Opening The Texas Kimono

There was some buzz in the space blogosphere a few days ago when there was an FAA notice issued that Blue Origin would be doing a test flight, and then we heard nothing else. Well, here’s what happened, apparently. It’s nice to see them being a little more open (actually, a lot more — this is almost Armadillo-like in their letting it hang out). Hope we’ll get more details on what went wrong.

24 thoughts on “Opening The Texas Kimono”

  1. Good on ’em, and shut the Hell UP Andy!

    Although I have to say it’s not a sexy looking as some of the other guy’s test vehicles. Kinda looks like a giant suppository or pill.

  2. The only reason I can see for Blue Origin to have put out even yesterday’s mingy statement is that the observers who keep watch on the periphery of the giant Texas “ranch” could not have failed to miss the big noise and fire of BO’s vitamin pill tail-sitter augering in. Like the Soviet space program of yore, Chief Commissar Bezos seems determined to keep as much as possible under cover. Quite a contrast with SpaceX’s let-it-all-hang-out web streaming of flights from the get-go.

    Reading the self-congratulatory copy on the BO website, and the very stiff prerequisities listed in their job postings, I infer their entire senior staff to be NASA/Old Space veterans. The crashed craft looks big and expensive; exactly what one would expect from people who’ve never known, or had to, any other way to operate.

    I contrast the recent BO failure with the very large number of small cheap tail-sitters Armadillo has managed to design, build, test and – on occasion – crash over the five years since BO last favored we hoi polloi with a status update. And the Armadillo staff are, as far as I can tell, entirely self-taught and without any of the formal academic and NASA/Old Space credentials deemed to be de rigeur by the tonier players in this sandbox.

    Somebody is going to make going to space – sub-orbitally, orbitally or both – cheap and routine. When it comes to Texas rocket companies stepping up to take a swing at this goal, I know which one my money’s on to connect.

  3. When it comes to Texas rocket companies stepping up to take a swing at this goal, I know which one my money’s on to connect.

    Well, Bezos’ money is on this one and he is ahead of the pack. We’ll see.

  4. From Pasztor piece: “[Blue Origin’s mishap highlights] the dramatic risks of private space ventures.”

    Curious. What do Challenger, Columbia, and M-12M highlight?

  5. That horse pill is an ugly looking thing, but I understand a Shepard type vehicle is supposed to be the second stage. Though not SSTO this might get the second vehicle to orbit where it would be a SSTO on lower gravity worlds.

    Both would be recoverable. It is good to be a billionaire. They don’t seem to be moving very fast. Best wishes in any case. I used to live in Kent before BO took up residence. (It’s always timing, isn’t it?)

  6. Looks to me like a zero stage for an almost SSTO. Maybe Bezos read “The Rocket Company” and took it to heart.

    I’ve thought for some time that Bezos will eventually surprise everyone with a completely reuseable orbital system. The orbital vehicle will be thoroughly tested in suborbital mode first.

    Those guys have opsec better than the Soviets ever had.

  7. To Dick Eagleton – I mostly disagree that Blue Origin’s senior staff is “NASA/Old Space veterans”. I interviewed there a couple of years ago (and decided that I prefer SoCal and airplanes to NorWest and rockets). First off, they’re a really small engineering shop, and a lot of young folks there too. The more senior people tended to have a fair amount of major aerospace experience but all had a healthy distrust of how it’s typically been done.

    My biggest concerns about what I saw were twofold: they’ve set themselves some extremely ambitious goals (can’t say more because it was covered by NDA) that will probably take longer and cost more money than they think, and they should probably be testing more often than they presumably are (as you state).

  8. cthulhu,

    Interesting. If BO can really come up with something that radically lowers the cost of space operations, I’ll personally lead the cheering section. I’m just dubious that anyone who’s spent a long career in the snails-pace cost-plus world of NASA/DOD has the mental tools to actually do so. Thinking cheap is, to say the least, not the usual mindset in the establishment space places. Little garage outfits that have had to work hungry their entire histories strike me as much likelier candidates to deliver economy of both construction and operation. Bezos’s fortune is in ten digits. Musk’s is in nine. Carmack’s is in eight. Everyone else seems to be working off bankrolls of seven figures or less – in some cases, a lot less. I suspect we won’t have more than a few additional years to wait to see how this particular issue shakes out. My money’s on the scroungers and scrapers plus Musk, who made his bones in a business with no tradition of featherbedding and gold-plating.

  9. I hadn’t heard that. It’s certainly a mark in BO’s favor if it’s true. Unlike anyone who’s joined and remained in NASA in the last 35 years, the DC-X veteranos actually designed and built something inexpensive that flew.

  10. I like hearing about what Bezos is doing, I wish he would say more, but, jeez, folks, he’s not under obligation to say anything at all. Just remember that the Wright brothers were very secretive, too, while Langley wasn’t, and look how that eventually turned out. We should show more respect for peoples’ property and proprietary rights, frankly.

    More power to them all. BO will do okay, unless BHO finishes killing the American economy and transforms us into 70’s Argentina first.

    The real space program has finally begun. My money’s on Musk, frankly, but the idea of private-sector is that we get to the point where the gubmint isn’t picking winners and losers anymore – look where that got us: a paramilitary org (NASA in to 60’s) is given one mission and near-unlimited funding; we got there, and then forgot how.

    What the real competition will be over the next couple of decades isn’t goint to be public sector versus private sector space. The real race will be to figure out how to organize a business so that it has as little socialist tendencies in its interior; this will be needed to create a company that can expand in size sufficient to reach beyond Earth’s surface.

  11. how to organize a business so that it has as little socialist tendencies in its interior

    Very well said. Exterior of the company will still have to deal with all the socialistic bureaucracy. This is the danger that Thomas always warns of, the internalization of that socialism. I don’t see that happening to Elon or many of the others. [Darth Vader voice]… the Liberty is strong in these ones.

  12. Sorry.. I can see it happening. The FAR contracting for the CCP seems to be a done deal and that will require SpaceX employees to fill out timesheets and other cost accounting practices that will completely change their corporate culture to being another NASA zombie. The only hope is that SpaceX stops taking government money. Everything I’ve heard says they will not, no matter how horrible the contracting requirements.

  13. All they have to do is compartmentalize Trent. If NASA pays well enough to keep them as a customer even with all they BS they will. When it gets to be too much and they have a choice of other customers you will see them tell NASA to wait in line or even go away. I can’t see them accepting anything that gets in the way of their vision.

    So far they haven’t had any major issues other than the range safety stuff. They need other launch locations anyway to serve their manifest.

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