Rocket Launch-Private Program. Newslink.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/11/14/bezos.spaceport.ap/index.html

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) – A remote West Texas spaceport being built and bankrolled by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos launched a test rocket Monday for the first time.

“There was a launch, a one- or two-minute event,” Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said from the agency’s office in Oklahoma City. He had no details.

The exact nature of the 6:30 a.m. launch or the type of spacecraft was not immediately known.

A Houston-based spokesman for Blue Origin, the Bezos-owned firm developing the private commercial space venture, did not immediately respond to a telephone inquiry from The Associated Press.

Blue Origin, based in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, received FAA approval late this summer to begin its testing program. The secretive company has said it wants to use spacecraft that launch and land vertically.

Interesting.

Was this a technology test, an actual flight test of a proposed vehicle or scale model of a proposed vehicle, or just a show to impress investors?

:dubious: