Discussion
MartG said:
Considering that they can hover New Shepard, their landing accuracy isn't that impressive. They'll have to get a lot better with New Glenn or it will go swimming.It's a pretty big pad they have there too. About 300 feet in diameter, the same length as an entire SpaceX landing ship - and clearly their useable landing area on those is much smaller.
Plus, Falcon 9's landing legs span ~60 ft and the landing ship itself is fighting to keep station within 10 ft of its target position, while at sea.
RizzoTheRat said:
Presumably higher accuracy means more fuel burn (either slower descent to maneuver more or hover for a bit to align), .
Or better sensors and software on the way down to achieve better accuracy? SpaceX are achieving better accuracy with a pretty fast descent and no hovering.Ars Technica has a review of the chapter in :Amazon Unbound: associated with Blue Origin - https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/a-new-book...
It doesn't make cheerful reading.
Blue Origin plans to begin crew flights of its suborbital New Shepard spacecraft on July 20, launching the highest bidder in an online auction out of the atmosphere and into space for a few minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this world view before returning to Earth.
Personally I'd rather see two or three successful test flights with company test pilots aboard first before they start accepting paying passengers
Personally I'd rather see two or three successful test flights with company test pilots aboard first before they start accepting paying passengers
Pretty much the engines (made in a new factory in Alabama, about 30 miles from ULA's rocket factory) and some b
hin' facilities down at the Cape at the moment.
ULA is having to give up their Russian-made RD-180 engine on the Atlas V, which is one of the reasons it's being replaced by Vulcan.
hin' facilities down at the Cape at the moment.ULA is having to give up their Russian-made RD-180 engine on the Atlas V, which is one of the reasons it's being replaced by Vulcan.
Flooble said:
What IP do Blue Origin have?
BE-3 engines?
New Shepherd? (how high could DC-XA have gone in the 90s just out of interest?)
BE-4 engines?
I can imagine they would be very cheap to purchase, would anyone actually want anything other than the BE-4 engine?
Given that paper space launch companies trade on values of billions I very much doubt that, also why would Bezos sell?BE-3 engines?
New Shepherd? (how high could DC-XA have gone in the 90s just out of interest?)
BE-4 engines?
I can imagine they would be very cheap to purchase, would anyone actually want anything other than the BE-4 engine?
They also have:
1: lots of impressive ground facilities (some half finished)
2: Lots of very large factories (some half finished)
3: The design of a super heavy booster mostly complete
4: Several thousand employees with good CVs
5: GNC associated with rocket recovery and successful demonstration of a representative booster.
The issue is the one identified in the ARS article; poor leadership and vision.
You certainly don't get that by bringing in people from senior levels at existing aerospace companies, they got to those levels by fully buying into the culture and behavior at existing aerospace companies.
Some people have suggested the solution would be reverse mergers with another New Space company, again not a brilliant idea; founders of other space ventures are not turnaround specialists. They are used to managing a small company which they have built themselves not changing course of a company with thousands of employee and existing systems and practices, they would likely piss everyone off and destroy what existing value existed in either of the companies.
Bringing in a turnaround specialist is also unlikely to work as they tend to operate by applying business school processes to increase the value of an existing enterprise with a view to selling it. Not exactly what you need.
Trying to find existing people who have track record of dynamic leadership in this industry is hard as many of those people will already have their own space start up.
The short answer is that what Blue Origin needs is good leadership and the building of a sound culture and capability. There is no shortcuts; what you need is talent most likely the mid level people from existing aerospace who don't like the culture and direction (e.g. Tom Muller, Hans Konigsman) and then loads of bright believers.
Elon Musk personally interviewed the first ~2000 people through the door at SpaceX and also works there full time. Jeff will have to do something similar.
DC-XA has something in the region of 2500m/s of delta V, however it has around 1600m/s of gravity and aero drag losses plus a landing burn. Thus it could probably get up to around 40km high if it burned as hard as possible and then flew a ballistic path. For comparison New Shepard has around 3300m/s with an 8000 lb capsule on the top.
Edited by Talksteer on Wednesday 12th May 22:31
Thanks for working out the DC-XA figures - not something I could have done. I guess that proves the point (ish) that it becomes exponentially harder the higher and faster you go. DC-XA ran on a shoestring, but to get "a bit" closer to orbit takes a lot more time and money.
I'm not sure about Blue Origin's valuation, as you say it has a leadership/management problem. The comparison with paper companies is an interesting one. I think it's a bit like the stock market - the valuation is predicated on potential future earnings that are often mostly theoretical and don't always seem to look at existing products (e.g. Tesla's market capitalisation being way in excess of most "legacy" car manufacturers, even those who have EVs that can compete with Tesla ... and an entire petrol/diesel line as well). So my view was that after sucking billions of dollars every year for nearly two decades, the only thing Blue has to show for it is the New Shepherd (+ engines) and an engine design that has only run on the test stand. I don't see having the New Glenn design as being any different, really, to the "paper rocket" firms who probably also have heavy launch rocket designs on the drawing board for if/after they have launched their first designs. Essentially I see Blue as almost having proven it can't deliver quickly and what it does produce requires huge amounts of time and money.
Hence when I said I saw it as fairly cheap, I see that as being a case of "Would I want to buy a firm which has only really proven it has the ability to burn large amounts of cash without delivering much return on investment" versus paper firms who haven't delivered as much, but also haven't burned as much cash or been running as long. Sort of a case of which one is the better gamble.
Especially when Option C for a new multi-billionaire wanting to play rockets could be to just hire a (smaller number) of the "good" Blue Origin staff and start again. Compared with buying the whole firm with attendant liabilities (e.g. having to pay off large numbers of executives and unproductive "hangers on" for want of a better description).
I'm not sure about Blue Origin's valuation, as you say it has a leadership/management problem. The comparison with paper companies is an interesting one. I think it's a bit like the stock market - the valuation is predicated on potential future earnings that are often mostly theoretical and don't always seem to look at existing products (e.g. Tesla's market capitalisation being way in excess of most "legacy" car manufacturers, even those who have EVs that can compete with Tesla ... and an entire petrol/diesel line as well). So my view was that after sucking billions of dollars every year for nearly two decades, the only thing Blue has to show for it is the New Shepherd (+ engines) and an engine design that has only run on the test stand. I don't see having the New Glenn design as being any different, really, to the "paper rocket" firms who probably also have heavy launch rocket designs on the drawing board for if/after they have launched their first designs. Essentially I see Blue as almost having proven it can't deliver quickly and what it does produce requires huge amounts of time and money.
Hence when I said I saw it as fairly cheap, I see that as being a case of "Would I want to buy a firm which has only really proven it has the ability to burn large amounts of cash without delivering much return on investment" versus paper firms who haven't delivered as much, but also haven't burned as much cash or been running as long. Sort of a case of which one is the better gamble.
Especially when Option C for a new multi-billionaire wanting to play rockets could be to just hire a (smaller number) of the "good" Blue Origin staff and start again. Compared with buying the whole firm with attendant liabilities (e.g. having to pay off large numbers of executives and unproductive "hangers on" for want of a better description).
Flooble said:
Thanks for working out the DC-XA figures - not something I could have done. I guess that proves the point (ish) that it becomes exponentially harder the higher and faster you go. DC-XA ran on a shoestring, but to get "a bit" closer to orbit takes a lot more time and money.
I'm not sure about Blue Origin's valuation, as you say it has a leadership/management problem. The comparison with paper companies is an interesting one. I think it's a bit like the stock market - the valuation is predicated on potential future earnings that are often mostly theoretical and don't always seem to look at existing products (e.g. Tesla's market capitalisation being way in excess of most "legacy" car manufacturers, even those who have EVs that can compete with Tesla ... and an entire petrol/diesel line as well). So my view was that after sucking billions of dollars every year for nearly two decades, the only thing Blue has to show for it is the New Shepherd (+ engines) and an engine design that has only run on the test stand. I don't see having the New Glenn design as being any different, really, to the "paper rocket" firms who probably also have heavy launch rocket designs on the drawing board for if/after they have launched their first designs. Essentially I see Blue as almost having proven it can't deliver quickly and what it does produce requires huge amounts of time and money.
Hence when I said I saw it as fairly cheap, I see that as being a case of "Would I want to buy a firm which has only really proven it has the ability to burn large amounts of cash without delivering much return on investment" versus paper firms who haven't delivered as much, but also haven't burned as much cash or been running as long. Sort of a case of which one is the better gamble.
Especially when Option C for a new multi-billionaire wanting to play rockets could be to just hire a (smaller number) of the "good" Blue Origin staff and start again. Compared with buying the whole firm with attendant liabilities (e.g. having to pay off large numbers of executives and unproductive "hangers on" for want of a better description).
Saving grace is that its much easier to fire people in the US, I doubt that Blue Origin is unionised and as they have no revenue its not like they could achieve anything by striking!I'm not sure about Blue Origin's valuation, as you say it has a leadership/management problem. The comparison with paper companies is an interesting one. I think it's a bit like the stock market - the valuation is predicated on potential future earnings that are often mostly theoretical and don't always seem to look at existing products (e.g. Tesla's market capitalisation being way in excess of most "legacy" car manufacturers, even those who have EVs that can compete with Tesla ... and an entire petrol/diesel line as well). So my view was that after sucking billions of dollars every year for nearly two decades, the only thing Blue has to show for it is the New Shepherd (+ engines) and an engine design that has only run on the test stand. I don't see having the New Glenn design as being any different, really, to the "paper rocket" firms who probably also have heavy launch rocket designs on the drawing board for if/after they have launched their first designs. Essentially I see Blue as almost having proven it can't deliver quickly and what it does produce requires huge amounts of time and money.
Hence when I said I saw it as fairly cheap, I see that as being a case of "Would I want to buy a firm which has only really proven it has the ability to burn large amounts of cash without delivering much return on investment" versus paper firms who haven't delivered as much, but also haven't burned as much cash or been running as long. Sort of a case of which one is the better gamble.
Especially when Option C for a new multi-billionaire wanting to play rockets could be to just hire a (smaller number) of the "good" Blue Origin staff and start again. Compared with buying the whole firm with attendant liabilities (e.g. having to pay off large numbers of executives and unproductive "hangers on" for want of a better description).
Musk s pretty ruthless at SpaceX he cut about 10% of their employees a few years ago when they basically wound down Falcon 9 first stage production.
As for starting again that would literally put you behind all the other start-ups and even having the existing IP wouldn't help you that much without being able to talk to the people who created it.
Blue isn't yet a basket case, if they can get New Glenn flying they are basically behind only SpaceX even Rocket Lab's medium booster isn't going to fly until 2024. Also New Glenn has some pretty serious margin left in at, turn the engines up to a higher operating pressure and it's actually not that far off super-heavy, furthermore if you don't care about landing on Mars you could make a reusable second stage with a lot less hassle than Starship.
Talksteer said:
Saving grace is that its much easier to fire people in the US, I doubt that Blue Origin is unionised and as they have no revenue its not like they could achieve anything by striking!
Musk s pretty ruthless at SpaceX he cut about 10% of their employees a few years ago when they basically wound down Falcon 9 first stage production.
As for starting again that would literally put you behind all the other start-ups and even having the existing IP wouldn't help you that much without being able to talk to the people who created it.
Blue isn't yet a basket case, if they can get New Glenn flying they are basically behind only SpaceX even Rocket Lab's medium booster isn't going to fly until 2024. Also New Glenn has some pretty serious margin left in at, turn the engines up to a higher operating pressure and it's actually not that far off super-heavy, furthermore if you don't care about landing on Mars you could make a reusable second stage with a lot less hassle than Starship.
Good point about US employment law, although I'm not sure how easy it is to get rid of senior executives - the expensive ones who have probably got the most to do with where Blue currently finds itselfMusk s pretty ruthless at SpaceX he cut about 10% of their employees a few years ago when they basically wound down Falcon 9 first stage production.
As for starting again that would literally put you behind all the other start-ups and even having the existing IP wouldn't help you that much without being able to talk to the people who created it.
Blue isn't yet a basket case, if they can get New Glenn flying they are basically behind only SpaceX even Rocket Lab's medium booster isn't going to fly until 2024. Also New Glenn has some pretty serious margin left in at, turn the engines up to a higher operating pressure and it's actually not that far off super-heavy, furthermore if you don't care about landing on Mars you could make a reusable second stage with a lot less hassle than Starship.
I could only find three private rocket firms that have reached orbit - Pegasus, Space-X and Virgin. Pegasus took 3 years, Virgin 4 and Space-X 6 years (although it was only 2 years later they launched the Falcon 9 to replace the Falcon 1)
With Kuiper having bought 9 Atlas 5 launches I am guessing they aren't expecting New Glenn to turn up that quickly. If they launch one very two months (which would be quite an increase in the usual Atlas 5 launch rate) then that's 1.5 years.
I agree about the ease of landing a second stage if you aren't trying to make a Mars lander out of the same thing, but that also makes me wonder how quickly you could catch up with SpaceX (overtaking Blue) if you had the amount of money it would take to buy Blue, however, instead just hired the engineers without the overheads. 1.5 years would be too tight but 3 appears do-able based on past history.
It would certainly be a tricky decision on which way to jump. Not that Bezos is likely to need to sell.
Flooble said:
With Kuiper having bought 9 Atlas 5 launches I am guessing they aren't expecting New Glenn to turn up that quickly. If they launch one very two months (which would be quite an increase in the usual Atlas 5 launch rate) then that's 1.5 years.
It also doesn’t display much confidence in the ULA Vulcan rocket, which is of course powered by their own BE-4 engines. Why pick Atlas V over what should be the cheaper Vulcan anyway?ULA have to complete two successful flights of Vulcan before the military will let them fly their satellites. The first being the Peregrine moon lander near the end of this year. A Kuiper mission would be ideal as a follow up for both parties you would think.
ULA boss Tory Bruno said the other day that they haven’t received any flight ready BE-4 engines yet. The 2 engines on the Vulcan pathfinder are real and have been test fired multiple times apparently, but they’ll never go to space. If Blue Origin are having delays in manufacturing BE-4 engines, then they’re really going to screw over ULA.
It seems that ULA have already had to move a military satellite launch due in the second half of 2022 from the scheduled Vulcan over to an Atlas V. Now while I’m sure the military aren’t too bothered yet, it’s ULA that have to eat the extra cost of doing that.
Also that Peregrine moon lander is a support mission for the Artemis program, so delays to that is going to aggravate NASA as well. They have their own rocket to stress about as it is.
On the plus side for Elon, it looks like he won't have to eat his hat after all:
As it is, ULA shared their Vulcan rocket design with the government in order to cut the number of qualifying flights from 3 to 2.
Edited by Beati Dogu on Tuesday 25th May 11:46
Today's e-mail:
"Blue Origin announces that Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark will join the auction winner on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20th
Auction bidding is already at $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries.
Bidding is underway now at BlueOrigin.com and concludes with a live online auction on June 12th. Anyone interested in bidding in the live auction must register by June 10th. Registration details can be found at BlueOrigin.com.
The winning bidder will fly to space on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20th.
Here’s a link to Jeff Bezos’s Instagram post regarding the announcement today.
The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.
—Gradatim Ferociter "
"Blue Origin announces that Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark will join the auction winner on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20th
Auction bidding is already at $2.8 million with nearly 6,000 participants from 143 countries.
Bidding is underway now at BlueOrigin.com and concludes with a live online auction on June 12th. Anyone interested in bidding in the live auction must register by June 10th. Registration details can be found at BlueOrigin.com.
The winning bidder will fly to space on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20th.
Here’s a link to Jeff Bezos’s Instagram post regarding the announcement today.
The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space.
—Gradatim Ferociter "
Eric Mc said:
Einion Yrth said:
If the tourists are expected to pull the thick end of 12G on the way down, I doubt there'll be many tickets sold.
And also on the way up. The Redstone gave the occupant a bit of a rough ride.I was thinking more of the capability of the rocket regarding where it could take its occupants rather than how comfortable the experience might be.
I would like to see Blue Origin actually start this service and then get a move on with its genuine space projects. They still haven't flown any sort of orbital mission.
More than 9G on your chest - wowzers!
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