Blue Origin’s rocket factory begins to take shape in Florida
Artist’s rendition of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket factory. Image Credit: Blue Origin
In a recent e-mail, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos shared pictures of the company’s 750,000-square-foot (69,677-square-meter) facility, which is being built at Exploration Park on Kennedy Space Center property.
Blue Origin will use the factory to manufacture the two-stage super-heavy-lift New Glenn launch vehicle. The New Glenn vehicles are expected to build on the reusability technologies that the company has been testing on its New Shepard suborbital vehicle in Texas.
Bezos proudly declared, “The team has made extraordinary progress—as you can see here, the first steel is now going up.” Bezos expects the rocket factory to be completed by the end of 2017.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket factory gets real with first steel. Photo Credit: Blue Origin
Bart Leahy
Bart Leahy is a freelance technical writer living in Orlando, Florida. Leahy's diverse career has included work for The Walt Disney Company, NASA, the Department of Defense, Nissan, a number of commercial space companies, small businesses, nonprofits, as well as the Science Cheerleaders.
I hope it is above the highest possible hurricane storm surge elevation, plus a couple of feet for sea level rise. Parts of Miami now flood during the highest tides.
Putting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet. And if the permafrost thaws, and the methane trapped on the sea floor gets released, look out. We could see a meter of sea level rise by 2100.