Blue Origin planning human test flights to space by 2017

Source: Phys.org

Blue Origin planning human test flights to space by 2017

March 9, 2016 by Donna Gordon Blankinship

Private space travel company Blue Origin expects to launch its first people in 2017, company founder Jeff Bezos said Tuesday during a tour of the venture's research and development site outside Seattle.

Those won't be paying customers, he said, but thousands have expressed interest in 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.

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Read more: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-blue-human-flights-space.html