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Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

arstechnica.com

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Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#101

Post by shkkmo »

comprambler wrote: post #40
drawkbox wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos flying with his brother Mark on the first manned flight of Blue Origin is the ultimate dogfooding event. Surprised people are so against it, it is an iterative step and was massively risky but proves out the technology. Blue Origin will be a formidable competitor and working with ULA, JPL and NASA will be great for the space industry and new perspectives on sustainability on Earth. ULA will be launching Am…

ULA has contracted Blue Origin for their BE-4 engine to power their Vulcan. Future heavy lift launches will fund Blue Origin for a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4

Except the Vulcan hasn't had a single launch yet, will have half the payload capacity of the Falcon Heavy and is being built by a company with no experience in rocket landing/re-use.

I don't really see how the Vulcan will be competitive with the existing launch capabilities of SpaceX, even if it does launch successfully before Starship.

I don't see how Blue Origin producing the engines for an also ran rocket is going to fund their operations. Blue Origin will be dependent of Bezos and the USG for quite a while, atleast until the New Glen can be launched re-usable.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#102

Post by jjoonathan »

GVIrish wrote: post #55
al2o3cr wrote: post #2

(in re: "put heavy industry in space") Bezos is theoretically right about all of this. Apart from minor implementation details like the laws of thermodynamics, sure.

Yeah I just read stuff like that and tune out because it so resolutely silly. It takes a huge amount of energy to get into orbit. Other than satellites and a space station, we have nothing in space. But we're gonna move heavy industry into space on any sort of foreseeable timeline? Sure, if we figure out anti-gravity or cold fusion or something. Meanwhile, it is actually achievable to reduce the environmental impact…

> it so resolutely silly

All technological leaps sound silly until they happen.

> It takes a huge amount of energy to get into orbit

Sure, for the initial resources that you haul up there, but heavy industry begets heavy industry -- and light industry, and everything inbetween. Once you can build in space without hauling resources up the gravity well, costs go down, and the cost floor is a lot lower than it is on Earth, in the long run. We'll probably never see the crossover but our grandchildren might.

> Meanwhile, it is actually achievable to reduce the environmental impact of heavy industry and agriculture on Earth, reduce consumption

We should chase those paths further than we have, but in the long run it's a game of diminishing returns. You can only be so efficient before the victories become pyrrhic and even then you will still be a long ways from zero-impact.

Space scales all the way to turning Earth into a nature preserve (not that we would or should, but we could).

> It would also be a lot more impactful to invest billions into stuff like that instead of space access.

Today? Yes. A hundred years from now? Maybe. Two hundred? No way.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#103

Post by timcosta »

losvedir wrote: post #65

Something I don't understand about the criticisms of the launch is that the rocket landed back on a platform. This was something SpaceX was (entirely justifiably) lauded for. Is it just old hat now? Or is the SpaceX version of it more technically challenging in some way?

My take on this is that the BO/VG vehicles are simply dwarfed by SpaceX/F9 in terms of both physical size [1] (source [2]) and launch profile [3] (source [4]).

It's partially that it's more routine now, but it's more that the F9 is so much larger, has a far more complicated launch trajectory, and in my opinion that they are landing on barges in the middle of the ocean.

[1]: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Siz...

[2]: https://everydayastronaut.com/new-shepard-vs-spaceshiptwo/

[3]: https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/52/1600x9...*

[4]: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a18711/blue-o...

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#104

Post by shkkmo »

dundarious wrote: post #100
caymanjim wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting off by catering to a tiny, rich elite in order to drum up excitement isn't a bad idea. Look at Tesla: they started with a $100k+ sportster model to create buzz, dispel myths about electric car performance, make it look sexy instead of focusing on environment benefits and cost-per-mile efficiencies. That generated revenue--and, more importantly--free advertising and buzz. Then they started making more afforda…

Musk was not the founder of Tesla nor the originator of the Roadster-buzz business model, but point taken.

Musk was closely involved with the design of the Roadster and is officially a co-founder of Tesla. Do you have sources regarding who did develope the Roadster-buzz business model?

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#105

Post by shkkmo »

jjoonathan wrote: post #102
GVIrish wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I just read stuff like that and tune out because it so resolutely silly. It takes a huge amount of energy to get into orbit. Other than satellites and a space station, we have nothing in space. But we're gonna move heavy industry into space on any sort of foreseeable timeline? Sure, if we figure out anti-gravity or cold fusion or something. Meanwhile, it is actually achievable to reduce the environmental impact…

> it so resolutely silly All technological leaps sound silly until they happen. > It takes a huge amount of energy to get into orbit Sure, for the initial resources that you haul up there, but heavy industry begets heavy industry -- and light industry, and everything inbetween. Once you can build in space without hauling resources up the gravity well, costs go down, and the cost floor is a lot lower than it is on Ear…

> the cost floor is a lot lower than it is on Earth.

Thia is pretty speculative. There are significant engineering overheads due to thermal and environmental design constraints that could easily place the cost floor for many industries higher in space than on earth. The truth of this assertion is wholey dependent of a bunch of speculative technologies of unknown feasibility.

The major advantage of space is the capacity to scale production and resources beyond what earth can support. Thete is good reason to think we can do this, but also good reason to be skeptical of potential wishful thinking in this area.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#106

Post by cwkoss »

mimixco wrote: post #52
kitsunesoba wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it partially depends on how you go about it. If you’re moving heavy industry to Earth orbit and supporting it entirely with material shipments from earth, yeah that seems like a no-go. On the other hand, if it’s the moon, asteroid belt, or even Mars we’re talking about, you really just need enough launches to bootstrap the operation. The bulk of other materials can procured locally, reducing the number of lau…

I'm not in either industry, but doesn't mining (like oil) depend on getting the low-hanging fruit first? In other words, how can you profit from mining if your costs are exponentially higher than folks doing the same work here on earth? Even if the entire mining operation were already setup (at a cost of thousands of dollars per kilo of weight sent up there), you would still have the costs of getting the mined materi…

1kg of a commodity in earth orbit should be worth more than 1kg of the same commodity on earth because it's stuck in earth's gravity well. The orbital commodity has significantly more potential energy.

Now, there's not yet much of a market for commodities outside of earth, but as soon as there is, producing a commodity on the moon and shipping it to earth orbit will likely be cheaper than shipping it from earth - at least once scales are large enough.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#107

Post by tolbish »

mnowicki wrote: post #64
mnowicki wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just my own speculation, equally as invalid as the authors, but at most I'd say Bezos thinks his goals are entirely genuine, but it's entirely based on narcissism and wanting to be the only one smart/powerful enough to save us. If it came to the point where he had to sacrifice things he actually cares about to help others with no benefit to himself or his ego I would bet Bezos net worth that he wouldn't lift…

maybe I'll write a short story about Bezos and Musk both wanting to become the savior of earth and competing to save humanity first/better to feed their own egos, to the point where they start sabotaging each others efforts to gain an advantage. Then neither of them are able to save us because they were more worried about being seen as the one to save the planet than actual saving the planet, and we all die

That is the plot of at least 3 Avengers movies.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#108

Post by sjg007 »

mnowicki wrote: post #64
mnowicki wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just my own speculation, equally as invalid as the authors, but at most I'd say Bezos thinks his goals are entirely genuine, but it's entirely based on narcissism and wanting to be the only one smart/powerful enough to save us. If it came to the point where he had to sacrifice things he actually cares about to help others with no benefit to himself or his ego I would bet Bezos net worth that he wouldn't lift…

maybe I'll write a short story about Bezos and Musk both wanting to become the savior of earth and competing to save humanity first/better to feed their own egos, to the point where they start sabotaging each others efforts to gain an advantage. Then neither of them are able to save us because they were more worried about being seen as the one to save the planet than actual saving the planet, and we all die

"I alone can fix it" ... who said that?

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#109

Post by dundarious »

shkkmo wrote: post #104
dundarious wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk was not the founder of Tesla nor the originator of the Roadster-buzz business model, but point taken.

Musk was closely involved with the design of the Roadster and is officially a co-founder of Tesla. Do you have sources regarding who did develope the Roadster-buzz business model?

Here the founders describe how their Roadster concept was integral to their pitch to Musk to become a Series A investor. https://youtu.be/eblPwXFb7TE

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#110

Post by sjg007 »

pyrale wrote: post #41

> What the legion critics of Bezos and Blue Origin miss is that the company legitimately has the goal of ultimately saving planet Earth. While Tuesday’s flight was clearly self-serving for Bezos, Blue Origin has follow-on projects in the works to support moving heavy industry from the surface of our planet into space. I can't wait to see the most polluting industries, like agriculture or construction moved to space.…

"I can't wait to see the most polluting industries, like agriculture or construction moved to space."

You do realize that all of the materials you need are on the ground here on Earth.. This type of thinking is not logical.

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