Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com is looking for staff to help him launch his own private spacecraft and join the new space race!

He's released images of his spacecraft in a remote location in Texas, along with a plea to encourage more staff to join him in achieving cheap space flights.

If you visit the Blue Origin site http://public.blueorigin.com/index.html, you'll see video and images of this dramatic launch.

The 1950s-syle craft looks more suited to science fiction than 21st century fact, but it seems to work very well in propelling itself into the sky and back down to earth in a completely stable manner, without the smoke and flame normally associated with usual vertical lift-off rocket-powered vehicles.

Mr Bezos said that the experimental vehicle, named Goddard - apparently after Robert H. Goddard who, according to Wikipedia is a pioneer of controlled, liquid-fueled rocketry" - is "a vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a suborbital journey into space."

Along with the launch images on the Blue Origin site, came the plea from Mr Bezos:

"Blue Origin wants you! Actually, Blue Origin needs you and wants to hire you … assuming you’re a hard working, technically gifted, team-oriented, experienced aerospace engineer or engineering leader. If you might be interested in joining us, please keep reading.

"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."

Mr Bezos also went on to say "My only job at the launch was to open the champagne, and I broke the cork off in the bottle. Fortunately, our other valve operations went
more smoothly."

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Blue Origin approval to begin its testing program last year.

It is likely that commercial flights will start in 2010.