Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos attempts to launch Goddard out to space

[Brian Defferding]

I saw this and couldn't resist posting it here:

Amazon's Jeff Bezos Has Liftoff!

Katherine Mangu-Ward | January 4, 2007, 1:55pm



Blue Origin, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos's space tourism company, has successfully launched for the first time. Bezos has been playing close to the vest, so this is some of the first real information about his project: "Our first objective is developing New Shepard, a vertical take-off, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a sub-orbital journey into space. On the morning of November 13, 2006, we launched and landed Goddard – a first development vehicle in the New Shepard program. The launch was both useful and fun." Blue Origin has just released pictures and video here.

Bezos also says, "My only job at the launch was to open the champagne, and I broke the cork off in the bottle. : ) Fortunately, our other valve operations went more smoothly."

Goddard only went 285 feet upward, so it was far from a successful space launch. This was only a test flight and wasn't intended to reach atmospheric heights yet, they are slowly graduating to higher altitudes over time.

[Jacob Lyon Goddard]

this needs a photoshop

[mario]

Goddard looks like a butt-plug

and I saw the video but it looks fishy to me. It's too smooth. Can't describe why, but I have a feeling it's a scam