Amazon CEO’s private spaceflight company test-fires new rocket engine

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos hasn't just been salvaging old rocket engines from the ocean floor, he's also founded his own private spaceflight company, called Blue Origin, and along with NASA, they just completed a test of their brand new BE-3 rocket engine.

The BE-3, which uses the same kind of liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen fuel that launched the space shuttles into orbit is destined to be included in Blue Origin's 'New Sheppard' sub-orbital system, and their orbital 'Space Vehicle' system as well. All of this is in partnership with NASA, as part of their efforts to return to launching astronauts into space from U.S. soil.

New Sheppard, like SpaceX's new Grasshopper rocket, will be designed to both take off and land vertically. This will bring a bit of the science fiction of the past into the science of the present, all in an effort to make these rockets reusable. Not only will that cut down on the cost of launches, but it will remove a major source of space junk, and perhaps give us a chance to deal with what's already floating around the planet before the Kessler Syndrome really gets out of hand.

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Most of the private spaceflight attention lately has been on companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, with their deliveries to the International Space Station and putting satellites into orbit, and Virgin Galactic with their continued progress towards a sub-orbital flight system. However, it's great to have another player on the field. The world has been relying on its governments to get people into space for decades now. Those efforts are still needed of course, but it will really be the private spaceflight industry that will open up space for everyone, and that can't happen soon enough.

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