Blue Origin Eyes UAE as Possible Launch Site
The National reports that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is eyeing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for launches of its New Shepard suborbital crew system.
In an exclusive interview with The National, Brent Sherwood, senior vice president of advanced development programmes for Blue Origin, said the UAE was an “obvious choice” for a spaceport and that it was looking to expand its launch sites from the current one in El Paso, Texas.
“Now that we are operational for tourism, the next thing we are looking at is other locations around the planet to establish launch and landing sites for New Shepard,” he said.
“It’s an obvious place to look here. All we really need is some desert. One of the endearing qualities of the West Texas desert is that it is hard to get to the El Paso airport. You have to drive for a couple of hours and it is in the middle of nowhere.
“A couple of nights ago I slept over in Sharjah and did some stargazing in the desert. It was only 30 minutes away from Dubai, so I think it’s very promising to think about areas here.”
Virgin Galactic is also eyeing the UAE for flights of its suborbital SpaceShipTwo crew vehicle. The government of Abu Dhabi invested $390 million into Richard Branson’s space company.
14 responses to “Blue Origin Eyes UAE as Possible Launch Site”
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ITAR Anyone?
That’s no idle consideration. This platform operating from the UAE is going to give some first rate wide area photographic capability over the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz, and deep into Iran. This sort of thing is just why ITAR got slapped onto spaceflight.
This sounds like the surveillance idea Pat Bahn of TGV was promoting a couple of decades ago. He was using the Koreas as an example back then.
As soon as I saw NS my first thought was that Pat Bahn finally got someone to buy into the TGV concept.
Well, yeah, except the US is currently jump-staring their space program using US universities as the middleman. I think the State Department has spoken.
Not necessary as it is easy for those university programs to go under the radar since many administrators are not aware they are subject to ITAR, and then get caught later for violations.
To paraphrase Alec Guiness’s Prince Faisal from Lawrence of Arabia, “Your Bezos has a great hunger for desolate places.”
You’re alive! Hadn’t seen you on here for so long I suspected the worst.
Not yet. But real life does occasionally intrude on my commenting.
Well, here’s hoping all is well.
Thanks. No fresh medical issues, fortunately.
Good to hear.
To paraphrase another Alec Guiness quote..
“
Mos IsleySharjah space port. You will not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” 😀Give it a few decades and who knows?