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

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

#161

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.

> 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. You seem to be referring to the Kessler syndrom. If that happened, it would not mean that we could not send probes to space anymore. It only becomes unviable to have satellites at the altitude of the debris field. We could still launch through it into higher orbits or onto interplanetar…

That's true for Kessler Syndrom in LEO, but Kessler Syndrome at higher elevations could prevent orbital space flight entirely, as far as I understand.

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

#162
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue Origin arguably did the first verticals landing from “space” as defined by 100km of altitude in 2015. Though the lunar lander is perhaps the more famous vertical landing from space in 1969, following earlier soft landings like Luna 9 1966, and a lot of earlier VTVL rocket research at the time. SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015. I don…

> SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015 I'm not sure how important/big the difference is, but IIRC spaceX only lands boosters that never actually reach orbital velocity. They help boost things into orbital velocity, sure, but the things that land under powered flight never actually reach orbital velocity, right? I'm aware that the crew dragon…

It's still a dramatically different and faster trajectory than straight up-and-down. There's a reason SpaceX has drone ships out in the middle of the ocean -- they travel laterally hundreds of miles.

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

#163
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just keep in mind that there are regular engineers like any of us working at Blue Origin and giving their best to achieve something, make a living and tackle really hard problems. Some viewpoints expressed on HN feel like social media fed hatred, people often forget that there is a massive army of brilliant people doing stuff that most engineers would dream of. There are Facebook/Google engineers working on advertise…

I agree that the current fanboi bucketing on Blue Origin is dumb, herd-mentality, kicking-the-weakest, bs. People need to grow up. I think it's genuinely interesting to compare two well-funded, privately-led space companies and their results. What is it that has allowed one to make such substantially better progress than the other? It's clear that SpaceX is a tough place to work, and Musk has very high expectations t…

I could be wrong, but I suspect that a culture of eccentricity is a hard-to-quantify edge for any company in the space industry. Amazon certainly seems like a demanding place to work, but (and this could be an outsider's misperception but even that matters) I associate it more with consistency than celebrating outliers.

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

#164
Anyone has insight into what BO's problems are? I heard that they had leadership problems but otherwise a top notch staff. People love to flame Jeff Bezos but if you look at his management of Amazon, I wouldn't dismiss him casually with regard to BO. He might not have the engineering chops of Musk but I'm sure he can put the right leadership in place to turn this ship around, now that he'll be focusing on this full time.

The industry needs a 2nd new generation provider. I don't harbour any fuzzy feelings for Bezos but I do hope BO will get somewhere, or that another company will. Perhaps RocketLab or Relativity Space?

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

#165
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're no more egomaniacs than, say, whoever wins a gold medal at the Olympics. You've got to be an egomaniac to think one deserves to be the fastest runner in the world, a completely pointless honor, but we celebrate them anyway. Pointless as in I, an old man and an uncoordinated complete failure at athletics, can ride my bike faster than any of them can run.

Perhaps, but at least athletes put in the work themselves, rather than exploiting and taking the credit for the work of others.

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

#166
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…

>a glorified amusement ride.

Oh dear god that is too perfect. I had higher hopes for them as well, somehow they seem to lack direction.

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

#167
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all ways to squander the Earth's limited resources while sounding forward thinking. Colonizing Mars will likely never happen, there is simply no upside: huge challenges, with no interesting resources. The Earth has plenty of space, we're limited by resources, and there are no interesting resources on Mars. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that we'll have a colony outside the solar system before a colony…

Musk's motivation, which he has expressed repeatedly, is to make humanity resilient to an event that makes Earth uninhabitable. Whatever that event might be (asteroid impact, nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, plague, whatever), I think the idea of having a second site of human habitation is not an unreasonable goal. Which is not, as has sometimes been stated, "giving up on Earth and the rich moving to Mars" --…

Mars is already uninhabitable, so what would we gain from moving to Mars? The Earth is not going to become as bad as Mars with any possible disaster smaller than a planetary collision.

Also, a Mars colony that could survive indefinitely if the Earth is wiped out is almost certainly impossible, given the extreme conditions on Mars' surface. We don't even know if there is enough water ice on Mars today to sustain a human city, nevermind the huge network of cities that would be required to produce all high tech products on Mars. Also, with no fossil fuels, it's very unlikely that you could launch rockets from a Mars colony entirely cut off from the Earth.

Then, you'll also be missing nitrogen, and probably a lot of other nutrients. Oxygen will be in short supply, as will Helium. And remember, every time you leak water or other gases into the atmosphere, you've likely lost them forever, since there is no closed cycle of water on Mars, and solar winds are constantly stripping away Mars' atmosphere.

Also, the cost of building a self sustaining colony on Mars is well above the GDP of the world many times over. It would be many times easier to establish a second global trade network on Earth, completely isolated from any existing trade hub. Imagine building chip fabs and growing enough crops for food and bioplastics in Antarctica, and now remeber that on Mars it's much colder, there is virtually no air, and you have to dig tunnels everwhere, since any sort of prolonged exposure to the surface would irradiate you. Oh, and make sure you do this without any dependence on fossil fuels, except perhaps a few tons every few months.

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

#168
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'jobs agency' that has produced a whole lot of technical advancements, maybe.

maybe in the 60s, current NASA is living off past accomplishments

What are you talking about? NASA is the foremost explorer of Mars, no other country is even close.

NASA does plenty to keep its name in good scientific standing and accomplishment.

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

#169
post #79

Multiple providers has been the “name of the game” for a long time now, so it’s not surprising that Blue Origin or ULA got caught off guard. They had to know this Day was coming, but maybe not so quickly. This should be a wake up call to established space players: the days of cost-plus contracts, multiple bid winners, and endless cost and time overruns - are over. There’s no purpose to those anymore. For the past fif…

Mutlbile providers wasn't really a thing until Commercial Cargo and that was with fixed price.

But this wasn't always true. For Commercial Lunar resupply they went with SpaceX only as well.

The traditional was one supplier with cost plus.

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

#170

Anyone has insight into what BO's problems are? I heard that they had leadership problems but otherwise a top notch staff. People love to flame Jeff Bezos but if you look at his management of Amazon, I wouldn't dismiss him casually with regard to BO. He might not have the engineering chops of Musk but I'm sure he can put the right leadership in place to turn this ship around, now that he'll be focusing on this full t…

Talking to some friends who work at Blue Origin, one of the ways they compete for talent from SpaceX is by promoting a healthier, sustainable work culture.

While this is great for individuals, it also attracts a lot of people looking to coast. And of course the highly motivated, intelligent people who are willing to put in more time to make cool shit happen aren't going to settle for a distant runner up.

I suppose the real question is, will the SpaceX hare or the Blue Origin tortoise win the race in the long run. SpaceX might make amazing strides quickly, but if they burn out their workforce and fail to keep talent long term, they might suffer in coming years and decades.

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