Is Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin about to pull ahead in the space race? Some think its long-term plans are more commercially feasible than those of its rivals.
Is Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin about to pull ahead in the space race? Some think its long-term plans are more commercially feasible than those of its rivals.
Blue Origin is just about to launch its reusable heavy-lift 'New Glenn' rocket in a few days. Are we about to see a version of Aesop's tale of 'The Hare & the Tortoise' play out, with SpaceX playing the role of the hare?
This Sabine Hossenfelder video does a good job of laying out the argument - Jeff Bezos’ Space Plans Make More Sense Than Elon Musk's.
In summary, Blue Origin's plans are built around space stations in near earth orbit, while SpaceX's plans are for Mars colonization. It's far more likely Blue Origin's plans can be realized in the 2030s and 2040s. Apart from China, no one else will have a space station by around 2030 when the ISS goes - there will be no other choice but to look to commercial providers.
Blue Origin's plans for space stations designed as O'Neill cylinders with artificial gravity are the obvious next step on from ISS-type space stations.
Sorry, a prototype isn't even close to pulling ahead of in a race where there's an entity that has routinely been breaking records for numbers of launches each year, and has multiple available formats for doing so, including manned flights to actual space, not just up to the edge. No.
And New Glenn is more equivalent to the already tried and tested Falcon Heavy, while there's an even bigger, and already flight tested Starship prototype that's already outclasses it. New Glenn succeeding would effectively be it competing for second at best-years later.
Blue Origin is still far more likely to be successful with a space station long before a Mars colony is remotely viable. The list of challenges SpaceX hasn't even started to explore in getting a viable Mars colony going is huge.
Isn't it a bit hard to say considering the only thing blue origin has flown to date is the tourist phallus? (Not too successfully either)
The buzz is on because New Glenn just completed a hot fire test and is ostensibly very close to a maiden launch.
Also I'm no fan of baldy's but in rocket terms New Shepard has been a pretty effective and reliable launcher for what it does.