Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#111

Post by usehackernews » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #68

FreakyT wrote: post #3

It's really a shame what has happened to Blue Origin. They've gone from a promising space startup to yet another purveyor of perpetual vaporware. Where is the BE-4 engine? Delayed, again and again. New Glenn, the rocket that could actually go into orbit? Same. So far their only functioning hardware (New Shephard) is, in effect, a glorified amusement park ride. Considering that SpaceX has actually made it to orbit mul…

Forget orbit, SpaceX has paid for it's ISS contract about 3x in savings over Soyuz. Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now.

BO didn’t want to replace SpaceX. That’s not what this is about.

BO said historically NASA gives contracts to multiple companies, and BO wanted funding too (in addition to SpaceX.

BO “argued that the agency was required to make multiple awards" because it had previously stated a preference for multiple awards”

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#112

Post by xoa » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #52

Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue Origin was founded in 2000, SpaceX 2002. SpaceX achieved orbit in 2008. Blue Origin is still sub orbital yet planning on a moon mission. At this point Bezos might be better off starting over with a new team.

They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. BE-4 has been delayed, true, but if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago. I think 2022 will clear up lots of things for everyone. SLS, BE-4, New Glenn, etc... Till then there is no sense of dooming anything.

>They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing.

Sorry, but the McDonnell Douglas DC-X did the rocket straight up & down vertical landing in 1993. New Shepard frankly wasn't particularly different. It went higher and longer sure, but for orbital rocketry the challenge isn't height so much as speed and everything that comes with that. The Falcon 9 flight 20 at the end of 2015 that marked its first landing was a vastly bigger achievement given that it was an orbital class rocket booster. It was going much, much faster and had to descend on a much more complicated arc through the atmosphere. And it pathfinded for actual rapid reuse, which is a whole different set of skills. That New Shepard did a suborbital jump a mere one month earlier 2015 honestly just isn't great.

Since then, F9 has done over 100 more flights, to orbit, including crewed ones, and set ever growing records on cadence, reuse of boosters and refurb speed, satellite launch records, etc. NS has done... what? 5 test flights over 6 years? Then that silly little PR stunt? It's ludicrous. And it's long since stopped serving any useful purpose in terms of learning because it avoids so many of the true challenges in going orbital which involve 9+km/s of delta-v.

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#113

Post by yissp » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

jexe wrote: post #36

pmoriarty wrote: post #7

Why can't they cooperate instead of compete? It's not like they don't already have all the money they'd ever need or could use, and wouldn't the world be better off if they worked together than against each other?

Having some competition is probably the best way to make space companies work efficiently, cheaply, and reliably, so these two egomaniacs fighting it out in a space race might be the best possible thing for progress in the industry.

At least to some extent, competition was the reason for the first moon landing, right?

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#114

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #2

The Asteroid Wars in 20 or 30 years between Musk and Bezos is going to be right out of Ben Bova.

[deleted]

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#115

Post by jhgb » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

medstrom wrote: post #57

jhgb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why? Humans got there and there's been no reason to go back" -- Europeans in 1493 about the Americas...not!

They might have said it if the Americas had even worse living conditions than Antarctica. We're not colonizing that either.

> We're not colonizing that either.

That might largely be explained by the fact that doing so would be illegal as per international law to begin with.

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#116

Post by cycrutchfield » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

jve wrote: post #89

elif wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget orbit, SpaceX has paid for it's ISS contract about 3x in savings over Soyuz. Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now.

> Congress would be dumb to pick a new horse now I don't think SpaceX would be as strong if not that early NASA funding. "SpaceX contracted with the US government for a portion of the development funding for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which uses a modified version of the Merlin rocket engine." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_SpaceX So by your thinking, they could have only invested in old-school-reliable-e…

Or maybe they (correctly) assessed that SpaceX was actually able to deliver on its promises and Blue Origin is not.

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#117

Post by Retric » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

jhgb wrote: post #110

starik36 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. BE-4 has been delayed, true, but if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago. I think 2022 will clear up lots of things for everyone. SLS, BE-4, New Glenn, etc... Till then there is no sense of dooming anything.

> New Shepard was the first to land vertically Apollo LM was the first to land vertically. > if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago That seems to be assuming that they have a choice. Given the fuel difference between AR-1 and BE-4, they've been committed to BE-4 for quite some time, no matter how much progress BO is doing (or not doing) on BE-4.

The first soft landing on the moon occurred in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9

Many rockets did soft landing on earth before that point, but none of them had been in space.

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#118

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #108

tsimionescu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collisions in LEO launch debris in all orbits, they are not limited to LEO. I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX will turn out to be the reason we won't be able to explore space at all for a few hundred years.

>Collisions in LEO launch debris in all orbits, they are not limited to LEO. How often? You'd need a pretty lucky collision to knock something into a higher stable circular orbit.

Any collision has a chance to knock things at orbital speeds in any direction. Anything launched away from the earth will be flung towards other orbits at something close to the 28,000km/h speeds of LEO.

Here is an article in Nature [0] discussing other risks, and mentioning that LEO is already in the early stages of Kessler Syndrome, while SpaceX alone is seeking to launch as many extra satellites as there are tracked pieces of debris already in orbit, with several other companies having similar plans. They also mention that debris in one orbit can cross to other orbits.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89909-7

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#119

Post by avereveard » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #22

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space is expensive. Bezos is pumping 1 billion per year into the company and the blue origin proposal was for 13 billion. Even for Bezos that's not chump change.

All the more reason to cooperate and pool resources instead of duplicating effort.

"Let's pool 9 woman and birth a 14 foot tall baby"

Re: Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

#120

Post by namelessoracle » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

mattr47 wrote: post #104

paxys wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything SpaceX is successfully launching today was similarly delayed during development. It's too early to write off Blue Origin, especially since Bezos just got involved in it full time.

Bezos was never a scientist, engineer or dreamer. He is an entrepreneur, business savvy guy. Its about the dollar for him (which I'm not saying is a bad thing), versus for Elon it is a dream/passion to get to Mars.

The kind of guy who saves The Expanse on a whim probably does have at least a hobbyist interest in space.

Elon was probably more invested earlier and was paying more attention to what was going on is for sure though. Im not convinced Bezos personal attention is going to do much to help his space company though. Nothing about him seems like it would help other than his wealth. And he hasnt shown a willingness to throw a significant part of his fortune into his space venture. Nothing about this strikes me as anything more than what is a hobby that one of the richest persons in the world is passionate about