Posted on 07/24/2006 6:31:58 PM PDT by KevinDavis
An environmental study facing scrutiny this week offers a tantalizing glimpse into the secretive West Texas private spaceport project being bankrolled and developed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
Under the banner of a Seattle-area company called Blue Origin, a spacecraft dubbed the New Shepard Reusable Launch Vehicle would take off vertically, like NASA's space shuttle. But unlike the shuttle, which glides to earth and lands like an airplane, the spaceship would land vertically.
The craft would hit an altitude of about 325,000 feet before descending and restarting its engine for a "precision vertical powered landing on the landing pad" located in sparsely populated Culberson County about 125 miles east of El Paso.
Those were among the plans detailed in a 229-page draft of an environmental review filed with the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA has responsibility to issue permits and licenses for Blue Origin to go ahead with its launch plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.com ...
Cue spooky music...
Shouldn't the Texans try to locate their spaceport closer to the equator, so near Brownsville?
I suppose if these are only suborbital tourist flights, that it would not be necessary to use the earths rotation to achieve the orbital velocity of approx. 17,000mph.
Too many people and towns. Out near Van Horn where Bezos has his operation, there is a helluva lot of wide open country.
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