Amazon boss unveils his ferry Spacecraft

After a long silence the Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday unwrapped the details of his space venture by releasing the first images and a video of its spacecraft, called Goddard.

The prototype spacecraft is developed by Blue Origin, a privately-funded aerospace company owned by Bezos, and named after Robert Goddard, an inventor known as the father of modern rocket propulsion.

Amazon.com’s billionaire founder on Tuesday posted a written message on the Web site of Blue Origin along with the videos and images, giving glimpse of the November 13 launch of the test space vehicle Goddard from his private spaceport near the western Texas town of Van Horn.

Goddard, which the company says is the first development vehicle in Blue Origin's New Shepard program, blasted straight up from the launch pad and reached a maximum altitude of 285 feet before making a safe vertical landing in less than a minute, the video showed.

New Shepard is the vertical take-off, vertical-landing conical shape vehicle that the company hopes to build to eventually use for space tourism.

The cone-shaped development craft is about 50 feet tall and has four spindly legs that will one day likely take three passengers into low earth orbit.

It was the first test for Bezos' Blue Origin commercial space venture, which is developing a vehicle to take occupants on a 10-minute ride to the edge of space, nearly 60 miles (96 km) above the Earth and back.

"We're working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system," Bezos wrote in his posting, dated January 2.

The posting includes an appeal for the hardworking and potential engineers, especially experienced aerospace engineer.

Blue Origin, which has received approval last year from the Federal Aviation Administration to begin its testing program, has said that the test flights will grow in duration and altitude over the next three years with as many as projected 52 commercial flights.

This is not the first time, any wealthy tech entrepreneur is attracted to space ferry rather Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen is also investing in commercial spaceflight.

Many companies are working on private space ventures, one among them is Virgin Galactic, part of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group.