Plans for a secretive commercial space venture backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos were coming under public review Tuesday at a government hearing.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which issues licenses and permits for projects like the West Texas spaceport bankrolled by the Internet billionaire, was taking comment on a 229-page draft of an environmental report filed by the Bezos firm developing the venture.
The hearing was being held in this town of about 3,000 some 120 miles east of El Paso and the nearest population center to the isolated operation.
"They’re a tight-lipped group," Culberson County Judge John Conoly said Tuesday. He plans to go to find out more about the plan.
The spaceport is being built about midway between Van Horn and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The park, which includes some of the highest mountains in Texas, is about 50 miles to the north on the Texas-New Mexico border.
"Our purpose is to provide the public and other interested parties to review the draft documents, to ask questions, point out mistakes or omissions in our analysis of the environmental impact," said Hank Price, an FAA spokesman in Washington. The process is just one step leading to permits and licenses, he said.
Bezos was not expected at the hearing. The 42-year-old Seattle entrepreneur has talked in the past of building spaceships that can orbit the Earth and possibly lead to colonies in space.
By Michael Graczyk