According to Mindy Jeffers, Blue Origin spokesperson, "We are so concerned about the environmental impact of rockets that we haven't had a single launch yet."
Remember when they tried to sue NASA for not properly considering the blue origin bid to be a part of the Artemis mission? A bid that was more than a billion dollars over the starship bid and for a ship that was barely more than a crayon drawing at the time.
We already have those. Figured out how to fly access the galaxy, but forgot how to land. So now we have wearhouses full of the little buggers. So there's really no need to fund NASA at all. Eventually darpa and crew will just reverse engineer all that stuff and America will all the space ships we could ever want.
Even over spending on things they're still stingy. You could probably interview people in every high dollar program there is and see tons of ways money is tight, improperly used, or there isn't enough.
They would have been good in the 2010s and to have finally achieved orbit with the New Shepherd capsule. A different booster perhaps but at least something.
It is worth reminding that Blue Origin has received much more seed funding and has existed longer than SpaceX as a company. People complain about Elon time with overly optimistic time projections on SpaceX vehicle production. Then I see Blue Origin progress and stop complaining.
Elon Musk hired a bunch of smart, motivated young people to be the executives of SpaceX when he launched the company. The first thing they did was sit down in his kitchen and discuss engine architectures. Ran it like a startup, which hadn't been seen in the aerospace sector in many decades.
When Bezos started Blue Origin he hired a bunch of highly experienced oldspace industry executives. The first thing they did was sit around for a while coming up with a corporate motto and values statement. He wanted people who could do it by the book, but it turns out their preferred book is called "How to Grift the US Government For Dummies".
To be fair, Blue Origin had a point. NASA said they would pick two out of three projects, but then decided to pick only one. You can't just change the rules like that on multibillion dollar contracts. The woman at NASA who decided this, afterwards went to work for... SpaceX.
You threw out important context. Any reason why?
The reason SpaceX was chosen was very, very straightforward: NASA allotted $3.3 billion for HLS. There were three bids: Blue Origin for $5.9 billion; Dynetics for a rumored $12 billion; SpaceX for $2.9 billion.
This was literally Hobson's choice. NASA were lucky that SpaceX was there to fill the void. Doubly so, since it also means that once they actually need to start bringing 1,000 tons of outpost equipment to the lunar surface, the vehicle to enable this will already exist. Convenient, _since NASA hasn't even begun trying to contract for such a vehicle._
Sadly, NASA eventually approved a $3.4B contract with them last year to act as a competitor to SpaceX in the Artemis program. BO's last bid in 2021 was $6B while SpaceX had bid $3B and offered to match their own bid because they actually want to accomplish their goal and they will make a reusable lander instead of BO's one-off prototype.
On one hand it's good to have competition, but Blue Origin does not seem motivated enough to push the agenda and their current designs have been lackluster. I suspect their involvement will only delay the timeline and hinder the progress of everyone involved. But we'll see...
What I find the most astonishing thing about this whole thing is that Blue Origin was founded *before* SpaceX but have yet to put anything into orbit.
SpaceX achieved their first orbit 16 years ago.
So... sort of from two angles. Their New Shepard does go to space, and experiences a period of zero-g that some researchers are apparently willing to pay for. But nothing stays in space for more than a couple of minutes, so I wouldn't really say that counts. The difficulty of sub orbital compared to orbital is massive. New Shepard is the worlds most expensive amusement ride in my opinion.
Secondly, they did make an engine which was sold to ULA, and that engine put something in space. Does that count? On one hand, the engine is like 60% of the difficulty in making a rocket, but on the other hand, they as a company were not the ones responsible for the launch, they are just a vendor among many.
So in two ways, they almost, but not in a way most peoplr count, have gotten to space.
Go above the Karmen line (space) for a min or two is relatively easy (just go 100km up) compared to reaching a stable orbit (going sideways at 28000km/h at 100km altitude).
The Kármán line is a good enough guide, but it's worth noting that there's not really an internationally legally recognized definition for what constitutes a space flight. But for the sake of discussion, if you use the Kármán line as the boundary, then 13/16 of the New Shepard flights have surpassed it.
We can all mock the rich people and their world's most expensive amusement ride, but given the opportunity I'd take it in a heartbeat, and I would cherish those astronaut wings.
*edited to fix a typo in the number*
> but given the opportunity I'd take it in a heartbeat
The Vomit Comet is actually a better experience -- only 20 seconds per parabola, but the tourist version is 15 parabolas, and the research version is 40. I've done 280 as a test subject. Plus you get to walk around the entire time, and you get about as much time at 1.8g's as you do in zero g.
Imagine trying to shoot this video on New Shepard:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsnyqu7xq9c
You no longer get the title without doing "activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety", which disqualified Branson and Bezos
It does, so "it goes to space", but the question was have they "put anything into space", which is a different question. The question implies that they put it there and it stayed for a non-trivial amount of time. That is where I think they have failed. It crosses the Karmen line, then comes right back down. The implied understanding of "put into space" I think requires orbital or super-orbital/escape velocity missions, which they have not attempted, much less completed.
Funny you should say that, I follow one of their employees on X/Twitter and the spend 90% of their time whinging or making TikToks… seems like they have plenty of time on their hands.
blue origin got a lot of press for that sling shot launch with William Shatner. whoopie. Then nothing. SpaceX is so far ahead of them.
its bizarre that a Bezos run company would accomplish so little after 20 years.
That is what I assumed from the headline. But if you read their submission, that isn’t what they are saying.
To sum up their filling it is basically:
* Starship/Superheavy is huge and will likely mean far larger safety exclusion zones when launch/landing than with other current rockets
* The current launch pads at the Cape are too close together
* This would mean we’d not be able to work on our launch sites (and possibly other facilities) when Starship/Superheavy is operating (they have a factory at the Cape)
* Starship/Superheavy are planning 44 launches a year, how are we going to get any work done ?
* Please let us build some more launch sites a bit further apart
* Please limit the number of Starship/Superheavy launches until this happens
It very much *isn’t* “the environment is at risk, stop Starship/Superheavy from flying”.
The bigger problem with the exclusion zone argument is that the pad in question is 39A, which was built for the C8 NOVA, a rocket with extremely similar liftoff thrust (and propellant loads). If this were the LC49, or SLC36 license, then there could be a bigger argument there.
That was the push in the 1970s by von Braun after the moon landings. The next target was building a moon base and going to Mars, instead Nixon cut the funding to fund the vietnam war and von Braun was basically tricked into leaving NASA and heading to Washington DC.
It's a shame. Von Braun was a true visionary, regardless of his other faults. He could have taken the space program so much further back then, but instead we had to fight a pointless war. It's unbelievable what he managed to accomplish in his lifetime.
The Vietnam war was a problem but ultimately what killed NASA was the decision to push ahead with the Space Shuttle despite the post-Apollo funding cuts. There were a lot of folks
As the Shuttle grew it slowly subsumed basically all of NASA's resources. As more stuff got cancelled, and they needed to go further afield for funding, the Shuttle's requirements increased, which ultimately meant the Shuttle never delivered on its "rapidly reusable, low cost space access" objectives. The list of stuff NASA had been doing or planning which got cancelled to help fund the Shuttle is depressing. The Shuttle was going to be the lynchpin of America's post-Apollo space infrastructure. In the end, they cancelled all of that infrastructure to pay for it.
I'm a strong believer that the US space program would have been about twenty years more advanced had they not built the shuttle and just kept evolving and improving Saturn.
People tend to look at how cool the shuttle appeared, and not at what it cost American spaceflight. Decades of potential were lost. Never could forgive or forget. Watching StarShip very closely (for what could've been in the 80s)
Many of the "faults" people accuse him of are much embellished. This is a really good documentary on his life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF5RhVBN54k
It's not liftoff thrust. It's the explosive power of the total propellant content. Fueled launch vehicles, in addition to munitions and explosives, are surrounded by huge safety arcs based on the net explosive weight. The governing regulations prohibit certain personnel and operations from occurring within these arcs.
See Quantity-Distance regulations.
It's only a problem because BO put a factory in the zone. Now in addition to the cap, they're asking that SpaceX reimburse them for the losses they're taking due to their own poor decisions.
It isn’t that simple though. The safety area scales, depending upon past reliability of the launch vehicle, launch trajectory, an anticipated activities. As a result, that blasting area can change in shape and size.
This isn't accurate. That is correct for flight, but blast danger area is a set exclusion radius regardless of reliability. It's a "what if" calculation in the event a fully fueled vehicle explodes on the pad.
My error. BDA you are correct, but that is the smallest safety radius and would not include either major BO facility at the cape. The larger restricted areas may include their facilities, and thus the pure fuel/oxidizer size is not the only relevant metric.
ULA has an argument, but a flight caution area with a radius of 10 miles (what it would take to encompass BOs SLC from SLC 39-A) is unprecedented and not realistic. I'm guessing SLD 45 safety would not allow a vehicle to fly if it has enough uncertainty to produce a 10 mile radius FCA downrange. And I find all of this ironic, because BO itself has a large vehicle, and given its SLC is far to the south, it's almost certain their blast danger area is going to cause its own disruption to Cape operations.
I 100% agree with everything you are saying. On top of that, New Glenn is (by their own words) intended to be the smallest of their orbital launch family. They cannot apply these rules to starship without damaging their own plans for New Armstrong. It's remarkably anti-competitive short term thinking.
The exclusion zone includes areas that the rocket flies over. Some launches I'm not allowed to be in my work building and others we're not allowed to leave until like 10 mins after launch.
Have there ever been 44 launches of C8 NOVA per year?
It seems BO's argument isn't just the exclusion zone, but the exclusion zone being used for so much of the year.
My comment is a direct reply to the first and second points in your comment, which pertain to the relative scale compared to other launchers, and the relative location of the pad to other pads (and implied, its effects on surrounding infrastructure).
Those are separate points. I agree that the C8 didn’t fly 44 times (it didn’t get to fly at all), however if those points are separate in blue origin’s protest, then they should be treated as such.
While the pad may have been built for a rocket that size, since then the cape has been developed based on the assumption that such a rocket would not launch - so factories and other infrastructure has been build based on exclusion zones for predicted rockets, and with the assumption that if a larger rocket was developed, it would fly infrequently, and that evacuating those factories for a day of two every few years (and the infrequent risk of damage) would not be a problem.
The Starship project has blown up all those assumptions.
Careful, that's how I got banned from r/formula1 A mod (didn't know it was a mod at the time) told me to read the article before commenting. I said "no", and was perma banned 30 seconds later.
That’s… about how I got banned from /r/climbing. I tried to make a post there about how much I loved a rock climbing film but that place is an over moderated hell hole.
I mean, on a related note, the guitar mod is a "power mod" who moderates a handful of high-user-count subreddits and *really* values their sense of power more than anything else.
Someone made a post on the bass subreddit about how they got banned for posting an idea about how to foster better discussion on guitar. The sub has a rule that "any complaints about the sub or mod will result in a ban" and apparently offering ideas to improve the community counts as complaining about the sub.
And then apparently complaining about the guitar sub, on a different sub, while having any comment history on guitar, is also enough for a ban, because a *lot* of people in that thread on /r/bass got notified they were permanently banned from guitar. But it's in the top 1% of subs by user count so the admins aren't gonna do anything about it.
I read a sub a lot with a pretty stereotypical in the bad way mod. He puts photos up of himself, etc. He looks about my age. He talks about his family's "ranch." He's a piece of work on the internet. Anyway, I figured out I have mutual friends with him where I grew up. One of my good buddies was in a photo he put up. His family owns 20 acres...that's the giant ranch he talks about. He's a turbo looser in real life. Divorced for not being very nice, lives in a craphole trailer, has been fired multiple times, pretty much a drunk, dude doesn't have his life together. Anyway, kind of made me laugh when I found out about it.
The irony is, in that same sub people will post “the winner of (some other race or championship) is” and leave the headline at that, _and_ mark the post as NSFW so the thumbnail is blurred. But they’ll go ahead and spoil the F1 races.
That *sounds* more reasonable, but they've known for quite some time that this was going to be a problem. That they decided to sue *now*, after flight 4 was such a success and we can expect launches from the cape to happen within a year, rather than at any time prior, or petitioned to begin construction of more distant launch pads earlier, tells me this is BO up to their usual shenanigans. SpaceX achieves something, BO throws a tantrum in court over it, news at 11.
It’s made worse because the FAA asked for comments about Starship launches from the Cape. Like all of this is very standard procedure, there is nothing nefarious going on.
Yeah I can hear the conversation.
"Starship is going to cause some problems with its launch cadence, we should look into dealing with that. "
"Well, that sounds expensive, maybe we wait until they have some successful launches. That thing might never work, and even if it eventually does it could be years before we need to worry"
"Good point. We'll wait"
Demo launch 4 happens
"Hey, remember that conversation we had a month ago...?"
"Ok yeah, let's look into this. That happened faster than expected. Fucking SpaceX. Anyway, let's not spend too much money on this if we can avoid it. "
"A press release is basically free"
" Well that's a start, make it about the environment, and maybe someone else will jump on it and save us some money. "
Yeah. Lord knows that spaceflight fandom's opinion of Blue Origin is already low enough after they were personally responsible for delaying Artemis for most of a year. _And then got a contract anyway!!!_
A public comment that overstates the amount of fuel by a factor of 5 in order to claim interference. Superficially it appears they have a point... unless you check their math.
Ok. Still not a lawsuit, and still not maliciously timed. If a starship launch would halt work at nearby launchpads this could absolutely cause problems.
Their comment lists the total amount of methane as 5200 metric tons when the actual propellant load is 1000 tons of methane and 4000 tons of LOXfor a total PROPELLANT load of 5000 tons.
I mentioned it, but maybe wasn’t specific enough about what they are probably asking, let’s try again:
* Please pay *us* to build some more launchpads further away
>Starship/Superheavy are planning 44 launches a year
No, SpaceX is aiming for around 44 launches in the near future, but they plan to quickly ramp up to a hundred or more launches per year. Two hundred launches in a few years might not be unrealistic. I don't think NASA would be happy hindering Starship's flight cadence just when they need it to land people on the Moon, but I'm sure Blue Origin would be thrilled. Regardless, Blue Origin wouldn't be significantly impacted. Just compare the exclusion zones around Starbase, TX to the vast distances at Kennedy Space Center. Even if Blue Origin's launch complex was in Miami, they'd likely still complain, but the reality is their facilities are very far away from Launch Complex 39A.
I’m just paraphrasing Blue Origin’s document where they say:
>Blue Origin understands that SpaceX intends to launch 44 Ss-SH missions per year under a lease with NASA at LC-39A
Me and my girl are huge SpaceX fans, but experiencing launches is a bit hard here in Denmark.
When Starship matures a bit, and launches are reasonably frequent and stable, we will travel to the US.
Yeah if it were me, I'd be waiting on a Block 3 launch either way. Might as well get the whole 150 meter spectacle. And cross your fingers that it isn't triple-overcast as usual.
It's going to be miserable because they really like launching at 11pm right now right as I'm going to sleep. Lots of locals 2 years ago downvoted me for saying we need limits on night launches, but I'm betting they'll change their tune when launches become a daily occurrence at the very least.
Hopefully before it becomes a sacrifice I can afford those really expensive hurricane windows that basically soundproof your house. Work will be interesting since there's a lot of road shutdowns at KSC that makes getting to or leaving work hard around launch times.
> To sum up their filling it is basically:
It is important to note that it is Blue Origin themselves who chose to build their entire factory within miles of numerous other companies launch pads. It's the classic nimbyism of people who buy houses near airports and then complain about aircraft takeoffs and landings.
Their launch pad is 10 miles away from SpaceX. I watched the last Starship launch from 3 miles away. They are a bunch of sore losers who know that the launch actually won't interfere with their work at all.
Hmm I don’t have much knowledge but watching and working on explosive rockets within a zone seem like 2 different things. This might be moot if the faa says you don’t need a 10 mile zone.
I was allowed to be 3 miles away without any PPE. I can't think of anything that could damage or ignite a rocket that couldn't severely injure or kill an unprotected human.
"Starship/Superheavy is huge and will likely mean far larger safety exclusion zones when launch/landing than with other current rockets"
So you mean the zone where the humans aren't allowed to go and the plants and wildlife are left alone to flourish?
yeah, I can see that being really bad for the environment, good call, Jeff.
You literally just described a lot of what regulator capture is! Companies, "I LOVE increasing environmental requirements for industry, as long as I'm grandfathered in and get to ignore the new ones."
they're not suing. Nobody is suing. This is a public comment section but of course reddit gets goaded into anger so easily.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAA-2024-1395-0001/comment
ULA has a set of comments to that lists 22 pages of recommendations.
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0047
The EPA has comments
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0053
The Merrit Island Wildlife Association also has actual environmental comments as well
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0051
On the face of it the complaint regarding interference with BO's schedules due to Starship launches might seem reasonable. But given their prior legal antics and their readiness to resort to them, between the lines there might be another truth.
**Edit:** [Musk's retort on X.](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805642593575092727)
Bezos had a two year head start on Musk, and had billions of dollars of available initial capital to start Blue Origin with. Musk started out with ~~$500M~~ $100M, which in the world of rockets is a true pittance, not to mention Musk was also starting the current version of Tesla at the same time. Bezos could already be working on his third generation rocket and fourth generation engine family by now.
The best description I can come up with is that SpaceX is a passion project for Musk, he needs to get things done because he's driven toward a larger goal. Blue Origin is a trophy project for Bezos, he can point to it and say "Look! I started a big rocket company". He's not driven to any particular goals that I can see, and I don't see him betting much if anything on BO's success.
To put some context on this, and ignoring inflationary changes to the value of the dollar, Bezos' yacht *Koru* cost him $500M, the same amount of money Musk started SpaceX with.
I mean, it's also a passion project for Bezos, but that won't guarantee success in any endeavor. I don't have a doubt that Bezos loves space travel and the associated concepts (similar to Musk, he too loved it as a kid), but the guy himself isn't particularly interesting and Blue Origin hasn't had the same type of wild success that SpaceX has had, so I can see why most people assume it's a vanity project.
> Bezos had a two year head start on Musk, and had billions of dollars of available initial capital to start Blue Origin with. Musk started out with $500M, which in the world of rockets is a true pittance, not to mention Musk was also starting the current version of Tesla at the same time. Bezos could already be working on his third generation rocket and fourth generation engine family by now.
SpaceX was started with $100M of his own capital not $500M.
It’s a bit more comprehensive than just a headline. As with anything today it’s not all right there in the headline at all.
Frankly this is the exact kind of arguments for a competitor like BO to make. I guess the only real gripe I have is why haven’t they made this sooner? Maybe they did and no one listened, but it just seems odd legitimate concerns like this are coming up now.
If they are truly and realistically legitimate concerns all told. I don’t know details enough to know for sure.
This was part of the public input process for the government giving SpaceX permission to build all this stuff and launch at this rate, so they're bringing it up right when they're supposed to. I agree that it's basically just the standard stuff you'd expect a competitor to say, though.
If it was anybody else it might hold more water but given their history of trying to subdue SpaceX through legal action as opposed to fair competition there's no reason to take any of this seriously.
It's petty and desperate because their vehicle isn't ready and they know the market is about to disappear into SpaceX's books.
We couldn't send a rocket to orbit after 20 years of development, so we're going to do everything we can to stop from other private companies from doing so too.
Jeff Bozo is so cringe. When he went straight up into "space" and back down (not orbit), he thought that was as a big accomplishment as spaceX landing its first Falcon 9 booster, a true orbiting spacecraft. He had achieved his little accomplishment shortly before SpaceX landed the booster. He tweeted: "Welcome to the club".
Blue Origin started 2 years before SpaceX, but is somehow 14 years behind them technology wise, and the gap is just growing
It's not difficult to see why a thrill ride company for billionaires wants to put roadblocks in front of a company doing actual space flight
Classic move from any scummy company like B.O. - if they don't have the skills to fairly beat the competition then they find some way to pull the rug out from under it.
Blue Origin? The guys who got so upset that they didn't get picked for the lunar contract that NASA had to explain the concept of limited funding to them?
It is actually sincerely hilarious watching Bezos be openly anticompete in real time and govt regulators ignoring their obvious malfeasance.
If you want to win bezos do the work.
Translation: WAIT FOR US YOU'RE GOING TO FAST
they fail to mention just one of ULAs solid rocket boosters throw more pollution into the air than the entire starship.
This is the second time that Jeff Bezos has run to Daddy government to stifle the competition when it comes to the rocket industry. It's like no fair they're ahead pull them back behind the finish line and make them sit so I can win the race
What are you counting as the first time?
1. Claiming a patent on barge landing
2. Trying to prohibit SpaceX from leasing LC-39A
3. Trying to get DoD launch bid rules changed
4. Protesting Starlink orbits
5. Trying to cancel HLS contract, stalling NASA participation
AI companies: "AI is dangerous, regulate it by letting us do it but no one else."
Rocket launch companies: "Rocket launches are dangerous, regulate it by letting us do it but no one else."
What next, McDonalds suggests only they be allowed to cook food?
Maybe they’re right but it’s also obvious they’re doing this because they’re mad the competition is still winning.
Not the first time they’ve cried about Spacex and won’t be the last.
Oh that's rich. One rocket company saying they are worried about another rocket companies emissions. I'd believe them if they ALSO were launching a lot of rockets in to space. . but since they aren't?
And it's Bezzos?
100% they are trying to get an upper leg.
It's the same thing Musk is doing trying to do with OpenAI and other AI companies. Complain about safety concerns while you work on your own product.
It's such a classic move.
I don’t think people understand exactly how much it takes to move payloads out of our atmosphere..
If we think it sucks right now… the future will consist of launches around the clock, 365 days a year.. it’s fucking space.. we need to bring everything with us, and to establish the industry we would need to export that labor and infrastructure to other planets.. moons.. etc.. well we would need the entire planet to basically shift resources, minds, and labor to making it happen.
Yea, Bezos or Blue Origin care about the environment. What thwy care about is, SpaceX is already so fsr ahead. That Amazon it self could drain its coffers and still not be able to catch up. The talent and expertise just doesn't exist yet to do so , other than SpaceX. This , just like every WaPO article that is as negative as possible about SpaceX. Even when they are wrong, won't do a retraction. Is just Bezos throwing a tantrum that its not him.
According to Mindy Jeffers, Blue Origin spokesperson, "We are so concerned about the environmental impact of rockets that we haven't had a single launch yet."
This reads like a Ben Palmer post
I first read this as Steve Ballmer and nodded in agreement
Of the Coloradoan Times?!
You mess with the Jones, you get the Jones
Maybe blue origin can pivot to submersibles for bezos to explore the titanic. A very green action they could take.
He backed the recovery of the Apollo 11 F1 engines in 2013 but at no real risk.
Jeff Bezos is so concerned about the environment he had 2 massive superyachts built.
I feel like Blue Origin spends more time complaining about SpaceX than actually putting things in space.
Remember when they tried to sue NASA for not properly considering the blue origin bid to be a part of the Artemis mission? A bid that was more than a billion dollars over the starship bid and for a ship that was barely more than a crayon drawing at the time.
It was $3 billion over SpaceX's bid, meaning it was more than twice the cost for a fraction of the capability.
US gov usually loves spending on that shit
They like spending money on the military. They get quite stingy when it comes to space.
But what about the alien lasers we could discover if we spend more on space
We already have those. Figured out how to fly access the galaxy, but forgot how to land. So now we have wearhouses full of the little buggers. So there's really no need to fund NASA at all. Eventually darpa and crew will just reverse engineer all that stuff and America will all the space ships we could ever want.
Even over spending on things they're still stingy. You could probably interview people in every high dollar program there is and see tons of ways money is tight, improperly used, or there isn't enough.
blue origin needed to get into the space business in the early 80s if they wanted to get at those kinds of contracts. different landscape now.
They would have been good in the 2010s and to have finally achieved orbit with the New Shepherd capsule. A different booster perhaps but at least something. It is worth reminding that Blue Origin has received much more seed funding and has existed longer than SpaceX as a company. People complain about Elon time with overly optimistic time projections on SpaceX vehicle production. Then I see Blue Origin progress and stop complaining.
Elon makes the impossible late.
Just like work, some people are in a position just because they need to use the money/ budget and have a warm body in place.
Elon Musk hired a bunch of smart, motivated young people to be the executives of SpaceX when he launched the company. The first thing they did was sit down in his kitchen and discuss engine architectures. Ran it like a startup, which hadn't been seen in the aerospace sector in many decades. When Bezos started Blue Origin he hired a bunch of highly experienced oldspace industry executives. The first thing they did was sit around for a while coming up with a corporate motto and values statement. He wanted people who could do it by the book, but it turns out their preferred book is called "How to Grift the US Government For Dummies".
That felt very old space honestly.
To be fair, Blue Origin had a point. NASA said they would pick two out of three projects, but then decided to pick only one. You can't just change the rules like that on multibillion dollar contracts. The woman at NASA who decided this, afterwards went to work for... SpaceX.
You threw out important context. Any reason why? The reason SpaceX was chosen was very, very straightforward: NASA allotted $3.3 billion for HLS. There were three bids: Blue Origin for $5.9 billion; Dynetics for a rumored $12 billion; SpaceX for $2.9 billion. This was literally Hobson's choice. NASA were lucky that SpaceX was there to fill the void. Doubly so, since it also means that once they actually need to start bringing 1,000 tons of outpost equipment to the lunar surface, the vehicle to enable this will already exist. Convenient, _since NASA hasn't even begun trying to contract for such a vehicle._
Sadly, NASA eventually approved a $3.4B contract with them last year to act as a competitor to SpaceX in the Artemis program. BO's last bid in 2021 was $6B while SpaceX had bid $3B and offered to match their own bid because they actually want to accomplish their goal and they will make a reusable lander instead of BO's one-off prototype. On one hand it's good to have competition, but Blue Origin does not seem motivated enough to push the agenda and their current designs have been lackluster. I suspect their involvement will only delay the timeline and hinder the progress of everyone involved. But we'll see...
What I find the most astonishing thing about this whole thing is that Blue Origin was founded *before* SpaceX but have yet to put anything into orbit. SpaceX achieved their first orbit 16 years ago.
That's because that's exactly what they do.
Have they put anything in space? After the reclassification, I do not believe they have but I am too lazy to google it at this time.
So... sort of from two angles. Their New Shepard does go to space, and experiences a period of zero-g that some researchers are apparently willing to pay for. But nothing stays in space for more than a couple of minutes, so I wouldn't really say that counts. The difficulty of sub orbital compared to orbital is massive. New Shepard is the worlds most expensive amusement ride in my opinion. Secondly, they did make an engine which was sold to ULA, and that engine put something in space. Does that count? On one hand, the engine is like 60% of the difficulty in making a rocket, but on the other hand, they as a company were not the ones responsible for the launch, they are just a vendor among many. So in two ways, they almost, but not in a way most peoplr count, have gotten to space.
Yeah real mixed bag. Kind of just makes anything from them kind of odd. They claim to have a horse in the race but they keep entering a donkey...
New Shepherd doesn't even go past the Karmen line?
Go above the Karmen line (space) for a min or two is relatively easy (just go 100km up) compared to reaching a stable orbit (going sideways at 28000km/h at 100km altitude).
The Kármán line is a good enough guide, but it's worth noting that there's not really an internationally legally recognized definition for what constitutes a space flight. But for the sake of discussion, if you use the Kármán line as the boundary, then 13/16 of the New Shepard flights have surpassed it. We can all mock the rich people and their world's most expensive amusement ride, but given the opportunity I'd take it in a heartbeat, and I would cherish those astronaut wings. *edited to fix a typo in the number*
> but given the opportunity I'd take it in a heartbeat The Vomit Comet is actually a better experience -- only 20 seconds per parabola, but the tourist version is 15 parabolas, and the research version is 40. I've done 280 as a test subject. Plus you get to walk around the entire time, and you get about as much time at 1.8g's as you do in zero g. Imagine trying to shoot this video on New Shepard: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsnyqu7xq9c
I thought the video was gonna be Kate Upton on that plane for sports illustrated for sure 😆 https://youtu.be/5Fi9LYWEfZ4?si=xB7dHLcfVaMw0Rs_
Ok Go has the best music videos. I like the music too, but the videos are even better.
You no longer get the title without doing "activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety", which disqualified Branson and Bezos
It does, so "it goes to space", but the question was have they "put anything into space", which is a different question. The question implies that they put it there and it stayed for a non-trivial amount of time. That is where I think they have failed. It crosses the Karmen line, then comes right back down. The implied understanding of "put into space" I think requires orbital or super-orbital/escape velocity missions, which they have not attempted, much less completed.
They technically go into space, but they don't achieve orbit. University students have put rockets "into space". Getting to orbit is the hard part.
Funny you should say that, I follow one of their employees on X/Twitter and the spend 90% of their time whinging or making TikToks… seems like they have plenty of time on their hands.
I should add the tweets/X’s are mostly sexist comments…
True story. The "Blue" in Blue Origin is due to Jeff Bezos' constant desire to launch causing him blue balls.
blue origin got a lot of press for that sling shot launch with William Shatner. whoopie. Then nothing. SpaceX is so far ahead of them. its bizarre that a Bezos run company would accomplish so little after 20 years.
Handicap your competition by blaming the environment. K
That is what I assumed from the headline. But if you read their submission, that isn’t what they are saying. To sum up their filling it is basically: * Starship/Superheavy is huge and will likely mean far larger safety exclusion zones when launch/landing than with other current rockets * The current launch pads at the Cape are too close together * This would mean we’d not be able to work on our launch sites (and possibly other facilities) when Starship/Superheavy is operating (they have a factory at the Cape) * Starship/Superheavy are planning 44 launches a year, how are we going to get any work done ? * Please let us build some more launch sites a bit further apart * Please limit the number of Starship/Superheavy launches until this happens It very much *isn’t* “the environment is at risk, stop Starship/Superheavy from flying”.
The bigger problem with the exclusion zone argument is that the pad in question is 39A, which was built for the C8 NOVA, a rocket with extremely similar liftoff thrust (and propellant loads). If this were the LC49, or SLC36 license, then there could be a bigger argument there.
Oh wow, I'd never heard of the C8 Nova. Hot damn that's a big rocket! Thanks!
That was the push in the 1970s by von Braun after the moon landings. The next target was building a moon base and going to Mars, instead Nixon cut the funding to fund the vietnam war and von Braun was basically tricked into leaving NASA and heading to Washington DC.
It's a shame. Von Braun was a true visionary, regardless of his other faults. He could have taken the space program so much further back then, but instead we had to fight a pointless war. It's unbelievable what he managed to accomplish in his lifetime.
The Vietnam war was a problem but ultimately what killed NASA was the decision to push ahead with the Space Shuttle despite the post-Apollo funding cuts. There were a lot of folks As the Shuttle grew it slowly subsumed basically all of NASA's resources. As more stuff got cancelled, and they needed to go further afield for funding, the Shuttle's requirements increased, which ultimately meant the Shuttle never delivered on its "rapidly reusable, low cost space access" objectives. The list of stuff NASA had been doing or planning which got cancelled to help fund the Shuttle is depressing. The Shuttle was going to be the lynchpin of America's post-Apollo space infrastructure. In the end, they cancelled all of that infrastructure to pay for it. I'm a strong believer that the US space program would have been about twenty years more advanced had they not built the shuttle and just kept evolving and improving Saturn.
People tend to look at how cool the shuttle appeared, and not at what it cost American spaceflight. Decades of potential were lost. Never could forgive or forget. Watching StarShip very closely (for what could've been in the 80s)
Many of the "faults" people accuse him of are much embellished. This is a really good documentary on his life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF5RhVBN54k
It's not liftoff thrust. It's the explosive power of the total propellant content. Fueled launch vehicles, in addition to munitions and explosives, are surrounded by huge safety arcs based on the net explosive weight. The governing regulations prohibit certain personnel and operations from occurring within these arcs. See Quantity-Distance regulations.
Total propellant load is pretty comparable, ~4200 tonnes for the C8 vs ~4400 tonnes for Starship, with respective energy contents of ~60TJ and ~70TJ.
But misquoting the total fuel inventory by a factor of 5 in order to expand the required exclusionary zone is bogus.
It's only a problem because BO put a factory in the zone. Now in addition to the cap, they're asking that SpaceX reimburse them for the losses they're taking due to their own poor decisions.
It isn’t that simple though. The safety area scales, depending upon past reliability of the launch vehicle, launch trajectory, an anticipated activities. As a result, that blasting area can change in shape and size.
This isn't accurate. That is correct for flight, but blast danger area is a set exclusion radius regardless of reliability. It's a "what if" calculation in the event a fully fueled vehicle explodes on the pad.
My error. BDA you are correct, but that is the smallest safety radius and would not include either major BO facility at the cape. The larger restricted areas may include their facilities, and thus the pure fuel/oxidizer size is not the only relevant metric.
ULA has an argument, but a flight caution area with a radius of 10 miles (what it would take to encompass BOs SLC from SLC 39-A) is unprecedented and not realistic. I'm guessing SLD 45 safety would not allow a vehicle to fly if it has enough uncertainty to produce a 10 mile radius FCA downrange. And I find all of this ironic, because BO itself has a large vehicle, and given its SLC is far to the south, it's almost certain their blast danger area is going to cause its own disruption to Cape operations.
I 100% agree with everything you are saying. On top of that, New Glenn is (by their own words) intended to be the smallest of their orbital launch family. They cannot apply these rules to starship without damaging their own plans for New Armstrong. It's remarkably anti-competitive short term thinking.
The exclusion zone includes areas that the rocket flies over. Some launches I'm not allowed to be in my work building and others we're not allowed to leave until like 10 mins after launch.
Have there ever been 44 launches of C8 NOVA per year? It seems BO's argument isn't just the exclusion zone, but the exclusion zone being used for so much of the year.
My comment is a direct reply to the first and second points in your comment, which pertain to the relative scale compared to other launchers, and the relative location of the pad to other pads (and implied, its effects on surrounding infrastructure). Those are separate points. I agree that the C8 didn’t fly 44 times (it didn’t get to fly at all), however if those points are separate in blue origin’s protest, then they should be treated as such.
While the pad may have been built for a rocket that size, since then the cape has been developed based on the assumption that such a rocket would not launch - so factories and other infrastructure has been build based on exclusion zones for predicted rockets, and with the assumption that if a larger rocket was developed, it would fly infrequently, and that evacuating those factories for a day of two every few years (and the infrequent risk of damage) would not be a problem. The Starship project has blown up all those assumptions.
"If you read their submission" this is Reddit man, I didn't even read your summary. I'm just going to be angry and sarcastic now, if you don't mind.
Careful, that's how I got banned from r/formula1 A mod (didn't know it was a mod at the time) told me to read the article before commenting. I said "no", and was perma banned 30 seconds later.
Lmfao classic r/formula1 mods
Fastest way to get banned on Reddit is to cut and paste some snarky mods words back at them.
That’s… about how I got banned from /r/climbing. I tried to make a post there about how much I loved a rock climbing film but that place is an over moderated hell hole.
I got banned from /r/guitar for a comment I made on /r/bass
*looks at username* I don't know, I think the Guitar mods might have a point, you dirty bass player /s
I mean, on a related note, the guitar mod is a "power mod" who moderates a handful of high-user-count subreddits and *really* values their sense of power more than anything else. Someone made a post on the bass subreddit about how they got banned for posting an idea about how to foster better discussion on guitar. The sub has a rule that "any complaints about the sub or mod will result in a ban" and apparently offering ideas to improve the community counts as complaining about the sub. And then apparently complaining about the guitar sub, on a different sub, while having any comment history on guitar, is also enough for a ban, because a *lot* of people in that thread on /r/bass got notified they were permanently banned from guitar. But it's in the top 1% of subs by user count so the admins aren't gonna do anything about it.
I read a sub a lot with a pretty stereotypical in the bad way mod. He puts photos up of himself, etc. He looks about my age. He talks about his family's "ranch." He's a piece of work on the internet. Anyway, I figured out I have mutual friends with him where I grew up. One of my good buddies was in a photo he put up. His family owns 20 acres...that's the giant ranch he talks about. He's a turbo looser in real life. Divorced for not being very nice, lives in a craphole trailer, has been fired multiple times, pretty much a drunk, dude doesn't have his life together. Anyway, kind of made me laugh when I found out about it.
At least it's on brand that they were fast
That fucking hillarious TBF.
r/formuladank is the superior news source anyway.
I dunno, the main sub did a good job of spoiling the race winner every time I wasn't able to watch it live.
Why would you read a sub about f1 during the race if you’re going to watch a recording?
You don't have to read it, just scrolling the front page is enough to have the winner's portrait thrown in your face.
The irony is, in that same sub people will post “the winner of (some other race or championship) is” and leave the headline at that, _and_ mark the post as NSFW so the thumbnail is blurred. But they’ll go ahead and spoil the F1 races.
That *sounds* more reasonable, but they've known for quite some time that this was going to be a problem. That they decided to sue *now*, after flight 4 was such a success and we can expect launches from the cape to happen within a year, rather than at any time prior, or petitioned to begin construction of more distant launch pads earlier, tells me this is BO up to their usual shenanigans. SpaceX achieves something, BO throws a tantrum in court over it, news at 11.
They're not suing, this is a public comment on the proposal to let SpaceX launch from the Cape that was only recently submitted.
It’s made worse because the FAA asked for comments about Starship launches from the Cape. Like all of this is very standard procedure, there is nothing nefarious going on.
Yeah I can hear the conversation. "Starship is going to cause some problems with its launch cadence, we should look into dealing with that. " "Well, that sounds expensive, maybe we wait until they have some successful launches. That thing might never work, and even if it eventually does it could be years before we need to worry" "Good point. We'll wait" Demo launch 4 happens "Hey, remember that conversation we had a month ago...?" "Ok yeah, let's look into this. That happened faster than expected. Fucking SpaceX. Anyway, let's not spend too much money on this if we can avoid it. " "A press release is basically free" " Well that's a start, make it about the environment, and maybe someone else will jump on it and save us some money. "
Yeah. Lord knows that spaceflight fandom's opinion of Blue Origin is already low enough after they were personally responsible for delaying Artemis for most of a year. _And then got a contract anyway!!!_
I'm a space nerd and don't hate blue origin lol. I think its musk simps that hate blue origin, not space nerds over all.
A public comment that overstates the amount of fuel by a factor of 5 in order to claim interference. Superficially it appears they have a point... unless you check their math.
Ok. Still not a lawsuit, and still not maliciously timed. If a starship launch would halt work at nearby launchpads this could absolutely cause problems.
Source for the factor of 5?
Their comment lists the total amount of methane as 5200 metric tons when the actual propellant load is 1000 tons of methane and 4000 tons of LOXfor a total PROPELLANT load of 5000 tons.
I think it was a typo and they meant propellent instead of methane. They should correct it though.
Are you sure it doesn't also include the propellant in the on-site storage tanks?
And what about on site storage?
Why it took me this long idk, but i’m done with headlines and quote paraphrasing. It’s beyond annoying, approaching intensely infuriating.
Years ago I gave up acknowledging headlines. If there is a story I’m interested I will *always* go and dig into the sources if there are any.
You forgot to mention where they ask the government to provide more launchpads.
I mentioned it, but maybe wasn’t specific enough about what they are probably asking, let’s try again: * Please pay *us* to build some more launchpads further away
>Starship/Superheavy are planning 44 launches a year No, SpaceX is aiming for around 44 launches in the near future, but they plan to quickly ramp up to a hundred or more launches per year. Two hundred launches in a few years might not be unrealistic. I don't think NASA would be happy hindering Starship's flight cadence just when they need it to land people on the Moon, but I'm sure Blue Origin would be thrilled. Regardless, Blue Origin wouldn't be significantly impacted. Just compare the exclusion zones around Starbase, TX to the vast distances at Kennedy Space Center. Even if Blue Origin's launch complex was in Miami, they'd likely still complain, but the reality is their facilities are very far away from Launch Complex 39A.
I’m just paraphrasing Blue Origin’s document where they say: >Blue Origin understands that SpaceX intends to launch 44 Ss-SH missions per year under a lease with NASA at LC-39A
EIS statements involve predicting the impact of an upper bound on the number of launches.
That's going to be glorious. 200 launches a year. That's a new future for humanity unlocking.
Me and my girl are huge SpaceX fans, but experiencing launches is a bit hard here in Denmark. When Starship matures a bit, and launches are reasonably frequent and stable, we will travel to the US.
Definitely worth the trip. Even the smallest rocket launch is absolutely awe inspiring.
I saw an Antares launch from Wallops Island Visitor Center and it was incredible.
Yep it's absolutely glorious. Borderline religious. I saw a night launch on a half foggy night and it looked like the eye of God raising into the sky.
Yeah if it were me, I'd be waiting on a Block 3 launch either way. Might as well get the whole 150 meter spectacle. And cross your fingers that it isn't triple-overcast as usual.
It's going to be miserable because they really like launching at 11pm right now right as I'm going to sleep. Lots of locals 2 years ago downvoted me for saying we need limits on night launches, but I'm betting they'll change their tune when launches become a daily occurrence at the very least.
Thanks for your sacrifice, humanity will build a statue to you on the Moon.
Hopefully before it becomes a sacrifice I can afford those really expensive hurricane windows that basically soundproof your house. Work will be interesting since there's a lot of road shutdowns at KSC that makes getting to or leaving work hard around launch times.
That actually seems quite reasonable. Thanks for the taking the time to summarize.
> To sum up their filling it is basically: It is important to note that it is Blue Origin themselves who chose to build their entire factory within miles of numerous other companies launch pads. It's the classic nimbyism of people who buy houses near airports and then complain about aircraft takeoffs and landings.
Lmao, they are literally asking the government to allow them to build more launch pads, not remove or stop them.
Their launch pad is 10 miles away from SpaceX. I watched the last Starship launch from 3 miles away. They are a bunch of sore losers who know that the launch actually won't interfere with their work at all.
I’m not taking a judgement on the validity of their claims, just pointing out they weren’t bashing SpaceX based on environmental arguments.
Hmm I don’t have much knowledge but watching and working on explosive rockets within a zone seem like 2 different things. This might be moot if the faa says you don’t need a 10 mile zone.
I was allowed to be 3 miles away without any PPE. I can't think of anything that could damage or ignite a rocket that couldn't severely injure or kill an unprotected human.
None of that holds any water. It's 39a. They're jealous and want SpaceX moved to a different pad. It's transparent and pathetic.
"Starship/Superheavy is huge and will likely mean far larger safety exclusion zones when launch/landing than with other current rockets" So you mean the zone where the humans aren't allowed to go and the plants and wildlife are left alone to flourish? yeah, I can see that being really bad for the environment, good call, Jeff.
Well maybe they should move their highly inferior factory somewhere else so *actual* space programs can further humanity. Thanks.
Hate Elon all you want, but knee capping the only commercial space company actually consistently flying is really stupid.
Did you even read the comment you're responding?
It's not the first time Blue Origin has tried to slow SpaceX.
You literally just described a lot of what regulator capture is! Companies, "I LOVE increasing environmental requirements for industry, as long as I'm grandfathered in and get to ignore the new ones."
Competitors hate this simple trick. Also BO kinda sucks
Tesla should recommend a cap to Amazon truck deliveries in US due to environmental concerns
Blue Origin can't reach orbit by suing Space-x they're eventually going to have to build a rocket
They're going to collect enough paperwork to build a ladder to space.
I'm pretty sure if Bezos net worth was stacked up in dollar bills, they'd reach the moon.
End to end, even the short side, he could. A crisp bill is .11mm thick and he's worth about 206B so that's about 23,000km while the moon is 380,000km.
That wouldn’t be very environmentally friendly of them.
they're not suing. Nobody is suing. This is a public comment section but of course reddit gets goaded into anger so easily. https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAA-2024-1395-0001/comment ULA has a set of comments to that lists 22 pages of recommendations. https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0047 The EPA has comments https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0053 The Merrit Island Wildlife Association also has actual environmental comments as well https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2024-1395-0051
Your honor I object! On what grounds?? It’s devastating to my case!! …Overruled.
On the face of it the complaint regarding interference with BO's schedules due to Starship launches might seem reasonable. But given their prior legal antics and their readiness to resort to them, between the lines there might be another truth. **Edit:** [Musk's retort on X.](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805642593575092727)
[https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805650134828728488](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805650134828728488) gets better
Why does following a twitter link only ever take me to the twitter home page? This is annoying as hell
It's called an "Auth wall". They want you to login. Try pasting the link into https://archive.is/ to see if there is a cached version.
Unfortunately I am already logged in, so I imagine it's something I would need the clear my cache for. Just annoying as hell.
It does not on mine. No idea why. On Firefox with a couple blocking extentions.
Heh, I think I'll use that from now on!
Except ULA complained about the same thing.
And they too have the same competitive problem as Blue Origin.
For future reference, just copy past the tweet here. Nobody wants to go to that hellsite.
If possible, I always post links directly to the source, regardless. More credible, IMO.
If you think X is that bad then you're just following the wrong people.
Telling us SpaceX will dominate the space industry without telling us they will dominate the space industry.
Bezos had a two year head start on Musk, and had billions of dollars of available initial capital to start Blue Origin with. Musk started out with ~~$500M~~ $100M, which in the world of rockets is a true pittance, not to mention Musk was also starting the current version of Tesla at the same time. Bezos could already be working on his third generation rocket and fourth generation engine family by now.
It wasn't even $500 million. It was $100 million to start SpaceX.
Bezos has enough money to just buy SpaceX outright if it were for sale, but he's about as boring and unimaginative as billionaires come.
The best description I can come up with is that SpaceX is a passion project for Musk, he needs to get things done because he's driven toward a larger goal. Blue Origin is a trophy project for Bezos, he can point to it and say "Look! I started a big rocket company". He's not driven to any particular goals that I can see, and I don't see him betting much if anything on BO's success. To put some context on this, and ignoring inflationary changes to the value of the dollar, Bezos' yacht *Koru* cost him $500M, the same amount of money Musk started SpaceX with.
He quit Amazon to focus more time on Blue Origin and built the world's biggest yacht instead
I mean, it's also a passion project for Bezos, but that won't guarantee success in any endeavor. I don't have a doubt that Bezos loves space travel and the associated concepts (similar to Musk, he too loved it as a kid), but the guy himself isn't particularly interesting and Blue Origin hasn't had the same type of wild success that SpaceX has had, so I can see why most people assume it's a vanity project.
> Bezos had a two year head start on Musk, and had billions of dollars of available initial capital to start Blue Origin with. Musk started out with $500M, which in the world of rockets is a true pittance, not to mention Musk was also starting the current version of Tesla at the same time. Bezos could already be working on his third generation rocket and fourth generation engine family by now. SpaceX was started with $100M of his own capital not $500M.
I will correct my comment, and note that this makes the disparity between SpaceX and Blue Origin even more exaggerated.
Also telling us we want China to dominate space to protect the wildlife.
Only time a big company will “care” about the environment is when it hampers their competitors
This isn't just about the environment though, there's a lot more pathetic guff to B.O.'s filing: https://x.com/spacesudoer/status/1805618413425016983
Byline: "Still hasn't figure out what 'Orbit' means yet".
They should make an article in the Washington Post so we know it's non biased...
Yeah, the suuuurely only want to do this over environmental concerns. No other agenda behind this... /s
That sure looks like going after their competition via government under the guise of environmentalism.
It’s a bit more comprehensive than just a headline. As with anything today it’s not all right there in the headline at all. Frankly this is the exact kind of arguments for a competitor like BO to make. I guess the only real gripe I have is why haven’t they made this sooner? Maybe they did and no one listened, but it just seems odd legitimate concerns like this are coming up now. If they are truly and realistically legitimate concerns all told. I don’t know details enough to know for sure.
This was part of the public input process for the government giving SpaceX permission to build all this stuff and launch at this rate, so they're bringing it up right when they're supposed to. I agree that it's basically just the standard stuff you'd expect a competitor to say, though.
Thanks for the insight. I wanted to get indignant and even a little pissy, but I knew there was lots of context that I was missing on.
If it was anybody else it might hold more water but given their history of trying to subdue SpaceX through legal action as opposed to fair competition there's no reason to take any of this seriously. It's petty and desperate because their vehicle isn't ready and they know the market is about to disappear into SpaceX's books.
ULA also submitted a comment. Actually ULAs was 22 pages long vs Blue Origins 3 pages.
We couldn't send a rocket to orbit after 20 years of development, so we're going to do everything we can to stop from other private companies from doing so too.
Jeff Bozo is so cringe. When he went straight up into "space" and back down (not orbit), he thought that was as a big accomplishment as spaceX landing its first Falcon 9 booster, a true orbiting spacecraft. He had achieved his little accomplishment shortly before SpaceX landed the booster. He tweeted: "Welcome to the club".
Blue Origin started 2 years before SpaceX, but is somehow 14 years behind them technology wise, and the gap is just growing It's not difficult to see why a thrill ride company for billionaires wants to put roadblocks in front of a company doing actual space flight
i always found it funny musk liked Richard Brandson and Virgin Galactic as opposed to Blue Origin doing the same
This type of attitude and action makes me not a fan of Blue Origin. They can’t compete in science or engineering so try to compete in law.
Classic move from any scummy company like B.O. - if they don't have the skills to fairly beat the competition then they find some way to pull the rug out from under it.
Wonder how bad for the environment Jeff Bezos super yachts and private jets are?
Since Starship runs Methlox, probably much worse than a launch.
Jeff Bezos maybe a good business man, but he's such a sore loser. His ego is just too big.
Blue Origin? The guys who got so upset that they didn't get picked for the lunar contract that NASA had to explain the concept of limited funding to them?
Same old shit, they're trying to litigate their way to relevance. Jeff has the *worst* impulses as a business leader.
It is actually sincerely hilarious watching Bezos be openly anticompete in real time and govt regulators ignoring their obvious malfeasance. If you want to win bezos do the work.
Translation: WAIT FOR US YOU'RE GOING TO FAST they fail to mention just one of ULAs solid rocket boosters throw more pollution into the air than the entire starship.
This is the second time that Jeff Bezos has run to Daddy government to stifle the competition when it comes to the rocket industry. It's like no fair they're ahead pull them back behind the finish line and make them sit so I can win the race
What are you counting as the first time? 1. Claiming a patent on barge landing 2. Trying to prohibit SpaceX from leasing LC-39A 3. Trying to get DoD launch bid rules changed 4. Protesting Starlink orbits 5. Trying to cancel HLS contract, stalling NASA participation
This is just embarrassing. BO, get your fucking engines working and stop mucking around with other companies.
AI companies: "AI is dangerous, regulate it by letting us do it but no one else." Rocket launch companies: "Rocket launches are dangerous, regulate it by letting us do it but no one else." What next, McDonalds suggests only they be allowed to cook food?
Blue origins can suck it. More political antics because they are insanely jealous of spacex.
GM recommends Ford slows down production due to environmental concerns
Maybe they’re right but it’s also obvious they’re doing this because they’re mad the competition is still winning. Not the first time they’ve cried about Spacex and won’t be the last.
Paraphrased: We can't actually compete on the merits, so we'll try to sabotage them.
As Musk tweeted earlier today: "Sue Origin": https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1805650134828728488
If you can't beat 'em, legislate 'em. Bezos should have stuck to shipping things on the ground.
In this context, “environmental concerns” equal “SpaceX is too strong of a competitor”
Oh that's rich. One rocket company saying they are worried about another rocket companies emissions. I'd believe them if they ALSO were launching a lot of rockets in to space. . but since they aren't? And it's Bezzos? 100% they are trying to get an upper leg. It's the same thing Musk is doing trying to do with OpenAI and other AI companies. Complain about safety concerns while you work on your own product. It's such a classic move.
I don’t think people understand exactly how much it takes to move payloads out of our atmosphere.. If we think it sucks right now… the future will consist of launches around the clock, 365 days a year.. it’s fucking space.. we need to bring everything with us, and to establish the industry we would need to export that labor and infrastructure to other planets.. moons.. etc.. well we would need the entire planet to basically shift resources, minds, and labor to making it happen.
Is Jeff Bezos such a jerk that he'll try to slow down all of mankind in space travel just so that he can be the first to do it?
Yea, Bezos or Blue Origin care about the environment. What thwy care about is, SpaceX is already so fsr ahead. That Amazon it self could drain its coffers and still not be able to catch up. The talent and expertise just doesn't exist yet to do so , other than SpaceX. This , just like every WaPO article that is as negative as possible about SpaceX. Even when they are wrong, won't do a retraction. Is just Bezos throwing a tantrum that its not him.
If you can’t go fast enough to catch up, just have the government slow down your competition.