Blue Origin tries again to alter NASA's mind: SpaceX's HLS is high risk (space games)

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...roach.html

KEY POINTS: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin calls SpaceX's lunar Starship an 'immensely complex and high risk' approach to send the first woman and next man to the moon.

Blue Origin posted an infographic that compares its lunar lander with SpaceX's lunar Starship.

The infographic comes days after Blue Origin's protest against NASA's decision to award SpaceX a contract to build the lunar was denied.

The infographic says SpaceX will need at least 10 Starships for a lunar landing, which would also have to be refueled while in orbit.

While Blue Origin would only need three of its lunar landers that does not need to be refueled.

It also cites the massive size of the Starship, compared to the Blue Origin lander.
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EXCERPT: . . . Starship's exit is 126 feet off the ground, which would likely use elevators to ferry astronauts down to the lunar surface, while the Blue Origin lander is 32 feet off the ground and would use a simple down a long ladder.

What the image fails to include is the cost to construct the lunar lander and get it off the ground, which was a major part of NASA's final decision - SpaceX bid $2.9 billion, while Blue Origin was roughly double at $5.99 billion.

Blue Origin did have high hopes of winning its protest against NASA's decision and told DailyMail.com that 'there were fundamental issues with NASA’s decision.'

'We’ll continue to advocate for two immediate providers as we believe it is the right solution,' the Blue Origin spokesperson continued.

'The Human Landing System [HLS] program needs to have competition now instead of later – that's the best solution for NASA and the best solution for our country.'

Musk also responded to last week's decision by posting 'GAO' with the strong arm emoji on Twitter, which is the typical gesture of someone who won a fight... (MORE - details)

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...roach.html

KEY POINTS: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin calls SpaceX's lunar Starship an 'immensely complex and high risk' approach

It's true. High risk, but also high reward.

Blue Origin posted an infographic that compares its lunar lander with SpaceX's lunar Starship.

At the bottom of the page.

Blue calls their approach "proven systems". Well sure, it's basically a re-do of the 1960's Apollo landers. Same architecture, not much bigger, not a whole lot more capable. While Starship is a whole new class of space vehicle with untapped upside potential.

The infographic says SpaceX will need at least 10 Starships for a lunar landing, which would also have to be refueled while in orbit.

While Blue Origin would only need three of its lunar landers that does not need to be refueled.

That's just for one sortie. It starts to look different when we envisiage multiple trips to the Moon's surface.

Blue's lander has an Apollo descent element which would be left on the Moon's surface and appears to be expendable. Plus (again like Apollo) an ascent element to return to lunar orbit.

So each trip to the Moon's surface will need additional launches to deliver additional fueled descent elements for each trip to the Moon's surface. and either a new ascent element each time or fuel to refuel the ones that they leave in lunar orbit after each ascent.

While the Starship landers will need as many as ten tanker trips to completely fill their tanks, those are huge tanks. They would appear to me to provide enough fuel for multiple lunar landings and ascents to lunar orbit, without abandoning any part of the vehicle on the Moon's surface. All lunar landers will need periodic refueling if the plan is to reuse them, and while it will take more tanker flights to fill the Starship tanks, they won't need refilling as often.

It also cites the massive size of the Starship, compared to the Blue Origin lander.

Blue's little lander will only carry two astronauts plus the minimum amount of cargo specified in the HLS solicitation. So if there are future plans to land or extract more astronauts, or land large cargo such as habitation modules or lunar rovers, then Blue would need a totally new lander.

The Starship lander has a huge internal pressurized volume rivalling the total volume of the ISS. Multiple decks and living spaces. If you land a lunar Starship on the Moon's surface, you already have what amounts to a beginning Moon-base. Living quarters for astronauts, laboratory space, whatever they need. And it's not limited to landing just two astronauts, it could land and support dozens.

Starship's exit is 126 feet off the ground, which would likely use elevators to ferry astronauts down to the lunar surface,  while the Blue Origin lander is 32 feet off the ground and would use a simple down a long ladder.

Riding an elevator 126 feet might be a lot easier than climbing a 32 foot ladder in a bulky spacesuit.

What the image fails to include is the cost to construct the lunar lander and get it off the ground, which was a major part of NASA's final decision - SpaceX bid $2.9 billion, while Blue Origin was roughly double at $5.99 billion.

The thing is, the lunar Starship is just a variant on the basic Starship design. That design is being funded by SpaceX and will eventually generate other income streams, from the Mars exploration effort to military point-to-point applications. So the lunar Starship will just be one aspect of a much larger ecosystem that can be expected to receive continuing company support. Blue's lander is a one-application vehicle that will only have one customer to support it.

And there's the obvious benefit that by getting their foot in the Starship door, NASA is getting a stake in a system that promises to open up the entire Solar System to human exploration. The prospect of Martian exploration or sending explorers out to the moons of Jupiter has to be attractive to NASA.

And all for half the cost of Blue's lander. So even if Starship's larger dream and the sci-fi upside never happens, if Starship is never anything more than a really big lunar lander,  NASA is still getting that for half the price.

Here's the thing: Jeff Bezos has a personal net worth of something like $200 billion. He could pay the $6 billion Blue wanted from the HLS contract from pocket change. 3% of his net worth. So self-fund it Jeff! You like to think of yourself as a space-visionary, so show it! Build your Blue Origin lander and if SpaceX's lander doesn't succeed (all that risk you talk about is real) you would have a Plan-B lander to sell NASA. Provide the "dissimilar redundancy" that you talk about at your own expense, with the potential of being paid back handsomely if it becomes necessary.

You can easily afford to stay in the game if you want to be a player. Elon's doing it, you can do it too Jeff. While you are at it, speed up development of New Glenn, give it a Starship-style reusable manned upper stage. And start thinking about exciting missions you can use it for! And get off your butt and start building your Starship-class New Armstrong. Push the pace! Capture people's imaginations! You already have the means, all you lack is the will.

[Image: E783yKnWQAEofmB?format=jpg&name=large]

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Blue has another anti-Starship info-graphic.

This one says about Starbase "Launch from a spaceport that does not exist".

Everybody is having lots of fun with that one.

Just last week at The Spaceport that Doesn't Exist (watch this one with the sound on):

https://twitter.com/KSpaceAcademy/status...9668530184

And RGV's little one minute comparison video of The Spaceport that Doesn't Exist in 2018 and 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_muZwGaGU

People tuning into the livestreams are joking about how lifelike the fake CGI of the non-existent spaceport is.

People are asking for donations so they can travel to Boca Chica and see if there's anything remotely spaceflight related there.

Earth to Blue:

Yes, it's risky. So was Apollo which got humans to the Moon! You don't reap rewards without taking risks. Exploring the unknown is scary by its nature. Columbus and Magellan were scared, but they took the risk. (Magellan died doing it.)

Yes, it requires refueling flights. (You exaggerate the number.) But nasa's getting orbital refueling technology as part of the deal. That's the key to opening up the solar system.

Starship has orders of magnitude more passenger and cargo capacity than any other lander. It truly promises to open up the Moon to bases, settlements, laboratories and extensive exploration.

And nasa is getting their foot in the door of a totally reusable spacecraft, the "holy grail" of rocketry.

All for less than the price of your little Apollo lunar lander re-do!

It's a no-brainer, Jeff. Kathy Lueders made the right decision.

It was risky but if it succeeds, the payoff will be spectacular. It's the kind of audacity that nasa had in the 1960's and that some of us thought that we would never see again.

Blue's latest embarrassment

[Image: lunar-starship-complexity-infographic.jpg]

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Just think what Blue could have done with the original Apollo program. All of it untried technology. Complicated and unacceptably risky.

Parody infographic by Walker Stewart

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From Daily Hopper

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Sorry Blue, it's your fault. You brought the scorn down on yourselves.

Of course talk is that this was the work of Blue's management and PR department. It's meant to influence congress. And it was done with no thought to how the space geek public would react.

But Blue's engineers are space geeks. And word leaking out of Blue, from people who have spoken with their engineers, is that they are hugely embarassed by this and think that their own top bosses screwed up bigtime. It's not good for company morale and it's more evidence that there's something disfunctional about the top levels of Blue.

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This just in: Blue has just sued nasa!

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/16/22623...nar-lander

The complaint has been sealed, but they allege that the selection of SpaceX's proposal instead of Blue's was illegal somehow. (The GAO already found nothing wrong with the SX award, but Blue says there were issues the GAO wasn't allowed to consider.) And Blue apparently wants the HLS award to SpaceX frozen once again while this winds its way thtough the courts. (That can't be good for Artemis' already snail-like schedule.)

People are blaming Blue's CEO, but I think that it looks like pure Bezos to me. Jeff just doesn't like losing. One is reminded of how he destroyed Diapers.com.

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/ama...s-com.html

Amazon has a track record of targeting smaller competitors in small market segments, then underselling them at a loss (which was easily covered by Amazon's extreme profitability overall) and driving the smaller companies out of business. (Sounds like possible grounds for an anti-trust action there.)

But SpaceX is way stronger than Blue Origin (which as yet doesn't have a single product or any real revenues). Blue's only real sale was their contract to sell BE-4 rocket engines to ULA to power ULA's new Vulcan rocket. But those engines have been experiencing serious technical problems, are far behind schedule and haven't been delivered to ULA yet. Blue will be lucky if ULA doesn't sue them. (Tory Bruno popping up in unlikely places asking "Jeff, where are my engines?" has become a popular internet meme.)

Besides, pissing off nasa and pushing them to side even more with SpaceX doesn't really look like a winning strategy. Burning all Blue's bridges.

People are scratching their heads trying to figure out what Jeff is trying to accomplish here. The guessing is that he's expecting congress to bail him out. (He owns the Washington Post after all, which is still influential among Democrats at least.)

Whatever, the rumble of discontent from Blue's space-geek engineers is getting ever louder and there's rumors that some of them are thinking of quitting. (Lots of places for them to go, SpaceX, Rocketlab, Relativity Space, Astra, ULA, Virgin Orbit and more.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comm...like_this/

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This just in: Blue has just sued nasa!

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/16/22623...nar-lander

The complaint has been sealed, but they allege that the selection of SpaceX's proposal instead of their was illegal somehow. And they apparently want the HLS award to SpaceX frozen once again while this winds its way thtough the courts.

People are blaming Blue's CEO, but I think that it looks like pure Bezos. He doesn't like to lose. One is reminded of how he destroyed Diapers.com.

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/ama...s-com.html

Amazon has a track record of targeting smaller competitors in small market segments, then underselling them at a loss (which was easily covered by Amazon's extreme profitability overall) and driving the smaller companies out of business.

But SpaceX is way stronger than Blue Origin (which as yet doesn't have a single real product or any revenues) and Elon is a fighter.

Besides, pissing off nasa doesn't really look like a winning strategy.

People are scratching their heads trying to figure out what Jeff is trying to accomplish here.

Whatever, the rumble of discontent from Blue's space-geek engineers is getting louder and there's rumors of some thinking of quitting.

If Bezos wants Blue Origin on the Moon, then he should do it himself instead of asking for hand-outs and approval. Musk isn't going to Mars because NASA gave him a contract.

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Blue origin lawsuit could be massive setback to Starship development
https://futurism.com/the-byte/blue-origi...evelopment

INTRO: Blue Origin has won a “stay” after the Jeff Bezos-led space company sued NASA over losing the agency’s Human Landing Systems (HLS) contract to competitor SpaceX, according to recent tweets Washington Post space reporter Christian Davenport — a decision that could result in months of delays.

That means SpaceX and NASA’s work on its lunar lander Starship variant is yet again being put on hold by Blue Origin’s actions, a frustrating state of affairs that is bound to have negative repercussions on the space company’s already tarnished reputation.

If the recent departures by top Blue Origin engineers are anything to go by, the consequences are already being felt... (MORE)

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Rumors (and more than rumors) are circulating about more engineering staff leaving Blue Origin

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...8510311434

And...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/jeff-bez...fight.html

which includes this...

"According to Glassdoor, just 15% of Blue Origin employees approve of CEO Bob Smith --- versus 91% for Elon Musk at SpaceX or 77% for Tory Bruno at United Launch Alliance."

It's easy to see why. The people who go to work for SpaceX are willing to work 60-80 hour weeks and the reason is that they are space-geeks and are excited by SpaceX's crazy sci-fi vision. And that vision comes straight from the top, from Elon. SpaceX intends to colonize Mars and spread humanity throughout the Solar System and its employees want to be part of creating that future. And as SpaceX has built credibility, so do nasa and the Space Force. They can't afford to be left behind.

Blue is kind of sad... I think that Jeff Bezos really wanted it to succeed. (And still does.) He perceives Elon as a little crazy. (I think that Elon does as well.) So Bezos decided that unlike SpaceX, he was going to hire real adult management, real industry professionals. So what did he end up with? A "new space" company that seems to be trying to emulate old-space, and ended up with a clone of Boeing.

What Blue Origin seems to lack is the crazy science-fiction vision that Elon brings to everything he does, the secret ingredient that attracts the world's best engineers like flies. SpaceX has a strategy in that everything they do fits into the Mars plan somehow. (Even Starlink is planned to spin-off in an IPO to become the world's largest telecommunications company, just to fund the Mars project.)

Blue seems kind of aimless. They are building a large (and woefully behind schedule) reusable rocket but haven't announced any real plans for how they will use it. There don't seem to be any plans for a reusable Starship style upper stage.

I'm not sure that Jeff Bezos can find it in himself to provide the kind of strategic vision for Blue that Elon provides for SpaceX. For Blue's sake, I hope that he can.

But it's increasingly clear that something needs to change.

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Jeff Bezos’ NASA lawsuit is so huge it’s crashing the DOJ computer system
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-10868-...l#pid45689

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Here's a redacted copy of Jeff Bezos' lawsuit complaint

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/...5.47.0.pdf