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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

#31

Post by blkhawk »

cubefox wrote: post #26
imglorp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 techno…

>> 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.

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

#32

Post by panick21_ »

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.

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.

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

#33

Post by ScoobleDoodle »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #28

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.

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

#34

Post by panick21_ »

aerophilic wrote: post #5

This 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 ind…

> 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.

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

#35

Post by panick21_ »

imtringued wrote: post #21
edgyquant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bigger rockets are more efficient. That's literally just physics.

There is a reasons to build bigger rockets. There is a reason that each organization with big space ambition builds a huge rocket.

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

#36

Post by panick21_ »

cubefox wrote: post #24

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.

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

#37

Post by NoahKAndrews »

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.

Note that Boeing and Lockheed own ULA jointly, they're not a part of ULA.

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

#39

Post by cubefox »

blkhawk wrote: post #31
cubefox wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 techno…

>> 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…

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.

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

#40

Post by afiori »

aerophilic wrote: post #5

This 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 ind…

According to some commentators Blue Origin has more than a fighting chance to compete with SpaceX

https://youtu.be/1slJdJTzfzc?si=V7HNxAvBz0TQtMTW

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