Notes

Two years after losing a battle with SpaceX to take over one of the space shuttle’s old launch pads, Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has decided to become a neighbor instead.

SpaceX is nearing completion of its refurbishment of Launch Pad 39A, one of two sites at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center used during the 1981-2011 space shuttle program. The company’s first launch from the historic pad, originally built for the Saturn moon rockets, is slated for Spring 2016.

Blue Origin contested NASA’s decision to lease the pad to SpaceX, but lost the appeal. Instead, the company will take over an idled launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of NASA’s spaceport. Launch Complex 36 was used for 145 Atlas launched between 1962 and 2005, including NASA’s Mariner missions, the first spacecraft sent to other planets, and dozens of military and communications satellites.

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Blue Origin is aiming for its first launch from the pad before the end of the decade.

Blue Origin and SpaceX also have tussled over a patent award for landing rockets on a barge at sea. Both companies are developing technologies to return their rockets after launch so they can be refurbished and reflown.

“You cannot afford to be a space-fairing civilization if you throw the rocket away every time you use it,” Bezos told a small group of reporters after the official unveiling of Blue Origin’s Florida expansion.

“The physics of this are unbelievably hard. Our number one opponent is gravity,” Bezos said.

In addition to Bezos and Musk, Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, and Richard Branson, chief executive of London-based Virgin Group, are among a small but growing group of billionaire entrepreneurs interested and investing in space.

“The people who are attracted to this field are like me, it’s in their heart, they are missionary, they want to build rockets, they want to see humanity fly into space,” Bezos said.

“For sure, this is an industry where people are competitive, but I think it’s also an industry where there is a lot of heart and people doing this for reasons of passion,” he added. “If my only goal were to make money, I’d would just open a new kind of snack food company. It’s way more likely to work.”

In addition to a new pad at Launch Complex 36, Blue Origin will build a test stand for its liquid natural gas-fueled BE-4 engines. The motors are expected to not only power Blue Origin’s orbital launcher, but a competitor’s rocket as well.

United Launch Alliance, a Lockheed Martin-Boeing venture that had enjoyed a near monopoly on the U.S. launch business until SpaceX came along, has an agreement with Blue Origin to develop the BE-4 for its planned Vulcan rockets.

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Unlike SpaceX, Blue Origin also will manufacture its rockets in Florida. “Locating the vehicle assembly near our launch site makes it way easier to process and transport really big rockets,” Bezos said. “It’s logical to build it where you’re going to fly it.”

The manufacturing facility will be located in a state-run industrial park located just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center. Bezos said details about the rocket will be unveiled next year.

Blue Origin, which is based near Seattle, intends to keep its West Texas launch site, where it is testing a reusable suborbital launcher called New Shepard. Both New Shepard and the scaled-up orbital vehicle are designed to carry both cargo and passengers.

“Our ultimate vision is millions of people living and working in space,” Bezos said. “We have a long way to go.”