CALIFORNIA: Blue Origin: Jeff Bezos unveils plans for ‘space business park’

CALIFORNIA: Blue Origin, the space tourism
company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has announced plans to launch a
commercial space station.

Bosses
said on Monday that they hope to operate the station, named “Orbital
Reef,” by the end of the decade.

Promotional
material released by the company claims the station will be a “mixed-use
business park” in space and will host up to 10 people.

The
company will partner with Sierra Space and Boeing to build the outpost.

Blue
Origin said the 32,000 sq ft station would provide customers with an ideal
location for “film-making in microgravity” or “conducting
cutting-edge research” and said it would also include a “space
hotel”.

At a
press conference to launch the initiative, executives from Blue Origin and
Sierra Space declined to give an estimate of the building costs, though the
project seems assured of heavy funding from Mr Bezos, who has committed to
spending $1bn (£726m) a year on Blue Origin.

The
announcement comes as Nasa searches for proposals to replace the 20-year-old
International Space Station (ISS). While funding for the station has been
guaranteed until at least 2030, the outpost is in desperate need of repairs.

Russian
officials have previously warned that its cosmonauts could leave the station by 2025 over fears outdated equipment could trigger a
major incident.

In
response, Nasa announced plans earlier this year to award $400m in private
contracts to space companies to help the agency replace the ageing outpost.

However,
there is likely to be stiff competition for the funding. Earlier this week, a
partnership between Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announced its
own plans to launch a space station into low orbit by 2027.

Blue
Origin has faced mixed fortunes so far this year. High-profile launches of its
New Shepard rocket, which saw Mr Bezos and Star Trek star William Shatner blasted into space, gained significant media
attention.

But the
company has also faced accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace and of turning a blind eye to
serious safety concerns from former employees.

Last
month it missed out on a lucrative $2.9bn Nasa contract which went to
billionaire Elon Musk’s Space X, one of Blue Origin’s chief rivals in the
commercial space race.