How Bezos Messed With Texas 87
theodp writes "The WSJ has the behind-the-spaceport story on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Texas land grab for his Blue Origin space tourism venture. Bezos deputized an attorney (who once handled Amazon SEC filings) to make ranchers offers they couldn't refuse (and can't talk about), acquiring property through corporate entities with monikers including 'James Cook L.P.,' 'Jolliet Holdings,' 'Coronado Ventures,' and 'Cabot Enterprises' — all named for famous explorers and all using the same address, c/o [Star Trek-monikered] Zefram LLC. BTW, FAA temporary flight restrictions are in effect for Blue Origin until Monday ('DUE TO ROCKET LAUNCH ACTIVITY'). Let's hope it's more successful than Blue Origin's maiden flight."
Why limit no fly zone to 10,000 feet? (Score:1, Insightful)
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Or they just want to avoid curious people in their piper-cubs and cessnas from having a peek...
Because it's only going to 2000 feet. (Score:3, Informative)
This is a VTO/VL test. The first few DC-X flights were similar.
It's not like he's using eminent domain (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's not like he's using eminent domain (Score:5, Informative)
I guess your attitude may be more common... (Score:4, Insightful)
extortion (Score:2, Insightful)
Not just that, but if it becomes well-known that a rich buyer, especially if it's a large company, is making a land grab, a few property owners could basically extort the buyer for more cash. That is, the current owner could say to the buyer, "I know you're trying to buy up all this land for some important reason, and I know y
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Then, after allowing a few days for the news to travel, they'd visit the next property owner, who would be happy to sell for the lowball price.
Today, they'd just use eminent domain (which would probably
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I think you forgot the Supreme Court doesn't care about the property owners.
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Alleluja.
I'm sure Mr. B is not particularly worried about overpaying for that land. (Compared to farm and cattle land in say, Ohio that is some dirt-cheap dirt!)
That is the best reason for rich - sliding over obstacles to your wild-ass goals on a thin film of filthy, filthy lucre.
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The reality is that most sellers DO set their prices based on how rich the buyer is - or change the price darned quick if they find out a buyer is rich. Oh umm we're not sure we want to sell anymore (cough) but we might settle for _this_...
And most rich people DO buy through corporations and third parties. For a lot of reasons (including taxes), but th
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Kinda cool (Score:4, Interesting)
Why Texas? (Score:2)
Any specific reason? I think land in some of those spots would be even cheaper..... but probably even more desolate.
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I went on a long drive the last couple of weeks. The Eastward trip included those three states, and for the Westward part I went through Nebraska and Colorado instead. It's amazing how much difference it made in the temperature. Wyoming had snow and ice all over, and all three were bone-chillingly cold at night and/or if there was a lot of wind, which there usually was. And that was late fall, not winter.
Texas is also closer to the water, in case they need to ditch a rocket in the ocean. Historic
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Wyoming weather sucks the big one.
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(1) launches closer to the equator (if memory serves) take less boost
(2) most of the stuff on equator is either inconvenient or has various disadvantages from lack of long-term stability to lack of technical talent to infrastructure challenges
(3) much better choice vis-a-vis huricanes, large stretches of open land than other southern US states
(4) lots of resouces (technical, infrastructure, etc) in relatively close proximity (DFW, Houston, Austin/San Antonio)
I can't say I really lik
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(0) Bezos is from Texas. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Early_lif
Other factors may enter into it, but I suspect that he saw the list of potential places and picked Texas as his favorite.
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Do you have a better idea for how to get commercial space travel out of its infancy? Seems to me that, one way or another, large sums of money will have to be spent before we can fly into space as often as we fly across the ocean.
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Hmm...If I come to an untimly end, question Branson first.
Much like Vail (Score:2)
rj
Messed with Texas? (Score:2)
290,000 acers = 453 sq miles = Texas size project area.
Re:Messed with Texas? (Score:4, Funny)
Nooo... 290,000 acers = a whole lot of plastic, but where's the AC Adapter? Dangit!
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See? Everything's bigger here.
In far west Texas, about the only thing the land is good for anymore is launching space ships. If he tried to do it any closer, the ranchers wouldn't sell (land's still viable) or it'd be too expensive (all the Californians, having b
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And? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Origin, Jeff "The Prior" Bezos (Score:3, Funny)
Jeff "The Prior" Bezos will walk on the land they call Texas and they will accept Origin!
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I still wanna bash Mark Stern's head in though...
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What are these DVDs you speak of? Any links? I hadn't heard about them.
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Though I think you'll find that Texas is bringing Origin to the rest of the world....this has been in the works for 12 years. As an example, we already have our President preaching origin!
He thinks big and wants to take it to Mars next.....right after Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc...
The Man Who Fell To Earth (Score:1)
Does Jeff Bezos drink alot of water?
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Actually I was thinking about The Man who Sold the Moon by RAH. The character in that book had similar problems launching over inhabited land.
An alien who wanted to get into orbit these days would just buy a ticket from the Russians.
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It was pretty creepy seeing this today though...
Bezos's property rights (Score:2, Offtopic)
The real problem is more profound:
Government protects property rights, that would not exist in the absence of government, as its primary function. Productive people (measured by income, capital gains, value added, sales, etc) are tired of being taxed to subsidize said protection, as well they should be. The largest single property right so protected is centralized ownership of land.
Bezos could really stomp on
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The cost of protection grows with the amount of time you have to protect something. An annual tax fits the expenditure model much better than a flat tax. Duh. Gotta pay the police and firefighters somehow.
While we're at it, your measures for "productivity" soak up a lot of people who are good at cheating and ignores a lot of people who increase net happiness without making
Erratum: Bezos's property rights (Score:2)
Bozo gone to Texas... (Score:2)
The FAA NOTAM (Notice To Airmen) (Score:5, Informative)
In other words.... (Score:2)
Must.... resist... soviet russia reference... (Score:1)
Sorry.
Land Grab indeed. (Score:4, Insightful)
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go back to that purchase a few years ago where Manhatten Island was had for a few shiny trinkets
Well duh. They guys who sold it lived in Brooklyn. If some yahoo came up and offered to buy the island next door to you, wouldn't you sell it to him?
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Time to move to Calif* (Score:2)
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This is simply not true. Mass [neweconomyindex.org] was higher - at least in 2002 and Colorado was only slightly behind.
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James Rouse did that in the 1960s (Score:2)
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A more honest article (Score:2, Insightful)
The main point I picked up is that he is insulated with lawyers to keep from being harassed by people in a depressed region desperate to make a buck off of him.
This isn't new... (Score:2)
Van Horn, Texas (Score:1)
That is where they filmed The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada [imdb.com]. Why don't they mention that?