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Space Businesses NASA

Jeff Bezos Shares Blue Origin Engine Test Footage (reuters.com) 43

Posted by EditorDavid from the having-a-blast dept.
Friday on Instagram Jeff Bezos shared footage from NASA's test of Blue Origin's BE-7 engine, which he described approvingly as "a high-performance, additively manufactured liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen lunar landing engine with 10,000 lbf [pound-force] of thrust — deep throttling down to 2,000 lbf for a precise landing on the Moon."

The test brings the program's cumulative test time up to 1,245 seconds, reports Reuters: Blue Origin leads a "national team" as the prime contractor that it assembled in 2019 to help build its Blue Moon lander. That team includes Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Draper. Blue Origin has vied for lucrative government contracts in recent years and is competing with rival billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and Dynetics, owned by Leidos Holdings Inc, to win a contract to build NASA's next human lunar landing system to ferry humans to the moon in the next decade.

In April, NASA awarded a lunar lander development contract to Blue Origin's team worth $579 million, as well as two other companies: SpaceX which received $135 million to help develop its Starship system and Leidos-owned Dynetics which won $253 million. NASA is poised to pick two of the three companies "in early March" 2021 to continue building their lander prototypes for crewed missions to the moon beginning in 2024, an agency spokeswoman has said.
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Jeff Bezos Shares Blue Origin Engine Test Footage More

Jeff Bezos Shares Blue Origin Engine Test Footage

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  • Blue Origin - DO SOMETHING! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Insanity Defense ( 1232008 ) on Sunday December 06, 2020 @09:55AM (#60800116)

    Blue Origin was founded before SpaceX and Bezos had far more money than Musk who was working on two startups (SpaceX and Tesla) yet Blue Origin has yet to achieve orbit.

    SpaceX not only has achieved orbit but have made a reusable 1st stage and not one but THREE reusable capsules (2 different version of the Cargo Dragon and one of the Crew Dragon) , it has also used that reusable first stage to create the Falcon Heavy with 3 reusable first stages to boost even more cargo to orbit cheaper than anyone else. Now they are working on a fully reusable ship. I think Starship is likely to achieve orbit before the first orbital launch by Blue Origin.

    So Blue Origin - DO SOMETHING! Get out of the sandbox and into space. Play with the big boys or stay home and shut up. If you can't do anything then if you Bezos really want to do something for space flight then give everything you have learned to the world to help other companies learn from your mistakes and whatever minor successes you might have. That would include full blueprints and specifications for anything that has been built or designed.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Rockoon ( 1252108 )
      You missed the part where the only reason he created Blue Origin was to get more government contract money... if you look closely you will see that Bezos has frequently gotten millions to billions in government contract money, again and again, in ALL of his businesses (ALL OF THEM.)

      EVEN HIS NEWSPAPER has gotten millions in government contracts

      He didnt expect to have to produce a GOOD spacecraft in order to get any kudos... he thought he could just do what lockhead martin/etc do which is sit back and col

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      Blue Origin comes across more like Oldspace than Newspace. Their coat of arm literally is turtles [geekwire.com].

      Advancement is about iteration. The faster you iterate, the faster you advance. Blue Origin iterates at a snail's pace.

      • Nonsense, you don't get anywhere by iterating before you've got results. Advancements come from solving your problems quicker. And that is based on smart, creative people in a healthy, open-minded environment.
        And now you know why Bezos's slaves don't get anywhere.

        • I think in one of the Angry Astronaut's rants against Blue Origins he said one of the problems that Blue Origins has is a brain drain. All the really smart and creative engineers want to work for SpaceX because they're getting things done. Again. you can't argue against success.

      • Slow (or "incremental" depending on how you look at it) progress isn't necessarily an issue, in certain fields/situations it can lead to effective advancement. The problem I see is that Blue Origins advancement isn't keeping pace with the industry leaders and they still haven't gone to orbit. They made sense decades ago when there was much less innovation/competition in the space industry. But by the time Blue Origin is launching their partly reusable rockets (which the Falcon 9 has being doing for years

    • Re:Blue Origin - DO SOMETHING! (Score:4, Informative)

      by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Sunday December 06, 2020 @10:39AM (#60800186)
      Bezos is funding Blue Origin mostly from his profits from Amazon. He is scheduling his progress to keep costs in line with this budget. SpaceX started with an investment from Elon Musk, but is obtaining funding from outside sources. SpaceX then focused on getting income generating products in place, Falcon 9 and Starlink, to generate funds for future development. Blue Origin also has projects in those areas, but isn't dependent on them. Bezos set a conservative path that he knew he could afford, while Musk gambled on generating income before he ran out of capital. Musk could have easily failed. Bezos plan is far less risky. But, taking the right risk often leads to great rewards.

      • Musk could have easily failed

        And he almost did (well, failed as in run out of money).

        Also, Blue Origin is in the race to develop a moon lander, in this case they don't have to achieve (Earth) orbit. Their current stuff is promising for the task at hand, landing on the moon and taking off again.

        • Blue Origin is in the race to develop a moon lander, in this case they don't have to achieve (Earth) orbit. Their current stuff is promising for the task at hand, landing on the moon and taking off again.

          Prediction: SpaceX will be landing, and taking off again from Mars before Blue Origin lands and takes off from the moon.

          • Blue Origin is in the race to develop a moon lander, in this case they don't have to achieve (Earth) orbit. Their current stuff is promising for the task at hand, landing on the moon and taking off again.

            Prediction: SpaceX will be landing, and taking off again from Mars before Blue Origin lands and takes off from the moon.

            What Blue Origin is aiming for isn't just to land and take off, but to land, refuel from fuel manufactured on-site, and take off. Their choice of fuel (liquid hydrogen) has made their job a lot harder, and therefore development a lot slower, but could ultimately make it possible not just get to the moon, but easier to establish a permanent presence there.

            I wouldn't count Blue Origin out just yet. I also wouldn't bet a large sum on their success. It really could go either way. I do hope they succeed, thoug

            • What Blue Origin is aiming for isn't just to land and take off, but to land, refuel from fuel manufactured on-site, and take off.

              So is SpaceX [space.com]

              But on Mars.

              I wouldn't count Blue Origin out just yet.

              Well, to be honest, I've not even counted them in yet...

              I just don't see any realistic signs of progress that would get them anywhere near anything useful for a long, long time, while at the same time SpaceX is making huge progress. I mean, at some point it just makes no sense to keep funding Blue Origin when you c

              • What Blue Origin is aiming for isn't just to land and take off, but to land, refuel from fuel manufactured on-site, and take off.

                So is SpaceX [space.com]

                But on Mars.

                Eventually, yes, but SpaceX hasn't even begun developing an engine capable of running on any fuel they could synthesize on Mars.

                • Eventually, yes, but SpaceX hasn't even begun developing an engine capable of running on any fuel they could synthesize on Mars.

                  The Raptor runs on methane and LOX. The methane can be made from water (available on Mars) and CO2 which comprises most of the atmosphere of Mars. Being able to refuel on Mars is WHY the Raptor runs on methane and LOX. It powers Starship and the SN8 Starship has 3 mounted and tested to power it for the 12.5km test hop. I'd call that developed rather than not begun development. Sure they plan improvements but it is operational and has been used to make small hops on Starhopper and SN5 and SN6.

                  So how man

            • What Blue Origin is aiming for isn't just to land and take off, but to land, refuel from fuel manufactured on-site, and take off.

              The Blue Moon craft is a lunar lander and lunar orbit return vehicle that is only partially reusable. It also is developed by an Alliance of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Draper and of course Blue Origin. So at most they play a small part in the proposed Artemis project and there is a fully reusable alternative planned in addition to the Lunar Starship plan which would take way more to the surface and back (with refueling).

              So how many Blue Moon cargo landers will have to go down to build a fuel gener

            • You forget that Blue Origin is working with the "old school" space companies that aren't interested in flying reusable craft, because they want to suck at government tit for the whole price tag for each mission.

              Lockheed, Grumman, and Boeing have no interest in reusable, because they are not interested in reducing the cost of access to space. Blue Origin seems to be of the same mind - keep costs high, and soak the customers that can pay the high prices. They seem to be really good at repeating the same sub

    • Blue Origin was founded before SpaceX and Bezos had far more money than Musk who was working on two startups (SpaceX and Tesla) yet Blue Origin has yet to achieve orbit.

      Came here to see the SpaceX fanboys pitch whiny fits... Wasn't disappointed.

  • I highly doubt they didn't do heat treating afer "printing", to give it all the material properties it needs. And a sand blasting or pressing in a mold to give it the surface properties.
    The only thing done additively, will be the machining equivalent. Probably not even faster. ;)

    But hey, you gotta tell the Bezos something when invited to planet Bezos, so you don't end up in their mines on planet Amazon. ;)

  • You'd think Jeff and Elon have a garage where they are single handedly are cutting, welding and machining these rockets themselves. Yes they are the CEO's, but why do I never see credit to the actual people designing and fabricating these things? I am so tired of seeing articles that give all the credit to a couple of billionaires.
    • Getting a roomful of Engineers to agree on anything is a difficult task to begin with. But by all accounts yes, Musk does get involved directly in the Engineering to a degree not normally seen in a CEO. Bezos not so much, he's just a money-man.
      • And yet somehow rooms filled with engineers managed to get us to the moon in the 60's with barely more than calculators.

    • Musk is the one with the vision that directs the company and he is the promoter of it and the founder. He is the one who bet his fortune on making Tesla and SpaceX work. Do the actual workers deserve credit? Absolutely. But without Musk they wouldn't be there.

      Bezos gets far less credit from me because A/ no orbital success yet but he made such big promises that after 2 decades haven't gotten a craft to space let alone a person and B/ unlike Musk he didn't bet his fortune. He is still the richest man in

      • So you actually believe without musk/bezos space exploration would have stopped and all those workers would be flippin burgers. Got it.

        • So you actually believe without musk/bezos space exploration would have stopped

          Space Exploration would still be ongoing, but ADVANCEMENT in getting to space would have halted, yes.

          Do you think without SpaceX Blue Origin would be any better off today? Or NASA?

          The fact is that with SpaceX we have made real advancement in how often.and how cheaply we can get to space, which has massive side benefits for NASA.

          all those workers would be flippin burgers. Got it.

          Those workers might not have been flipping burgers

          • Ah, worship your god, worship your god, I happen to believe there would have been others, hopefully less narcissistic to carry us forward. But worship your god. Full disclose, a friend IS a rocket scientist. Orbital mechanics.

            • I worship no gods, but I do recognize reality. Try it sometime.

              I happen to believe there would have been others,

              Really? How exactly would there have been others? What possible reason would there be? Much less ones with any success. Especially with Blue Origin existing, who would be sane enough to compete against the guy who ran Amazon?

              Your problem is you have zero ability to comprehend difficulty of effort.

        • So you actually believe without musk/bezos space exploration would have stopped and all those workers would be flippin burgers. Got it.

          Not what I said. They would still be engineers. Might still be in the aerospace industry, but without someone like Musk driving the industry forward we would still have the SLS being worked on as the "best available". Guess what? The SLS might not fly till 2022 and its capsule has an error that could take a YEAR to fix by tearing the capsule apart and replacing the defective component. With SpaceX they just pull out another capsule and prep it, especially since the SLS will launch AT BEST next November

  • Blue Origin is already done (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dereck1701 ( 1922824 ) on Sunday December 06, 2020 @11:47AM (#60800360)

    Blue Origin is quickly becoming another useless government contractor, bloated and unable to provide any decent capability for a reasonable price. Sure SpaceX and other companies can have their issues and even fail from time to time, but they don't spend nearly two decades and billions of dollars without having a single orbital flight under their hats. BOs partnership with a bunch of defense contractors reeks of desperation, it sounds like they're trying to lobby their way to relevance rather than innovate. Dynetics is probably the safe choice for a moon lander short term, SpaceX might have a chance if they can get Starship up and running and basically shame NASA/US Gov into reason.

    • unable to provide any decent capability for a reasonable price.

      Blue Origin provides NO orbital ability at ANY price.

      You can use others like SpaceX, ArianeSpace, Rocket Labs, ULA, the Russians or the Chinese but not Blue Origin. I WANT them to compete. I want them to succeed. So far they disappoint and boast. Another one I'm disappointed in is Virgin. They bought the Spaceship One tech and so far they are just HOW MANY years behind on delivering people their suborbital hops? By the time they get it going (if ever) the people who bought those early reservations

  • As Blue Origin appears to place such importance on the gender of future space explorers, I hope we fem1naz1s can be assured that this engine is designed, built and fueled solely by vagina-possessing animals ?

    Vorsprung durch pussies !

  • Jeff now promises that the Blue Origin model for 2021 will be water proof.

    "Now you won't have to worry if it gets wet."
  • Good to see he's doing something interesting with the money from the unpaid taxes.

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