Blue Origin and New SHEPARD RLV

WTF is this idiot protesting? They worried we're going to carry Global Warming to the moon?
 
WTF is this idiot protesting?

Something something animal rights. Which is weird: if Bezos gets his way and mankind starts cranking out Habs and terraforming Mars and moving outwards towards the stars, we're going to bring critters with us. Whole new worlds populated by living things will spring up from dead rocks. Currently endangered species could number in their trillions.
 
Blue Origin is developing the New Shepard rocket system to send tourists past the edge of space and allow them to float in zero gravity.
The company still hopes to fly people on New Shepard before the end of this year but said on Tuesday that it expects to test fly the rocket at least two more times before that happens.
CEO Bob Smith explained to CNBC why Blue Origin has delayed the first crewed flight and continues to test.

 
I see one major inherent axis of failure against peer competitiors: you have 3 layers of operational profitability where each member of the team will have to add mandatory margin. This decrease the flexibility of their offer (3 vehicules built, each one by a different partner).
 
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I see one major inherent axis of failure against peer competitiors: you have 3 layers of operational profitability where each member of the team will have to add mandatory margin. This decrease the flexibility of their offer (3 vehicules built, each one by a different partner).

Given the time-limit and NASA requirement, ('three-stage-system) it would be somewhat faster, (but more expensive) this way which is what I think is the rationale. NASA wants a tug, descent and then ascent stage rather than a single reusable lander design and given the target date (2024) it is very likely the only option. As the article notes Artimis was the sister of Apollo so I would not at all be surprised that the whole rationale is more political than practical. I don't see the Lunar Gateway being in place in time so re-doing the Moon Apollo style again would seem to be the obvious choice given the political time table.

Randy
 
Look at this for flight 13 a bit concerning.

Blue Origin's FCC application for Flight 13 was dismissed without prejudice:

You are advised that the Commission is unable to grant your application for the facilities requested. The application is dismissed because NTIA objects to authorize the STA request on behalf of Blue Origin Texas, LLC for Van Horn, TX during the period 1 December 2019 thru 1 June 2020, for the following reason(s):

- Due to critical on-going law-enforcement operations

Blue Origin has filed a new request 2326-EX-ST-2019

EXHIBIT #1: Information about FCC license request for Flight 13

09 Dec 2019

Blue Origin Texas, LLC

Re: STA file # 2326-EX-ST-2019

This license request is a modification of the dismissed STA file # 2169-EX-ST-2019, correspondence reference number 52157. The dismissal does not specify which of the two frequencies from 2169-EX-ST2019 conflict with the on-going law-enforcement operations. Therefore, on this application 2326-EX-ST2019 Blue Origin Texas requests any two of the five frequencies listed in this application (we do not need all five). These combinations are

• 2202+/-2 and 2210+/-2.5 MHz


• 2202+/-2 and 2216+/-2.5 MHz


• 2202+/-2 and 2250+/-2.5 MHz


• 2202+/-2 and 2272+/-2.5 MHz


• 2210+/-2.5 and 2216+/-2.5 MHz


• 2210+/-2.5 and 2250+/-2.5 MHz


• 2210+/-2.5 and 2272.5+/-2.5 MHz


• 2216+/-2.5 and 2250+/-2.5 MHz


• 2216+/-2.5 and 2272.5+/-2.5 MHz


• 2250+/-2.5 and 2272.5+/-2.5 MHz

We respectfully ask that if there are any issues with the above request, can someone please contact me to discuss this application? Blue Origin Texas has flexibility beyond what is listed above, and we are more than happy to coordinate and alter this application to accommodate other spectrum users. We are resubmitting this application with guesses as to what frequencies to ask for, because we don’t have specific feedback on what was conflicting with our initial application in correspondence reference number 52157.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Bridge

New Shepard Operations
 
New Shepard launch this morning at 10:30am.

Twitter Update: delayed to 10:40am EDT for weather

Update 2: They are flying a NASA landing sensor on this mission:

 
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Couple of new articles on the Blue Moon lunar lander:


 
Well they’ve obviously done something being as Vulcan uses the BE-4 produced by Blue Origin.
 

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