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Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

arstechnica.com

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Re: Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

#21

Post by imtringued »

edgyquant wrote: post #15
chihuahua wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What other shape do you believe they should take? I hate this quip, it’s ignorant.

It's not the shape that is the problem, but the obsession with it's size. Most rockets don't need to be as big as possible, hence the comparison.

Re: Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

#22

Post by card_zero »

edgyquant wrote: post #15
chihuahua wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What other shape do you believe they should take? I hate this quip, it’s ignorant.

New Glenn, their new launch vehicle, doesn't look unusually much like a penis. New Shepard, the previous one, really does. It's only four times longer than it is wide and has a distinct glans on the end. This resemblance is noted on the talk page of its Wikipedia article, and I'm sure published sources could be found, but I guess it wouldn't be sufficiently encyclopedic in tone.

Re: Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

#24

Post by cubefox »

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.

Re: Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

#26

Post by cubefox »

imglorp wrote: post #11
justaguyonline wrote: post #4

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.

Re: Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

#27

Post by AnarchismIsCool »

perlgeek wrote: post #20

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.
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