Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance
arstechnica.comThis is overall a good, and needed thing. While the BE-4 engines from Blue Origin are fantastic, they need the level of system maturity that is represented by ULA. Together, I see a real chance to be competitive with SpaceX long term. Yes, they have work to go before they could do reusable launch, but the combined company probably has the best chance to do so.
The more reusable launch providers the better for the industry and for human kind.
According to some commentators Blue Origin has more than a fighting chance to compete with SpaceX
This video highlight the difference of culture between NASA and SpaceX, for better or worse. Kimbal Musk talks about it here:
Common Sense Skeptic is a ridiculous person whos literal whole identity is to trash everything related to SpaceX. When you said some commentator' I already knew who it was before I looked it up.
SpaceX could cure cancer and he would make a series of tweets about how its not an accomplishment because not every person with cancer is already cured.
For years now he has always used the worst interpretation possible and declared everything SpaceX hasn't done as impossible, and if they do it it suddendly becomes unimportant and something that others have done already done much better. And every prediction on the future is a worst case prediction.
And then he does the opposite for anything not called SpaceX.
He is also not an actual journalist with deep research or even really educated on the topic. His audiance seems to be mostly the anti-Musk people who dont usually care about space but need to say negative things.
He basically a meme, more like somebody playing character. He took the thunderfoot playbook and in order to make money on Musk hate. And yes, there are lots of only pro-Musk hype people around as well, and they are equally stupid.
I agree that they too often chose to be petty and have a strong negative bias. They also sometimes seems to believe that insults are arguments.
My personal opinion of Musk is quite different[0], but I do believe that they are not factually lying about the numbers and court documents.
[0] it is much closer to how it is described here https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk
They don’t though. They are a good fit for UAL because they are already run by accountants and ex-Boeing managers. Merging 2 failed businesses into one is not a recipe for success.
As far as I understand SpaceX plan requires dozens of launches in close succession with never-tested in orbit refill, while Blue Origin does not.
For another view of some considerations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU
I respect the link but does anyone have a TLDR, or even a 10-minute summary?
SpaceX launches keep exploding and to be compliant with Nasa requirements they need to start launching about now (they need a lot of successful launches not too close together)
They proposal also requires dozens of in orbit refils and was rashly awarded in very sketchy circumstances by a NASA executive that now works for spaceX
(NASA was supposed to award 2 contracts for X billion dollars, the new budget has only ~200 million dollars so the executive calls spacex to have them ask a lower price)
Overall my impression is that SpaceX/Musk lives on hype ("Success maybe, Excitement guaranteed" cit Musk) While Blue Origin is trying to build something solid slowly (having infinite money helps...)
I do not mean this as a criticism of Musk (the original video is quite scathing). For a good representation of my personal opinion of Musk I would point to the Slate Star Codex review of his biography https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk
> was rashly awarded in very sketchy circumstances by a NASA executive that now works for spaceX
Except that it wasn't. That's just one of the CSS things that only he actually believes.
> so the executive calls spacex to have them ask a lower price
Except that not actually true.
In fact, a NASA official just recently got fired for this. If anybody had real evidence that this happened, the person responsible for selection would have been fired.
> Overall my impression is that SpaceX/Musk lives on hype
They just launched their 300 rocket and landed over 274 of them. They have many times tested the most advanced engine in the world. They supply cargo and crew transport to ISS. The are the largest rocket and sat operator in the world. This is the literal opposite of 'just hype'. SpaceX has actual revenue, something that actually makes sustainable over time.
BlueOrigin, the company CSS loves to hype because they are not SpaceX are literally just a vanity project. They have no done much yet and the re-usability of their rocket is 'hype'.
It really takes the mastermind delusional CSS to pretend the opposite is true.
> BE-4 engines from Blue Origin are fantastic
Are they? Outside of being staged combustion they aren't that impressive. Their chamber-pressure is still really low. The TWR isn't that great. For a staged engine they are entry level.
Their re-usability is theoretical at this point. The early engines the delivered to ULA are not the reusable version that will later go on New Glenn.
> I see a real chance to be competitive with SpaceX long term.
'competitive' as in actually peer competition, not really.
But I guess they can 'compete' by 'Jeff Bezos is gone finance the company for many 100s of million of $ every month' for the next decade.
The reusability on BE-4 is not theoretical.
Yes, the ones flown on Vulcan do not do relighting. However, we do know of engines BO has test fired where they have tested restart capability.
Many engines that are not reusable can be started multiple times. Actually having the certification that you can relaunch with the engine after you have done a reentry and landing is required.
That's a pretty convenient goalpost to move to. Raptor also is only theoretically reusable by that metric.
it's not goalpost shifting at all.
BO doesn't have a reusable engine until they demonstrate that their engine is reusable.
Huh, my mental model was always that Blue Origin is a small-ish company, and ULA is a behemoth made from merging two already-behemoth launch companies. I guess I never validated these assumptions, and I didn't really count the amount of money that Bezos might put into such a deal.
They've made essentially zero dollars over two and a half decades but when your founders have infinite money, you can be as big of a fish as you want.
Because you assume outcomes are related to how many people a company have. This isn't the case. Blue Origin is basically the size of SpaceX, just without actual doing much. Bezos is literally just burning like 2 billion $ every single year on that company. And they are pretty vertically integrated.
ULA on the other hand is the opposite, they are just the launcher, they don't build their own engine and in general get most things from suppliers.
But based on revenue of course, BO is nowhere near able to buy ULA. Its literally just more billion directly out of Bezos pocket.
Note that Boeing and Lockheed own ULA jointly, they're not a part of ULA.
I don't see how this would be beneficial for Blue Origin. Their next rocket, New Glenn, is planned to be finished this year. Unlike ULA's smaller Vulcan rocket, its lower stage will be reusable. It seems likely that New Glenn will be cheaper than Vulcan once they are able reuse the stage a couple of times. Especially per ton of launch mass. Then they have no reason to keep operating Vulcan.
It will benefit Blue Origin because ULA actually has costumers (mostly the military). They also have launch facilities and people who know how to launch something.
New Glenn will take years to ramp up to any real launch rate.
Blue Origin will go from kind of a joke to being a big military contractor. Making New Glenn essentially a favorite for the next big military procurement cycle.
They are basically buying their way into being a big military contractor.
What strange logic of some company "having" customers instead of the customers choosing the best product, which includes price.
ULA was selected for large contract by the Dod. This contract amounts to 30+ launches and will take years to complete.
Rocket launches are booked years in advanced. ULA also has many launch contracts 30+ from Amazon. This will again take many years to complete.
So that's why they 'have' costumers, because the selection process has already happened. When you buy ULA you are effectively buying their years long launch backlog.
In addition its really hard to become a Airforce costumer, and once you get there, its very hard to fall out of that group. So even while the next big batch of launches has not yet been selected for by the SpaceForce, its a virtual certainty that ULA will receive a large part of that contract.
Is anyone else getting kinda unnerved that the biggest billionaires are starting to shift focus towards owning, and importantly, calling the shots at large military contractors?
Echoes of early 2000s USA Vice President Dick Cheney, and former CEO of oil company and defense contractor Halliburton, constructing a decision to invade Iraq based on false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction. Giving that same company no bid contracts on the both Iraqi oil projects and military spending.
Bezos is going to lose another billion a year at least with the combined BO + ULA and will need to manipulate geopolitics to ensure a large enough market to recoup those losses. We are not going to see competition between Blue Oula and spacex but tacit complicity.
Not news
They were always the most likely buyer if you were paying attention.
I admit to being pretty disappointed at the confirmation though. Blue Origin would of done just fine without this merger and 3+ companies competing for US space launches instead of 2 would of been healthier.
Maybe Tony Bruno will launch his own space company? I always thought Boeing and Lockheed were holding him back.
Why would BO have done fine? In 24 years, they haven’t gotten one gram to orbit. Something appears very wrong over there.
They are close to finishing New Glenn, their next rocket that is better than ULA's Vulcan in pretty much every way. They will probably launch this year. Currently they are testing the launch hardware. There is an update from today:
https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-origin-debuts-new-glenn...
Yes, ULA will have finished Vulcan about a year earlier, but otherwise Blue Origin seems way ahead of ULA in terms of technology. ULA didn't even develop the Vulcan first stage engines, the most complex part of a rocket. I really don't see what Blue Origin expects to get out of ULA. Blue Origin doesn't need Vulcan, they will soon have something that is better in every way: New Glenn will have a reusable first stage and a higher launch mass.
> In 24 years, they haven’t gotten one gram to orbit.
ULA has launched a lot, but mostly with over 20 year old rocket designs that are based on even older rockets.
>> In 24 years, they haven’t gotten one gram to orbit.
> ULA has launched a lot, but mostly with over 20 year old rocket designs that are > based on even older rockets.
by that metric the butcher around the corner here is better than ULA. He makes model rockets as a hobby and just tested one he just build and designed last year. And since it was designed last year and not a decade ago its also a newer design than New Glen. so its better?
Yes if New Glen works as designed and they can launch it it will probably better than what ULA now has. But that doesn't change the fact that BO has nothing yet.
It still seems pretty likely that New Glenn will be launching relatively soon. Within one year probably, despite them not having launched an orbital rocket ever before. That wouldn't be far behind ULA's Vulcan, which first launched in January. Though Blue Origin also has a lot more employees than ULA: 11,000 vs 2,700.
sure - probably yes. but blankly giving them the benefit of doubt and just saying that they actually are better if they haven't lauched anything to orbit when comparing them to another company that launches stuff is not wise.
Yeah happy hour stories about their very methodical, glacial pace of development + decision to make a really big engine from Day 1 abound.
BO is Old Space wrapped in New Space.
Blue isn’t doing fine on their own and part of me suspects this is Jeff’s elaborate ploy to hire Tory Bruno.
I think ULA did a good enough job of that on its own. They’re like the US Steel of space. A great combination with Blue Origin’s own massive expenditures on recapitulating aerospace sclerosis. :)
I hope Tory goes to rocketlab and works on their neutron rocket
Welcome your monopolistic, plutocratic overlords.
The irony of saying that about the space launch industry, especially about ULA, a company which was founded as a monopoly because Boeing has been going down the drain for decades.
While having two tycoons controlling the whole industry is soooo much better :D
That's why Jeff is selling his AMZN stock
Amazon only pays him $81,000 a year so he has to make ends meet somehow.
But seriously, he has sold over over $38 billion in stock [1]. The latest sale was part of a trading plan established last year.
If he wanted to buy ULA for cash he could literally go to any bank and they would give him a securities backed loan - rich people don't need to be liquid for most purchases.
Bezos needs to make ends meet is such an ironic statement.
He sells a billion a year to fund BO
So far he has sold some 4 billion worth shares in past few weeks.
Good time to buy a bunch of spaceships