Blue Origin's launch facility is located on rangeland two dozen miles north of Van Horn.
When Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, first announced in 2005 that he was buying up 290,000 acres of land just outside of Van Horn to build a launch site for his private space venture, locals became giddy with the possibility of out-of-this-world economic growth.
“If they’re doing launches from here, I can envision a need for more hotels, more restaurants, they’d need more employees — I can see a boost for tourism,” said Van Horn Mayor Glenn Humphries, a space junkie who grew up reading the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, and whose first phonograph record was the audio recording of the first American-manned mission into outer space.
But even with Bezos’ investment — reportedly more than half a billion dollars — progress has been slow. Blue Origin had its first successful unmanned suborbital test flight this year, several years behind schedule. Earlier this year, the company’s president, Rob Meyerson, told reporters Blue Origin was still several years away from testing manned missions, let alone selling tickets.
The New Shepard space vehicle blasts off on its first developmental test flight over Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site on April 29, 2015. Video courtesy of Blue Origin.
