Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society

More On Blue Origin

20 Comments

Eric Berger has more details from Jeff Bezos on flight-test plans. If I were to do a new edition of the book, I’d replace references to Armadillo with what we now know about Blue Origin. It’s an entirely different approach from XCOR and Virgin Galactic; “Look ma, no pilot.”

[Update a while later]

“To let space travel flourish, leave it to the cranks and crackpots.”

Yes. Let’s end Apolloism and NASA worship.

[Update a few minutes later]

I think that Loren Grush has a legitimate complaint about who was, and wasn’t invited to that tour. It’s not at all clear how Blue Origin came up with the list. Alan Boyle was obvious, because he’s in Seattle and has been covering this stuff for years, as were Eric Berger and Jeff Foust, but I think that they could have accommodated more, and more women.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Blue Origin

10 Comments

Several journalists seem to have gotten a personal tour from Jeff Bezos yesterday. Here’s Jeff Foust’s story. Things seem (finally) to be ramping up. I’d say they’re now solidly in the lead in the suborbital race, but they’re also going to orbit.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And here’s Ken Chang’s story. I’m sure that Alan Boyle and Eric Berger will have their own takes. Wish I’d known about it.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Chang’s take is more detailed. I found this amusing:

Currently, most rocket companies launch, at most, about a dozen times a year. “You never get really great at something you do 10, 12 times a year,” Mr. Bezos said. With a small fleet of reusable New Shepard rockets, Blue Origin could be launching dozens of times a year.

NASA proposes to launch SLS once every couple of years. Insane.

[Update a while later]

Here’s Eric Berger’s take. He has more detail about the BE-4 and its implications for the RD-180 issue.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Space-Policy White Paper

Keith Cowing has some thoughts, with which I largely agree. This was clearly a compromise, in which the SLS/Orion supporters and Commercial Crew supporters agreed to come together to support each others’ programs, and present a united front. Unfortunately for the former, one program makes sense, and the other doesn’t. At some point, it will die, but not before billions more are wasted on it.