Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has plenty to be thankful after his space venture successfully landed a rocket a few hundred feet from the spot where it lifted off.
Watching the video of the spaceship landing in a cloud of dust was breathtakingly similar to what directors of 1950s B-movie directors imagined. A tall vertical tube with legs gently touching down in an austere landscape.
This achievement by the engineers at Blue Origin is a game-changer for the industry that will make space travel more affordable, both for commercial and tourism purposes.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Blue Origin, though, is not alone in this race to make space travel routine. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has a space plane. But Elon Musk's Space-X is already making commercial flights, choosing to earn revenue while testing their design for a rocket that lands upright.
So far, the company's Falcon 9 has failed to survive a return to earth, but the company is getting close. Space-X, though, will beat other commercial space companies in launching a manned-flight.
Texas features prominently in all of this research and development. Blue Origin operates in Culberson County, not far from El Paso. Space-X is constructing a launch site near Brownsville.
Houston is working hard to leverage the NASA expertise that live here to make the city a hub for space research and development. The city has designated Ellington Field as a future Spaceport.
The city faces some challenges, though. The new space pioneers are tech billionaires from Silicon Valley, and much of the development work takes place there. That's where the tech talent, and venture capitalists reside that make these projects possible.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Houston needs to do more to attract tech entrepreneurs and developers to create a space industry ecosystem. Building that ecosystem also requires venture capital and business development talent, two areas where Houston underperforms.
Space may not really be the final frontier in business, but it is the next frontier. Houstonians need to do more to make sure we remain on the vanguard of space exploration.
