galactic, which are also at the testing stage.
Bezos doesn't care about being the first
private company to offer space tourism to
the masses. The real goal is to perfect their
equipment by flying as many as 100
suborbital flights a year. Bezos said safety is
the No. 1 goal.
The company also wants to eventually
decrease the cost of space launches by
enough to put projects like building a colony
on Mars within reach. The key is making
spaceships reusable, which is Blue Origin's
goal, Bezos said.
"What I know you cannot afford is throwing
the hardware away," he said.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All
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