Space tourism was dealt a setback this week after a spacecraft funded by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos was lost during a recent test.
Despite a successful test three months ago, researchers "lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet," Bezos wrote in a note on the Web site for Blue Origin, his space venture. Bezos blamed a "flight instability" that prompted the vehicle's range safety system to terminate its thrust.
"Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job," Bezos wrote. "We're already working on our next development vehicle."
Few details about Blue Origin and its plans have been released; the last post on the Web site was in 2007. But Bezos did post some photos of the test vehicle, which is currently just a plain, cylindrical object with thrusters at the bottom. At this point, there is no crew capsule, just a close-out fairing.
"We're working on the sub-orbital crew capsule separately, as well as an orbital crew vehicle to support NASA's Commercial Crew program," Bezos said.
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program is focused on providing cargo flights to the International Space Station now that the agency's space shuttle program is retired (see slideshow below). Other companies vying for a piece of the commercial space flight pie include Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Space Adventures, and United Launch Alliance, a joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture. Virgin chief Richard Branson is also exploring commercial space flight via his Virgin Galactic effort.
In December 2010, SpaceX completed the first successful launch for the COTS program when its Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon test capsule took off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Earlier this year, SpaceX also unveiled plans for the Falcon Heavy, which SpaceX said will be the world's largest rocket. In July, the company broke ground on the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site for the Falcon Heavy.
The Blue Origin loss, meanwhile, comes several weeks after the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) lost its second high-speed Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 (HTV-2). With top speeds of 13,000 miles per hour, the HTV-2 is designed to to fly anywhere in the world in less than an hour. But in early August, the aircraft took off and briefly achieved Mach 20 speed, but nine minutes later, DARPA lost contact with the glider. Despite the fact that this is the second HTV lost by DARPA, however, officials pledged to carry on with the project.
Bezos, meanwhile, has other interests beyond space. He is also is funding a $42 million project that will construct a 10,000-year clock, and he recently filed a patent application for a smartphone airbag of sorts. On the Amazon front, meanwhile, his company is reportedly hard at work on its own tablet.