The new generation of deep-pockets space entrepreneurs includes Bezos, who founded Blue Origin, in Washington State, and quietly announced this year that he had bought 165,000 acres of land in West Texas as a base for his eventual launching operations.
Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, created the rocket company SpaceX, and John Carmack, the creator of computer games like "Doom" and "Quake," has been testing rocket designs through his company, Armadillo Aerospace near Dallas.
The engine for Allen's craft was developed by SpaceDev, a company formed as a second act by another computer entrepreneur turned space man, Jim Benson. And Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, recently joined the board of the X Prize Foundation.
The rise of the space money men is a unique moment in history, said Peter Diamandis, a co-founder of the X Prize. "There is sufficient wealth controlled by individuals to start serious space efforts," he said. (News.com.com / NYT, 06/14/05.)
Here is Robert Tracinski's commentary, Capitalism "Is Where the Action Is".
Europeans looking for a lesson on the cause of the continent's decline are getting one from half a world away, where capitalism is finally reinvigorating America's own stagnating system of space exploration. While NASA's Space Shuttle finally limps back onto the launch pad, the article below details how an influx of high-tech venture capitalists is about to revolutionize space exploration. (TIADaily.com, 06/15/05.)
Related: My post, SPACESHIPONE AND THE MAN ON MARS.
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