Bezos musta gotten conned by ol' Gary Hudson and his Rotary Rocket pitch...isn't that a picture of Roton with a new paint job?
Liability eh?
It's perfectly safe sitting there...right where it will stay!
Betcha!!!

Actually, Blue Origin's design is based on the failed McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-XA).  As you might recall, that vehicle was destroyed at the end of its fourth flight in 1996 when it tipped over and exploded on landing due to the failure of a landing strut to deploy. The project was cancelled, but NASA was encouraged enough by the DC-XA's limited success to approve Lockheed Martin's X-33 program, which was to eventually replace the shuttle fleet.  Like the planned (but never built)successor to the DC-XA, the X-33 was a single stage to orbit design (SSTO) with an aerospike engine, which doesn't have the traditional engine nozzle for better, more efficient performance at any altitude.  (The X-33 itself was a lifting body with a payload bay like the shuttle.) The X-33 project was cancelled in 2001 when it ran into construction difficulties/delays and went over budget.

I guess Bezos must still be convinced the design has merit since he's personally footing the bill at Blue Origin. His initial vehicle- New Shepard- is meant for suborbital tourist flights, but eventually his goal is to develop a single stage vehicle that can reach orbit, a task that has eluded both McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed.  A test vehicle (Goddard, the one pictured above) was flown once in 2006, but it only went up 285 feet, a far cry from “suborbital.”  Still, the up/down flight was a success and Bezos now has a vertical lift-off vehicle that performs as expected despite its limitations.

Like so many other private start-up rocket companies, only time will tell if Blue Origin succeeds or finds the task of achieving the dream of “cheap access to space” much more difficult than it looks on paper.

Mark...thanks for the response...I sent an email to the contact at page you link below...hope you get to see it...

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