Amazon bought a launching pad for rockets in Florida

The founder and head of one of the largest online commerce companies on Amazon, Jeffrey Bezos, intends to start delivering people and goods to Earth orbit.

To do this, his company Blue Origin will establish the construction of launch vehicles for launch from the Air Force base at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The project decided to allocate 200 million dollars, said at a press conference at Cape Canaveral 51-year-old Bezos.

“As a child, I was inspired by the launches of Saturn 5 (an American launch vehicle used to implement the American lunar mission program, including the first human landing on the Earth’s natural satellite on July 20, 1969 - corr.), which were embodied in life here, on these shores,” the entrepreneur noted. He called his project the harbinger of a “new era of exploration” of near-Earth space.

Bezos also announced plans to launch the first launch by 2020.

Last week, private Blue Origin entered into an agreement with United Launch Alliance to collaborate on the development of Vulcan rockets. Launch complex 36 was selected for launches, which was operated for 43 years for 145 launches. “The last of them was carried out in 2005. Since then, the launch pad has been inactive for more than ten years - that's too long. We will be launching (rockets) from here throughout this decade,” Bezos added.

He, following the example of entrepreneurs British Richard Branson from Virgin Galactic and American Elon Musk from SpaceX, began to provide transportation of goods and people into orbit on a commercial basis. “Blue Origin has a vision to increase the number of people we send into space so that we can better continue to explore the solar system,” Bezos concluded.

Blue Origin develops vehicles designed for suborbital flights. The company is located in Kent (WA), near the Amazon headquarters in Seattle.