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Blue Origin Is Having A Bad Week

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 30, 2021
Filed under ,
Blue Origin Is Having A Bad Week

Blue Origin “Gambled” with its Moon lander pricing, NASA says in legal documents, The Verge
“Overall, NASA effectively called BS on that argument, saying “Blue Origin made a bet and it lost.” Blue Origin “made an assumption about the Agency’s HLS budget, built its proposal with this figure in mind, and also separately made a calculated bet that if NASA could not afford Blue Origin’s initially-proposed price, the Agency would select Blue Origin for award and engage in post-selection negotiations to allow Blue Origin to lower its price. All of these assumptions were incorrect,” the four NASA attorneys wrote in the so-called Agency Report, dated May 26th. “Realizing now that it gambled and lost, Blue Origin seeks to use GAO’s procurement oversight function to improperly compel NASA to suffer the consequences of Blue Origin’s ill-conceived choices.”
Keith’s note: You simply must read this. Joey Roulette did a splendid job. The art of FOIA.
Keith’s update: But wait, there’s more:
FAA to review safety concerns raised by former Blue Origin employees, Reuters
“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday it will review safety concerns raised by former Blue Origin employees about billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space company.”
Bezos Wants to Create a Better Future in Space. His Company Blue Origin Is Stuck in a Toxic Past, Lioness
“We are a group of 21 former and current employees of Blue Origin. Many of us have spent our careers dreaming of helping to launch a crewed rocket into space and seeing it safely touch back down on Earth. But when Jeff Bezos flew to space this July, we did not share his elation. Instead, many of us watched with an overwhelming sense of unease. Some of us couldn’t bear to watch at all.”
Blue Origin fired a senior executive, citing inappropriate behavior. Current and former employees say it’s part of the company’s toxic culture, Washington Post
“Another former employee, who participated in writing the blog post, told The Post that working at Blue Origin was “a dispiriting and chaotic experience. That behavior was modeled and not held accountable. Even junior members started to mirror that. It’s such a mess.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

71 responses to “Blue Origin Is Having A Bad Week”

  1. Terry Stetler says:
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    Also this major burn…

    NASA: “All of this once-in-a-generation momentum, can easily be undone by one party—in this case, Blue Origin—who seeks to prioritize its own fortunes over that of NASA, the United States, and every person alive today” https://theverge.com/2021/9

    https://twitter.com/theshee

    https://twitter.com/theshee

    • Todd Austin says:
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      404 Not Found – corrected link: https://www.theverge.com/20… Note that the quote is found on page 2 of the actual document, which is attached to the linked article.

    • Todd Austin says:
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      It is refreshing to the point of inspiring to see NASA being as blunt as this. For decades, they’ve been held back by politics. With a chance to finally punch through and move forward, they’ve chosen to make the boldest choice they could on the award and are defending that choice with every penny of political capital and public support they have accumulated over the years.

      Do it, NASA. We stand firmly behind you.

  2. Paul Gillett says:
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    Wow, talk about a “sense of entitlement”!

  3. R.J.Schmitt says:
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    BO and Old Space are fighting for their lives.

    Once the two HLS Starships land on the lunar surface, it’s game over. SLS, Orion, Gateway, the BO and Dynetics lunar landers will be history.

    NASA will return humans to the lunar surface in 2024 for $2.89B via Starship.

    All future flights to the Moon and to Mars will be done with Starships.

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      Blue’s descent element has potential for use as a light cargo lander, but without an elevator like Starship that 36’+ ladder on their HLS bid looks like a safety issue.

      • Paul Gillett says:
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        Agree. I’ve wondered about that ladder for the same reason; since the first concept pictures were released.

        Also in the case of an astronaut who is injured or incapacitated while on the surface, it would be challenging and time consuming for the other crew members to return him/her to the Ascent vehicle.

        • Terry Stetler says:
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          Speaking of medical needs, redactions in the GAO docs sound a lot like Starship HLS has a sick bay.

          “• A robust medical system including additional capabilities such as [DELETED]” (imaging systems?)

          As small as Blue’s lander is I doubt theirs does.

      • Eric Lopaty says:
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        Did Blue include orange safety cones for $1 million each to mitigate those safety issues? Then they could say that SpaceX doesn’t have those written into the proposal and therefore should not get the contract?

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        IIRC there is suppose to be a hoist of some sort. Of course an elevator platform is preferable.

      • Jack says:
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        I don’t understand why people are making a big issue of the long ladder on the BO lander. Starship’s hatch is a lot higher than the BO hatch & ladder.

        So what happens if Starship elevator/lift malfunctions?
        Throw the people on the surface a rope?

        • Alex says:
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          So what happens if Starship elevator/lift malfunctions?
          Throw the people on the surface a rope?

          Fix it? The thing has orders of magnitude more cargo capacity than the BO proposal; that’s a lot of extra space for spare parts.

          If you’re really worried about having to bring someone up immediately, while the lift is being repaired, a small winch would do the job just fine.

          • Jack says:
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            I suppose that could work. But bashing BO over length of the ladder seems a minor quibble compared to the other issues BO has.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Whenever the discussion comes up about tall ladders on the Moon I always think about when Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the LM footpad, the first thing he did was to make sure that he could make it back up to the first rung of the ladder because it was higher up than expected due to the soft landing. He hopped back up the three feet to the first rung seemingly with little effort, and his first words on the lunar surface (if you count being on the footpad as being on the surface) was his report back to Mission Control that he had no problem getting back up to the first rung.

            Ever since then I have always imagined that it would be no problem climbing a tall vertical ladder on the Moon even in a heavy spacesuit. Just need a retractable tether of some type in case of a slip.

            That being said a ladder is certainly not the most elegant solution, and then you still need a winch or elevator of some type for samples and equipment. SpaceX tends to go with what is the simplest, but I agree they will likely have no problem developing an elevator type of system. And perhaps a simple hoist as a backup.

          • Richard Brezinski says:
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            The LM ladder was not vertical. It was angled considerably.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I was talking about Armstrong jumping up three feet to the first rung, the offset of the subsequent rungs is irrelevant for that specific action. What we don’t know is how much he used his arms for assistance, but either way he had no problem jumping up that distance. And of course he later made it to the first rung a second time with no problem, as did Aldrin. I think it makes for a good case that astronauts would have no problem climbing a vertical ladder in lunar gravity.

        • Christopher James Huff says:
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          Elevators are extremely reliable in practice, and Starship can carry highly redundant and overbuilt hardware along with spare parts, tools, and backup mechanisms without even making a dent in its mass budget.

          And BO’s hatch is high enough that it doesn’t really matter if something else is higher. They both need an elevator, but only Starship actually has one (and the mass budget to allow for one).

        • Vladislaw says:
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          Well then they would use the second one.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Yeah they can just use the service elevator.

          • Christopher James Huff says:
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            They already have two fully independent and redundant airlocks. It’s really not a stretch to include a backup for the elevator as well…

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I wonder where an elevator would be located. The Starship hull serves dual purpose as the tank walls, with a common pressure dome in between tanks and domes at each end. So an elevator would either have to be located outside the hull, or it would have to pass through the domes and the tanks, similar to the fuel lines. Either way, building in a second elevator for redundancy seems less likely than just having a winch or something similar as a backup.

          • Christopher James Huff says:
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            …the elevator is outside, and a winch is a part of the mechanism. There’s plenty of room for two elevators, though a more likely scenario would be to just have redundant winch hardware. A failure of the car is unlikely simply due to lack of things to fail.

            Starship’s achievable payload capacity is easily an order of magnitude over their payload requirements, and volume is similarly abundant. If it’s remotely feasible to repair or replace the elevator in the event of a failure, there’s little reason not to include the tools and hardware needed to do so.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I suppose a redundant elevator on the opposite side of the ship would help with weight balance, as well as aerodynamic balance during ascent. Although there would be other ways to achieve those.

            I would think it’s somewhat hard to predict how much weight will be an issue this early on in the project. Even if HLS has plenty of overall weight capacity, the dry mass will have an affect on the number of refuelings that will be required. As they start outfitting it with all of the HSF trimmings, they might get to the typical point in a spacecraft development project where they starting looking for additional ways to save some kilograms, for example if that will eliminate one of the refuelings.

          • Christopher James Huff says:
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            …do you think they’re going to launch with the elevator deployed and dangling off the side? It’s not going to make the slightest difference to aerodynamics. And what kind of elevator do you think they’d be adding that’d cause issues for weight balance on a vehicle with a dry, unloaded mass in the area of a hundred metric tons?

            And by “order of magnitude”, I don’t mean “a lot of payload”, I mean a decimal order of magnitude more payload than the minimum needed. That’s up to around a hundred metric tons of payload mass, on top of about a hundred metric tons of vehicle mass. Yes, how much of that is used will affect how many refuelings are required, but just how much do you think an elevator car, boom, and some winches and cables designed for 1/6th gravity are going to mass? This isn’t going to be the thing that adds a tanker flight to the mission.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            You said the elevator is outside, so I assumed that you had come across something authoritative on that. The only way that I can picture an elevator that is installed on the outside of the hull would be that it is enclosed inside some type of aerodynamic protection, something along the lines of a cable tray. Since HLS will not return to Earth they only have to worry about aerodynamics during ascent not reentry. But apparently that’s not what you meant since in your next post you referred to deployment, so I am guessing you are saying the scaffolding for the elevator will be collapsed and stored inside Starship and then fold out along the side of the spaceship?

            I wondered if someone might misinterpret that I was saying that the weight of a spare elevator would require a tanker load. What I was referring to was a hypothetical example where the design is just over the weight limit for X number of tankers, and would require Y number of tankers. In that situation they would be looking at any place to save weight, and I would think that redundant elevator parts would be one of the items looked at, regardless of how much it weighs. Needed weight reductions can in some cases be accomplished by dealing with multiple lightweight items where the weight savings add up to what is needed. And since in my opinion a spare elevator is not needed, I was just saying that it would certainly be on the list for possible removal in any situation where weight had become an issue.

          • Christopher James Huff says:
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            How is it that you still haven’t bothered to look at what SpaceX is actually doing?

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            I follow what SpaceX is doing, however I have not come across any information about the elevator other than the photo of the mockup that they displayed in February. You seemed to have some additional information about it, my mistake in engaging you on the topic. Have nice day.

          • Terry Stetler says:
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            Remember how massive Starship is;

            the elevator is in a cargo deck, which is essentially the interstage between the crew decks and propulsion module, above the upper dome. Once the hatch is open it extends outside and runs on 2 external rails.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            The Unpressurized cargo bay at the bottom would have an elevator and the pressurized cargo bay right above it would have the second. The top one would also serve as the airlock and suit storage. I believe this airlock would also provide access to the unpressurized cargo bay below.

      • TheRadicalModerate says:
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        If NASA has issues with cargo deployability, they’ll go with Dynetics.

        But there is something that Blue could do that would provide a superior vehicle to SpaceX’s lunar Starship, at least for crew landings: Use Starship itself to deliver a singe-stage descent/ascent element to NRHO, then pick it up and return it to Earth after the mission. Numerous advantages:

        1) It would use roughly 6 fewer tanker launches than LSS.

        2) It would be able to carry a 10-11t crew module, along with 2-3t of deployable payload. That’s probably large enough for a true exploration module, capable of handling a crew of four on the surface for a couple of weeks.

        3) By returning the DAE to Earth, it could be fully serviced, making it reusable for a lot of missions, instead of being limited by whatever broke first from lunar dust contamination.

        4) You don’t really need the National Team to do this. Since that was a political stunt that spectacularly backfired, that’s probably a plus. On the other hand, Blue might want to get Lockmart to modify the ascent element until it’s just a crew module payload for the DAE.

        5) This architecture isn’t incredibly difficult to extend to taking the crew all the way from LEO to the lunar surface and back, just like the LSS will be able to do.

        Of course, this presupposes that Jeff’s willing to throw in the towel on New Glenn and re-focus the company purely on cislunar operations.

        The other obvious problem with this approach is that Starship becomes a single point of failure for LETS. But my guess is that NASA’s going to become comfortable with Starship as an uncrewed system very quickly.

        Note that Dynetics could use this same approach. If Dynetics did this and Blue lost again by doubling down on the 3-element architecture, that would be hilarious.

        • Zed_WEASEL says:
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          You seriously think that SpaceX and Below Orbit can work together after the current round of ligation by Below Orbit?

          • TheRadicalModerate says:
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            I don’t think SpaceX would have any problem at all; Blue would just be another customer. But it would definitely require Jeff to swallow a lot of pride.

            Just to be clear: IMO, if Blue insists on continuing with New Glenn, the company is either going to fail outright or it’ll limp along in a form that will prevent it from ever being able to build the infrastructure needed to get humanity out into cislunar space. They need to retrench immediately.

            I don’t think Jeff will be able to swallow this. But to me, this is their best shot to have an impact.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      “NASA will return humans to the lunar surface in 2024 for $2.89B via Starship.”

      That is not entirely accurate. SLS will be launching Orion. That flight alone will be close to 3 billion add in ammorization of the development costs of those two pieces of hardware and it is more like to have cost the taxpayers 15 billion per flight if they only do a couple flights and then end SLS Orion.

  4. Chris says:
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    At this point labeling Blue Origin as an Aerospace company is disingenuous, the better description would be that of a multibillion dollar backed patent troll.

    Remember this is the same company that tried to patent the idea of landing a rocket on a ship in the ocean. For the sole purpose of preventing SpaceX from attempting such a feat.

    • Steve Pemberton says:
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      In spite of their faults Blue Origin is an aerospace company, albeit one that so far has been very disappointing in how long it is taking them to produce something of value. They are now carrying passengers on New Shepard and seem to be able to make a profit on each flight, although how long it will take them to recoup development costs is not known.

      And they have developed the main engines for what will be the sole ULA orbital rocket, which is no small feat. No the engines have not been delivered yet, but there are no indications that they won’t be or that there are any problems with the engine, it’s just taking the typical BO time to get it done and that is creating problems for everyone who is depending on them. And unfortunately they seem to want to blame others for their slow meandering pace, thus the myriad lawsuits.

  5. Bernardo Senna says:
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    If, when the fuel transfer is solved, it is game over indeed. The fast pace of launches developed as principle is a change of mentality in the industry that will enable a change of era in manned astronautics. If they can soon efectively transfer enough fuel to the HLS, the inner volume and cargo capacity of the starship alone will create an environment where other current hardware should be scraped, and companies, governments an agencies should start over again and create complemental or concurrent technologies and systems to the Starship, but now, considering not only the small scale we see today, but a 10 to 100 times bigger space exploratio, meaning moon and mars villages, asteroid minning and even manned missions to the gas giants. I suggest Discovery AE-35 for namming the first ovian mission.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      the first ovian mission

      Think you meant the first Jovian mission.

      With what is happening. It will be the whim of the SpaceX CTO as to the name of the first Manned Jovian mission. Likely some ship name from the Culture novels from Iain M Banks .

    • Richard Brezinski says:
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      Russians have been doing space to space fuel transfer for about 40 years.

      • fcrary says:
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        In the case of SpaceX Starship, they need cryogenic propellent transfer. That hasn’t been done before. In particular, with cryogenics you can’t use an elastic membrane with a inert gas like helium on one side to maintain pressure on the propellent as the tank empties or fills. There are alternatives, but they haven’t been tried yet, not even in small tests. The there are several tests of those alternatives planned for the next year or two.

        • PsiSquared says:
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          What are some of the alternatives?

          • Fred Willett says:
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            a small thrust applied to the docked ships so the fuel flows ‘down hill”.

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s one alternative. But problem is more that, as the tank empties, vapor will form in the empty space. In free fall, that vapor is mixed in with the liquid, and pumps don’t handle that well. The thrust (basically a continuous ullage burn) keeps the vapor on ”top”. You could also spin the system and use centrifugal force, although that means you’d end up spinning a pair of docked spacecraft. Fortunately, very little acceleration is needed, so the thrust (for a ullage burn) or the spin rate can be very small. I guess you could also just develop a pump which can handle a liquid/vapor mixture, but I haven’t seen that discussed and I suspect it would be difficult or inefficient.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            When I asked about alternatives, I meant alternatives that did not require ullage. I should have been more clear about that.

      • Bernardo Senna says:
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        Yes, of course, I mean It’s game change because of the unprecedent capability that will be added to space exploration.

  6. hikingmike says:
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    Thanks for posting this. I was wondering what was going on. And yes, well done by the author. Interesting – 14 fuel delivery launches for tanking up Starship in Earth orbit. It will be so neat once we do in orbit refueling like that, and it opens up a lot of new possibilities.

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      Musk updated that to 4 Tanker flights for moon missions. Last fall (Humans to Mars Virtual Summit) he also mentioned a Starship with 2000t tanks, up from the current 1200t.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        DEMO 1

        1 Starship fuel tanker for LEO
        4 Starship fuel delivery tanker flights
        1 Starship Lunar lander no return flight

        DEMO 2

        1 Starship fuel tanker for LEO
        8 Starship fuel delivery tanker flights
        1 Starship Lunar lander for return to LEO

  7. Richard Brezinski says:
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    I think once the Space X Star Ship flies around the Moon, as in the Dear Moon mission, then its game over for SLS, Orion, Gateway, the BO and Dynetics. Space X will still need to prove the Moon landing, too, but it is actually simpler than the Earth landings they have already been doing.

    Its not to say that others won’t have the opportunity in the future to surpass the Space X accomplishments, but they need to start thinking in a very different manner. Constellation, Artemis, Orion, BO and Dynetics have all been trying to scale up the Apollo achievement. Its nice but pretty much a dead end. By the time you land enough stuff anywhere you’ve expended everyone’s budgets.

    Using hardware that is similar in size to Saturn V and technologically a bit more sophisticated, Space X is bringing jumbo jet thinking to NASA’s Piper Cub mentality; well maybe Piper Cub is a bit too remedial; The Virgin Galactic ship is more like a Cessna with a rocket pack. Orion might be more like an early Learjet. Their thinking is stuck decades in the past.

  8. Half Moon says:
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    Sounds like Bezos is used to private industry negotiations..where deals are cut on the golf course, and everything is always on the table at the right price. NASA ain’t a country club.

  9. Vladislaw says:
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    For years I defended Bezos and Blue Origin. It has become quite a chore now to dredge up anything positive. To see Bezos allow BO to be ran like this … literally being run into the ground buy some legacy thinking hacks runs so counter intuitive for how he managed Amazon. I truly believed he was going to bring that energy and innovation with to BO. And when I read he was retiring from Amazon I thought great he will start camping on the floor at BO .. but no .. just a couple days a week.. he needs to CLEAN HOUSE and then all hands on deck.

  10. Bill Housley says:
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    The main benefit of New Space is that NASA no longer has to kick the can down the road every time Congress says “No”. Blue Origin, and Boeing (I can’t believe I’m putting those two in the same box) will learn that some day soon and compete in the spirit of fixed-price contracting…hopefully BEFORE SpaceX gets a total monopoly over this new industry.

    The money isn’t made in development anymore…it is made in future applications and Blue Origin is paying lawyers money that they should be paying to accountants and developers.

    Where is the Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon? That’s the Bezos I hoped to see here. I don’t know this other guy.

    • Chris says:
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      They are the same person except in this instance NASA/SpaceX isn’t diapers.com

    • Richard Brezinski says:
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      BO got themselves mixed up with typical aerospace cost + beltway bandits and figured they could collect some big bucks. I think it is finally dawning on the NASA higher ups that these companies are out to make any development program as long, drawn out, and painful as possible in an effort to maximize their take of taxpayer dollars. I for one do not see that the BO group has anything to offer. Unlike Space X which has been actively working towards actual rockets and landers for space travel for two decades. Space X has real capabilities they offer at a bargain price.

  11. mfwright says:
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    “Backed by the world’s richest man, Blue Origin indicated in its protest that the $5.9 billion price — nearly double SpaceX’s proposal”

    I don’t get it. But then I’m just a joe looking from the outside. The world’s richest man doesn’t need to beg for money from a cash-strapped government agency. He can simply built his own spaceship and go to the moon. Or maybe going to the moon requires certain things money and lawyers cannot provide.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      It is not the money. It is the prestige of being in the official NASA program to landed a couple of federal employees on the Moon.

      However Below Orbit has zero orbital hardware so far and will likely to still not have any in the next couple of years. Why they are even able to bid was the inclusion of the Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman partners from old space.

      Below Orbit can not wait for an in house Moon landing system by itself. The folks from Hawthorne could make that Moot. However if they are the official contractor for a NASA Moon lander than they could blocked other folks that have the capability to build one from doing so by sucking up all budget.

      P.S. the Moon Lander price for Below Orbit was originally about $10B in the first phase of contract bidding.

  12. Chris says:
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    And another bombshell just dropped on Blue Origin:

    Via Michael Sheetz

    Then there is this little tidbit.

    But, in early 2019, the company’s engines team presented an update to Smith and every component of the BE-4 engine had a technical issue associated with it, that person said. The company has yet to deliver those flight-ready BE-4 engines to ULA.

    I believe it was reported by Eric Berger that said as of 2021 only 9 BE-4’s have been built, none are on a test stand.

  13. Bill Housley says:
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    Suborbital will play a very important role in New Space. A lot more folks, even non and low-end millionaires, can swing the six-digit price tag and still see the curvature of the Earth. A Dragon ride is $40M+.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Maybe SpaceX could enter the suborbital market in the future by flying a modified Starship in a flight profile similar to the return to launch site flight profile for the Falcon 9 booster.

      Time in free fall could be extended by a brief apogee kick burn.

      In theory said modified suborbital Starship could operate from an offshore platform carrying about 100 tourists per flight for maybe a low 5-digit ride price.

      Of course the flight profile will have to flight tested a few dozen time unmanned first.

      • Bill Housley says:
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        They’ve already stated an interest in doing something just like that for point to point transport on Earth. The U.S. military is very interested in leveraging that capability BTW.

        Then it won’t just be “joy ride”…not that the Bezos and Branson launches are really like that either, though they seem to be.

        Speaking of which, William Shatter, worth several hundred million dollars, will get to ride for free. Seems unfair when he can easily afford it.

        • Steve Pemberton says:
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          From Shatner’s viewpoint he is providing value to the company for the publicity that his participation provides. He turned down an offer to fly on Virgin Galactic because Branson wanted him to pay, when he felt that it should be the other way around. In this case he is apparently willing to accept a free ride as compensation. I would think that from Shatner’s viewpoint Bezos can easily afford it.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            Hmmm….savy.

            I withdraw my criticism.

            Go Bezos for making a sound advertising deal.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            Now that I think about it, advertising has always played a key role in Shatner’s career. For an actor, it’s getting paid to advertise themselves by advertising someone else’s product.
            Since cross promotion is a game of ramoras, and he’s more famous than Branson or Bezos… especially Branson, then from a promotional perspective it is actually up to them to pay to stand in his shadow.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      It should be possible to fly a stripped-down Crewed Dragon (no need to include the trunk) for a suborbital flight on a booster-only falcon-9 (call it the F9S) if the market is strong enough.

      • Zed_WEASEL says:
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        You need some sort of trunk with fins to have launch escape capability for the Crew Dragon.

        • Christopher James Huff says:
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          It could be simplified quite a bit though…no solar panels or radiators. And add parachutes so it can be recovered, or replace it with a cheap metal version.

          I doubt they would though. It’d add wear and tear on a booster, cost a substantial fraction of what an actual orbital launch costs while bringing in a tiny fraction of the money, tie up infrastructure, and if they lost just one booster, how many suborbital flights would it take to pay for it? Starship is better suited to suborbital flights.

      • Leonard McCoy says:
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        Perhaps use the land recovery option with the superdracos that Red Dragon would have used. Landing legs would be sticking down through a ( derated ) heat shield. That was an objection for crew dragon from orbit.

      • Bill Housley says:
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        Well, the Falcon first stage booster would still throw that capsule a heck of a lot higher than that stubby little thing that Blue Origin flies.

        But the price tag is hardly worth it. Six digits barely pays for fuel and would still occupy a slot on the launch schedule that would pay better for an orbital flight.

        I’m not sure BO or Virgin fully understand that. Their launch cadence needs to be pretty high to make back their investment at that price.

  14. Leonard McCoy says:
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    comment moved to a reply

  15. Winner says:
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    I doubt Captain Kirk is going to save them.
    It’s the Kobayashi Maru problem.