FYI,

"Details Emerge on Private Spaceport Plans"
Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060723/ap_on_sc/bezos_spaceport_1

: A spacecraft taking off from a private West Texas spaceport being
: bankrolled and developed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos would
: take off vertically, but unlike NASA's space shuttle would also
: land vertically, according to an environmental study that offers a
: glimpse into the secretive plans.

: The craft would hit an altitude of about 325,000 feet — or almost
: 62 miles — before descending and restarting its engine for a
: "precision vertical powered landing on the landing pad" 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 would issue permits and licenses for Blue
: Origin to go ahead with launch plans.

: The report was assembled by Blue Origin and Tetra Tech Inc., an
: engineering and technical consulting firm based in Pasadena, Calif.

: According to Blue Origin's Web site, the company is "developing
: vehicles and technologies that, over time, will help enable an
: enduring presence in space."

: "We are currently working to develop a crewed, suborbital launch
: system that emphasizes safety and low cost of operations," the Web
: site says.

: The environmental assessment process is "only one of the steps
: prior to obtaining an experimental permit for a launch operator's
: license," FAA spokesman Hank Price said. "We have received permit
: applications from Blue Origin and are evaluating them for safety
: and other considerations, as well."

: As many as 10 flight tests lasting as long as a minute and
: reaching an altitude of about 2,000 feet could occur this year at
: the site, north of Van Horn on the 165,000-acre Corn Ranch
: purchased by Bezos. Over the following three years, as many as
: 25 launches would be made annually, growing in altitude to
: 325,000 feet and in duration to more than 10 minutes.

: Commercial flights, a goal of the project, could begin in 2010,
: according to the timetable in the document, with as many as 52 a
: year.

: "The flight rate would depend on market demand," said the document
: filed with the FAA.

: Construction would cover 223 acres with buildings, launch and
: landing pads, storage tanks and parking lots, but that's just over
: 1 percent of the land. New fencing would be needed to enclose the
: launch site area, 18,600 acres of desert scrubland and grassland
: now in use as a private wildlife management area.

: Within that fenced area is the likely landing area if something
: goes wrong with a flight.

: "In some rare cases, the vehicles may land outside the fence line,"
: the report says. "However, in nearly all cases, the vehicles will
: stay within the boundaries of private land controlled by Blue
: Origin and present no danger to the public."

: According to the environmental statement, the craft to be launched
: from West Texas includes one module for propulsion and one
: "capable of carrying three or more space flight participants to
: space." The two would be stacked atop one another to form a
: conical-shaped vehicle about 50 feet tall and 22 feet in diameter
: at the base.

Mark Reiff