Jeff Bezos puts his hat into the ring

From spaceman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date Thu, 1 May 2003 21:31:39 -0700 
FYI folks!

This is all I could find on Jeff Bezos and Blue Origins:

http://www.blueorigins.com/

http://www.spacetoday.net/getsummary.php?id=1639

http://www.msnbc.com/news/904842.asp

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030426/space_speculation_1.html
The Newsweek article claimed Bezos is investing $30 to develop the "New Shepard," a rocket vehicle named after Alan Shepard. 

I already sent my resume in . :-)

Sam



Sam Coniglio
Advocate and Board Member
Space Frontier Foundation
www.space-frontier.org
spaceman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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Sam,


FYI folks!

This is all I could find on Jeff Bezos and Blue Origins:

http://www.blueorigins.com/

http://www.spacetoday.net/getsummary.php?id=1639

http://www.msnbc.com/news/904842.asp

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030426/space_speculation_1.html

The Newsweek article claimed Bezos is investing $30 to develop the "New
Shepard,"  a rocket vehicle named after Alan Shepard.

I already sent my resume in . :-)


If you guys subscribed to my forums below, you would have seen these
articles last week. :)

BTW, Rand Simberg has a good write up on these recent developments,
which you can also find on my appropriate forums. :)

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Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 22:01:38 -0700
Subject: Re: Jeff Bezos puts his hat into the ring
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Mark:
How on Earth do you keep up with all those forums? You must be superhuman. 
:-)

Sam

On Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 09:44  PM, Mark Reiff wrote:


Sam,


FYI folks!

This is all I could find on Jeff Bezos and Blue Origins:

http://www.blueorigins.com/

http://www.spacetoday.net/getsummary.php?id=1639

http://www.msnbc.com/news/904842.asp

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030426/space_speculation_1.html
The Newsweek article claimed Bezos is investing $30 to develop the "New 
Shepard,"  a rocket vehicle named after Alan Shepard.

I already sent my resume in . :-)


If you guys subscribed to my forums below, you would have seen these
articles last week. :)

BTW, Rand Simberg has a good write up on these recent developments,
which you can also find on my appropriate forums. :)

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Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 15:46:42 -0500
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FYI,

"Tito Urges More Commercial Space Travel to Cape Audience"
Space.com/FLORIDA TODAY
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/tito_cape_030501.html

: The first paying tourist to the International Space Station is
: continuing his quest of space commercialization. 
: Dennis Tito, a 62-year-old investor, told a packed ballroom at the
: 40th Space Congress here on Wednesday night that since his launch on
: a Russian Soyuz rocket, his new passion is to help others reach
: space. : "I'd like to see thousands of people fly," Tito said. 
: Although space trips like his are expensive, he said that for the
: price of an SUV in the next five years, it might be possible for
: people to take suborbital rides into space. Those flights, like the
: first Mercury flights, only will last a few minutes. 
: "It really doesn't matter whether you spend a few minutes or eight
: days," Tito said. "It's all space."
: He cited the X Prize, a $10 million contest for the company that can : build a suborbital space vehicle capable of launching people, as an 
: example of the type of commercial initiate that will make space
: tourism possible. 
: He attended the rollout of an X Prize vehicle, developed by Burt
: Rutan, last week. 
: "Government allowing this development to happen -- I think this is
: really the biggest challenge," he said of the regulatory issues.

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Message-ID: <3EBF31F0.89B897A6@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 00:32:32 -0500
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FYI,

Last Flight of 6-story Roton Forced to Abort
Antelope Valley Press
http://www.avpress.com/n/susty1.hts

: It was to be "The Last Flight of the Roton," but the flight was not
: nearly as long as organizers hoped.  The last vestige of an attempt
: to create a low-cost space-launch system, the Roton ATV was headed
: from its birthplace at the Mojave Airport for display at Classic
: Rotors, a helicopter museum located at the Ramona Airport.

: The effort to carry the six-story, cone-shaped vehicle, created by
: Rotary Rocket, beneath an Army helicopter ran into unexpected
: difficulties once airborne and the two never left the airfield.

: "It's back to the drawing board," said Mark DiCiero, operations
: director for Classic Rotors. "We just have to figure out a way to
: carry it in a different way.

: After a few tense moments, the helicopter slowly rose, pulling the
: Roton off the ground. Dangling the Roton beneath it, the Chinook
: headed north across the airfield. As it did, the massive rocket
: began swaying increasingly side-to-side.

: While those planning the move had anticipated that the Roton would
: rotate in flight, no one had expected the side-to-side movement.

: It proved to be too severe for the helicopter to handle, and the
: crew returned to the flightline to set down the Roton.

: All together, the pair was airborne about 20 minutes.

: Another unforeseen problem came once the Roton vehicle was safely
: back on the ground. As the helicopter was disengaging its hook from
: the vehicle, it bobbled briefly and the rotor head atop the Roton
: pierced the sheet metal underside of the Chinook.

: The size and shape of the vehicle is the unusual part of this
: mission, he said. The weight - about 10,000 pounds - is actually a
: little lighter than their normal "nonstandard external loads."

: "The awkward size makes for the 'wow' portion of it," Doehring said.

: Among those who turned out at dawn Saturday morning were several
: former members of the Rotary Rocket team, many of whom are now the
: force behind another Mojave-based rocket venture, XCOR Aerospace.

: "I'm really pleased it's going to a museum and will be cared for,"
: said Aleta Jackson, one of Rotary Rocket's first employees and now
: with XCOR Aerospace. "It's kind of sad it's leaving Mojave, but
: we're pleased it's got a good home ? and will be seen and
: appreciated."

: The Roton atmospheric test vehicle was a proof-of-concept vehicle
: for an envisioned space-launch system in which the cone-shaped craft
: would return from orbit and land like a helicopter.

: To test the landing and hover capabilities of the design, the ATV
: was built with rotor blades atop the cone, making it "the world's
: tallest helicopter," said Terry Robinson, program director for
: Classic Rotors.

: The blades were removed for the move, and are already at the museum.

: A nonprofit, all-volunteer effort, Classic Rotors is one of only
: four museums in the world devoted to helicopters, he said, and the
: only one with aircraft in flying condition.

: Robinson learned of the Roton through a web site and thought "we've
: got to have that Rotary Rocket!"

: He tried in vain to reach the now-defunct company, headquartered in
: Redwood City.

: The trail seemed cold until he read that XCOR Aerospace had bought
: much of Rotary Rocket's intellectual property.

: He was able to contact the company's founders through XCOR and
: secure donation of the vehicle.

: By that time, several museums had expressed interest in the vehicle,
: but none could figure out how to transport it.

: The vehicle's enormous size - more than 60 feet tall and 30 feet
: wide at the base - makes transport by road or rail impossible.

: Once set up outside the Classic Rotors hangar, the Rotary Rocket
: will be the tallest structure in Ramona, Robinson said.

: "This will put us on the map," he said.

: Eventually, the museum hopes to set up the display so that visitors
: are able to enter the cone and see the cockpit set up as if ready
: for a flight.

: "We want to give it the respect it deserves," Robinson said.

: Rotary Rocket raised eyebrows when it set up shop at the Mojave
: Airport in 1998 with the introduction of the Roton Rocket
: - conceptually a reusable launch vehicle that could carry small
: payloads into orbit, return to Earth and be prepared for another
: launch the next day.

: The company ran into difficulty raising enough capital to get the
: unconventional project off the ground and liquidated much of its
: assets in a January 2001 auction.

: The cone-shaped Roton would use rotary blades to slow its decent
: from orbit and to land, much like a helicopter.

: The Roton atmospheric test vehicle was the first step in developing
: the Roton Rocket. It was constructed to test the ship's flying
: ability in the atmosphere and was incapable of space flight.

: The ATV made three flights at Mojave Airport in 1999, where hover
: tests showed the company's concept of a helicopter-style of landing
: of a cone-shaped spacecraft would work. 
Glad that the Roton ATV is going to be properly displayed in a museum,
although Romona is pretty remote to get many visitors.  Hopefully this
article run during a time that NASA is feeling heat from Congress
over the Columbia shuttle crash investigation and the Orbital Space
Plane hearings will remind the public of the sad tale of Rotary
Rocket's untimely death.

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Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 11:28:59 -0700
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Subject: The ROTON Anti-Rollout
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Here are some images from the attempt to move the ROTON to a museum in San Diego. It's too big to ship by truck or rail, so they tried the helicopter approach. That didn't work so well as you will see:
http://www.pro-photography.net/gallery/Rotary-Rocket-Roton-ATV- move?&page=1 


Samuel Coniglio
Space Tourism Club
"Inventing Fun for the Future"
www.spacetourismclub.org

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Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 16:57:18 -0500
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FYI,

"When Molecules Fly"
Tech Central Station
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-051503B

: Should the federal government fund scientific research with taxpayer
: dollars?  Boondoggles like the Superconducting Supercollider, the
: space station, energy research programs, the Supersonic Transport
: plane, and numerous other examples of corporate and scientific pork
: argue for leaving such efforts to free enterprise.

: Eight years ago Congress seemed to agree. Upon the release of the
: "Contract With America" to reduce the size of government in
: Washington, the first Republican Congress in 40 years proposed
: sweeping reforms like privatizing national laboratories and
: government research programs.  There was even legislation to create
: a Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission, an attempt, modeled on the
: military base closing commission, to curb billions in handouts to
: private companies, i.e., business welfare.

: But now Republican advocacy of science pork is back. Exhibit A for
: 2003 is nanotechnology, the cutting-edge science of direct
: manipulation of matter at the molecular level. Government wants to
: get involved in a big way, despite companies such as IBM, Hewlett
: Packard and Intel - and numerous venture capitalists - already
: taking the lead.

: The field sports its share of hype: Surely, promised "nanobots" to
: attack cancers and other human ailments - or even repair cellular
: damage and revive cryogenically frozen human beings - remain in the
: far-distant future. Similarly, the proposed "Starlight Express"
: carbon-nanotube elevator to outer space - from a NASA-funded outfit
: called Highlift Systems - belongs to the realm of science fiction.

: Meanwhile, the ETC Group, while alarmed about the potential hazards
: of unrestrained nanotechnology, points out that yearly scientific
: citations to "nano" have grown nearly 40-fold, the number of
: nano-related patents is surging, and nine nanotechnology-related
: Nobel prizes have been awarded since 1990.

: To many in Congress, what's needed is not a free hand for technology
: entrepreneurs to explore this blossoming field, but government
: money. President Bush's proposed 2004 fiscal year budget for the
: National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is $847 million, a
: 9.5 percent increase over 2003. The NNI was created by the Bush
: administration in 2001. In addition, the House Science Committee
: just authorized a $2.4 billion funding program for nanotechnology,
: and the full House is likely to approve it. That's not huge by
: Washington standards, but such programs only grow.

: Politicians have no innate ability to pick among competing
: technologies, whether nano, macro or otherwise. If they did, they'd
: be entrepreneurs themselves. And they're particularly bad at the job
: when using taxpayer money. Politicians can merely transfer wealth,
: which automatically invites wasteful pork-barreling to propel funds
: to one's home state. Scientific merit need not carry the day. But
: even if it did, taxpayers should get to decide for themselves which
: technologies to invest in.

: Nanotechnology is plainly viable on its own, moving forward on
: fronts too numerous to catalog, all seeking to make breakthroughs
: before others. Nanotech venture capitalist Josh Wolfe told Wired
: magazine that most business proposals he sees now have "nano" in the
: title. Venture capitalists have plowed in hundreds of millions of
: dollars over the past five years. And according to the National
: Science Foundation, the market in nanotech products could be
: $1 trillion a year by 2015. That's nearly 10 percent the size of
: today's gross domestic product.

: The vigorous calls for government research seem in part a reaction
: to the technology market downturn. But we ought not look for a
: technology savior in emergent biotech or nanotech spawned in
: government labs. Forthcoming technologies should be products of
: capitalism and entrepreneurship, not central planning, government
: R&D, and pork barrel. Tomorrow's nanotechnology markets have too
: much potential and are too important be creatures of government. 
: It's still early enough in this particular pork game to stop it
: before it goes any further. My Cato Institute colleague Tom Miller
: put it best when asked by technology reporter Declan McCullagh about
: federal nanotechnology funding: "I suggest giving them nanodollars."

: Wayne Crews is director of technology policy at the Cato Institute,
: www.cato.org .

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Space Entrepreneurs For Bush http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spaceentrepreneursforbush Commercial Space Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/commercialspaceplace 
Space Travel Bureau  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacetravelbureau
Space Policy Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacepolicyplace
Space Architecture  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spaceachitecture
Space Chamber of Commerce http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacechamberofcommerce 
Financing Space  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/financingspace
Space Enthusiast Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spaceenthusiastplace Solar Power Satellite Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarpowersatelliteplace 
Space Education Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spaceeducationplace
Space Media Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacemediaplace
Internet Space Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/internetspaceplace
Space Technology Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacetechnologyplace 
A Risky Space Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ariskyspaceplace
Moral Values in Space Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moralvaluesinspaceplace 
Space Labor Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spacelaborplace
National Defense Space Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nationaldefensespaceplace Space Operations Place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spaceoperationsplace 
Public Space Place  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/publicspaceplace

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