Amazon helping to build ‘private’ space station for HOLIDAYS above Earth

CENTI-BILLIONAIRE Jeff Bezos is overseeing the coordination between two of his companies, Amazon and Blue Origin.

Amazon will provide logistical, communicative and information systems support to the space-hotel.

4

4

4

The Orbital Reef is slated to welcome inter-galactic vacationers by 2030.

The idea is being carried out by titans of mechanical engineering and government contracting, including Blue Origin and Boeing.

Orbital Reef’s latest partnership with Amazon Web Services brings a trillion-dollar company into the fold.

In an AWS Public Sector Blog, the company wrote that Amazon will “share their expertise in logistics and end-to-end supply chain management to help Orbital Reef develop, launch, and scale reliable infrastructure.”

While Boeing, Blue Origin and others manufacture thrusters, living quarters and other tangible mechanics, Amazon will lease technology and intellectual property like “data management” and “integrated networking”.

Brent Sherwood, Senior Vice President of Advanced Development Programs at Blue Origin, said “Amazon and AWS are ideal collaborators to support transportation, habitation and communication.”

The Orbital Reef has roughly 30,000 cubic feet of module space – about the size of 100 cargo vans.

But astronauts won’t be limited to staying indoors.

Genesis Engineering Solutions, another partner in the endeavor, is building a single-person spacecraft for freely exploring space outside the Orbital Reef.

The “mixed-use space business park” will one day be housing 10 occupants over 300 miles from Earth’s surface and one day serve as a pseudo-replacement for the International Space Station (ISS).

The ISS is due to retire around 2030 after two decades of uninterrupted occupancy.

However, the Orbital Reef is not the only permanent space outpost in development.

Nasa is crafting plans and issuing contracts for the construction of Gateway, a space station that will be used as a pit stop on the way to the Moon or Mars.

SpaceX secured a deal to provide logistical support for Gateway and other lunar missions – spurning Blue Origin and prompting Bezos to sue.

And the contentiousness doesn’t end there – Bezos is beefing with progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, who is aiming to block a $10billion dollar credit to Blue Origin’s lunar module development.

State sponsored space expeditions and private space companies are heading towards a bitter co-dependency.

4

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk