11 thoughts on “Blue Origin”

    1. I’ve no reason to doubt they’ll be able to do so. As with SpaceX, only question is the schedule. Also, with a billion dollars a year to work with, I’d assume they’re already working on the lander in parallel.

      1. It will be interesting to see what $1B/yr can create.

        A lot of discussions lump all “Rocket Billionaires” together, without noting that Mr. Musk started his rocket business while “only” a multi-millionaire, and became a billionaire (in part) through the success of that company.

        Blue Origin may be able to position themselves as a fast follower, but SpaceX expended a lot of Falcon 9s flying profitable missions while simultaneously developing booster recovery. New Glenn is a bigger beast, and they will be under a lot of pressure to not lose too many during testing and development. (Much the same situation as with SpaceX’s BFS/BFR, I suppose.)

        Given the 2023 date, are these lunar plans based off the New Glenn, or the more aptly named New Armstrong? (And has anything been revealed about the New Armstrong other than its name?)

    2. Then do it another X times. X being the number from which you can get some idea of the reliability of the entire system. For a moon mission, which presumably would be something pretty expensive, what kind of launch reliability would be a required even if “safety is not an issue”?
      .5? .7? .9?

  1. Just don’t let NASA get involved. At the current rate, they’ll get someone there well before NASA lets Boeing or SpaceX launch anyone.

  2. “[Blue] plans to complete a lunar landing mission before 2023, which would eventually “enable human lunar return.””

    Isn’t Moon Express still planning a lunar landing mission in 2019, launched on an Electron? Blue’s mission might “eventually enable human lunar return”, but that initial mission might not be any more ambitious than Moon Express’s.

  3. well, I think a better spot to mine lunar water should be found in lunar poles.
    If can mine lunar water and make fairly cheap rocket fuel, than can have market for rocket fuel at lunar surface and perhaps low lunar orbit and/or high earth orbit.

    But if goal is colonizing moon, then perhaps might focus more on mining lunar iron- how much would cost to collect say 100 tons of iron ore in a pile on lunar surface.
    So if have piles [hundreds of tons] of sorted/refined iron ore, that might leapfrog in terms of colonizing moon.
    Or with making rocket fuel one is limited by demand of rocket fuel, but if you cheaply collect lunar iron ore, you might be more in driver seat of causing “lunar development”.

    So still mine water, but make things happen quicker by collecting iron ore.
    Or by just mining lunar water you sort the lunar regolith and get some iron ore [use magnet to remove iron ore, before you extract lunar water. So one is taking addition step of just focusing on collecting iron ore [lots of it] rather than just byproduct of lunar water mining

    1. If one regards lunar-related expressions of intent by Blue Origin as unseemly, what, then, is one to make of the Boeing CEO’s repeated declarations that the first human on Mars will get there on SLS? If the Humility and Decorum Caucus of the space enthusiast community – of which you appear to be a card-carrying member – lacks for something to do, your attentions would seem more justified if directed to Boeing HQ in Chicago, IL rather than Blue Origin HQ in Kent, WA.

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