6 ms·

Blue Origin plans to charge at least $200K for space rides

56 points by myroon5 8y ago

lettergram 8y ago
I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. What are you going to upsell? Although I do recognize this doesn't really appear to be a purely commercial venture, yet.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Maybe it's a way to fundraise. Take rich people into space, they're wowed, impressed, etc, and then more likely to invest in them?
  - lettergram 8y ago
    True - I guess that would work from a loss leading perspective. Although it's not making money in the classic sense, that could lead to lucritive contracts.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Maybe it can lead to lucritive contracts. It could be advertising: you take clients who are wealthy enough to pay $200k for the experience, those clients might be business owners/influencial folks, who are then moved to integrate it in some what into what they do? Seems plausable at least. Then again, Bezos could float the company for quite a long time if he personally invests, so maybe it's just a way to build credit and then do other things (e.g. gov. contracts). Amazon was unprofitable for quite a long time before it took over the world, afterall..
      - mkempe 8y ago
        It's spelled lucrative. From Latin http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/25941/lucrativus-lucrativa-lucrativum http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/25941/lucrativus-lucr...
- gwern 8y ago
  Sending your own employees up first will work out even worse financially. I assume it's a combination of safety testing, eating-your-own-dogfood (in a potentially fatal sense), working out minor kinks for an overall positive experience, and maybe that cost includes a lot of the startup/fixed costs and the final amortized cost will be closer to under $200k. Sort of like Tesla cars.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. Does the article say it will be a loss leader? If so, then I missed that. I've seen $200,000 quoted for the fuel of an orbital rocket.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  Costs per passenger for a reusable vehicle like this are largely a function of launch rate. Launch a few per year, it'll lose millions. Launch a hundred, and they'll make plenty of money. Additionally, you should highly doubt this kind of outside estimate of cost per New Shepard launch. It sounds like they used the same costs as you would expect for a fully expendable rocket like Falcon 1e class (same first stage thrust, for instance), even though New Shepard is fully reusable. And lastly, these suborbital New Shepard launches are also a big advertisement for orbital New Glenn launches which are orders of magnitude longer in duration. New Glenn could also take people around the Moon or, with the (eventually) reusable "Blue Moon" lander that Blue Origin is also developing, to the Moon's surface and back. So there's actually a lot of upsell, and I believe they've been explicit about using New Shepard to upsell for eventual orbital flights.
  - rory096 8y ago
    >Additionally, you should highly doubt this kind of outside estimate of cost per New Shepard launch. It sounds like they used the same costs as you would expect for a fully expendable rocket like Falcon 1e class (same first stage thrust, for instance), even though New Shepard is fully reusable. The article discusses intended price, not cost. And $1.2 million/flight is significantly less than Falcon 1. >So there's actually a lot of upsell, and I believe they've been explicit about using New Shepard to upsell for eventual orbital flights. Definitely. It's also important to note that New Shepard and New Glenn have significant technology overlap - NS development costs won't have to be amortized by passenger flights alone.
    - Cogito 8y ago
      From the article: > While Blue Origin has not disclosed its per-flight operating costs, Teal Group aerospace analyst Marco Caceres estimated each flight could cost the firm about $10 million. With six passengers per trip, that would mean losing millions of dollars per launch, at least initially.
- adventured 8y ago
  > I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. What are you going to upsell? I see a lot of the same mistake being made in this thread. Confusing short-term vs long-term. The tourist business is a meaningless part of the long-term strategy that Bezos is pursuing. Short-term it might bring in some revenue as they pursue building ever more powerful rockets. You're better off entirely disregarding anything Blue Origin does as it relates to tourism, it's a momentary toy for stage one; it's not where they're going. As a side, it also has the simultaneous benefit of enabling Blue Origin to get paid to work on dealing with civilians in space, as they seek to push further in the general direction of building infrastructure in space over decades. To go that direction, they'll have to build-out systems that are extremely well designed for non-astronauts. If your vision is to have very large numbers of people in space, your requirement can't be that they're all as well trained for space as astronauts are today. Bezos currently has $143 billion of paper worth to utilize. It's not going to be spent on a $50 million per year space tourism business.
- mrep 8y ago
  Jeff bezos is worth 143 Billion dollars [0] and he sells a billion dollars a year to fund his toy space company blue origin [1]. With your standard 4% takeout from investments, he could increase their funding by 6% forever and not lose any money. With the way Amazon stock is growing, that could be an order of magnitude higher. Financials mean nothing to this company. [0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=jeff+bezos+worth&oq=jeff+bezos+worth https://www.google.com/search?q=jeff+bezos+worth&oq=jeff+bez... [1]: http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/jeff-bezos-amazon-stock-sale-blue-origin/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/jeff-bezos-amazon-stock-sale-b...
tbabb 8y ago
Is Blue Origin's business model exclusively space tourism? If so, I think that's unlikely to sustain them. SpaceX is busy building the intercontinental railroad to space; if Blue Origin is not building toward a similarly ambitious and lucrative goal it looks like they're going to get left behind.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  Did you mean to make an analogy to the "transcontinental railroad"?
  - tbabb 8y ago
    Oops, yes. (Must have been thinking about intercontinental ballistic trains).
- adventured 8y ago
  Bezos has, for about a decade now, laid out his intention to have Blue Origin put what he calls the heavy lift infrastructure into place to dramatically broaden the use of space for industry. He relates it to the way Amazon didn't have to invent credit card processing, build fiber optic networks, invent operating systems, invent the microprocessor, create UPS and Fedex, et al. before he could start the company. His goal is to provide core space infrastructure so new businesses can be built on top of that. Long-term he believes it's a practical growth requirement to move industry off of earth, that if we don't do so we're condemning ourselves to stagnation. https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-internet/ https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-i...
- handbanana 8y ago
  Their model is not exclusively space tourism. I imagine this is either PR or fundraising (or a mix of the two).
  - larkeith 8y ago
    Mainly PR - at $200k/person, you'll be losing millions on every flight.
badrabbit 8y ago
Honestly,I would be more willing to pay for a ride into the Mariana trench or other extremely deep ocean expeditions. I get it's about the experience but imagine seeing creatures few people (if anyone) has ever seen. I read something the other day on the lines of "10+ people have been to the moon but only 3 have been to the Mariana trench". I always dreamed of going to places here on earth hardly anyone has been to,space is great but I feel like it wouldn't be very exciting unless I get to explore and interact with the environment,maybe a lunar expedition will be available before I get too old. (Drop me a reply if you know of any jobs in remote places nobody wants to go to)
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  I'd rather go to space than the mariana trench just because of all the unknowns going into the deep sea would make me paranoid
  - hellofunk 8y ago
    Valid point. Going into space, by comparison, is time-tested and a solved problem. You will know exactly what to expect from the start.
- larkeith 8y ago
  Not quite Marianas Trench levels of remote, but the first place that springs to mind is Antarctica; I'm not familiar with the organization of the various research stations, but there is presumably some number of support staff needed on-site to keep everything running.
  - bebop 8y ago
    The US contractor is Raytheon and they have job postings on their company website. Here is the wiki for their operations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Polar_Services_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Polar_Services_Compan...
  - adrianN 8y ago
    I have looked into getting a job in Antarctica. There are indeed some support people required. If you can drive big vehicles for example, that's something they need. The Ice Cube project even needs a couple of IT people. However, jobs in Antarctica have fierce competition.
chx 8y ago
I'd be happy to take out a mortgage if this ride includes going around the Earth at least once. If it's just a go up, be up very briefly then I'd be less enthusiastic. In other words, I am not Besos-rich but hell yes, I am going to space!
- endianswap 8y ago
  Yeah, I share the same sentiment. 200k+ for a few minutes in zero-g just isn't enough for me, but if it we're a few hours in zero-g as we go around the globe once? That'd be awesome and I'd easily justify that price.
  - chx 8y ago
    Yeah if I want to feel freefall for a short time, I can just go for a tandem jump for 0.1% of this price. I even heard of indoor skydiving being fun and supposedly they are opening one here in Vancouver, BC next year.
    - gruez 8y ago
      >I can just go for a tandem jump for 0.1% of this price But neither of those is 0g. Skydiving is sort of 0g at the beginning when you’re accelerating, but that tapers off to 1g as you approach terminal velocity. Same goes for indoor skydiving.
  - trevyn 8y ago
    Parabolic flight is about $5k and gets you a few minutes of zero-g in several 30-second chunks.
    - chx 8y ago
      Ooooooo this sounds amazing, thanks for the tip.
  - mannykannot 8y ago
    Once around in LEO takes about 90 minutes.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
arijun 8y ago
I don’t see where they come up with the estimate of $10 million per flight? Given the full reusability of the rocket, the cost per flight will be far, far below that?

56 points by myroon5 8y ago

I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. What are you going to upsell? Although I do recognize this doesn't really appear to be a purely commercial venture, yet.

craftyguy 8y ago
Maybe it's a way to fundraise. Take rich people into space, they're wowed, impressed, etc, and then more likely to invest in them?
- lettergram 8y ago
  True - I guess that would work from a loss leading perspective. Although it's not making money in the classic sense, that could lead to lucritive contracts.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Maybe it can lead to lucritive contracts. It could be advertising: you take clients who are wealthy enough to pay $200k for the experience, those clients might be business owners/influencial folks, who are then moved to integrate it in some what into what they do? Seems plausable at least. Then again, Bezos could float the company for quite a long time if he personally invests, so maybe it's just a way to build credit and then do other things (e.g. gov. contracts). Amazon was unprofitable for quite a long time before it took over the world, afterall..
    - mkempe 8y ago
      It's spelled lucrative. From Latin http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/25941/lucrativus-lucrativa-lucrativum http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/25941/lucrativus-lucr...
gwern 8y ago
Sending your own employees up first will work out even worse financially. I assume it's a combination of safety testing, eating-your-own-dogfood (in a potentially fatal sense), working out minor kinks for an overall positive experience, and maybe that cost includes a lot of the startup/fixed costs and the final amortized cost will be closer to under $200k. Sort of like Tesla cars.
stcredzero 8y ago
I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. Does the article say it will be a loss leader? If so, then I missed that. I've seen $200,000 quoted for the fuel of an orbital rocket.
Robotbeat 8y ago
Costs per passenger for a reusable vehicle like this are largely a function of launch rate. Launch a few per year, it'll lose millions. Launch a hundred, and they'll make plenty of money. Additionally, you should highly doubt this kind of outside estimate of cost per New Shepard launch. It sounds like they used the same costs as you would expect for a fully expendable rocket like Falcon 1e class (same first stage thrust, for instance), even though New Shepard is fully reusable. And lastly, these suborbital New Shepard launches are also a big advertisement for orbital New Glenn launches which are orders of magnitude longer in duration. New Glenn could also take people around the Moon or, with the (eventually) reusable "Blue Moon" lander that Blue Origin is also developing, to the Moon's surface and back. So there's actually a lot of upsell, and I believe they've been explicit about using New Shepard to upsell for eventual orbital flights.
- rory096 8y ago
  >Additionally, you should highly doubt this kind of outside estimate of cost per New Shepard launch. It sounds like they used the same costs as you would expect for a fully expendable rocket like Falcon 1e class (same first stage thrust, for instance), even though New Shepard is fully reusable. The article discusses intended price, not cost. And $1.2 million/flight is significantly less than Falcon 1. >So there's actually a lot of upsell, and I believe they've been explicit about using New Shepard to upsell for eventual orbital flights. Definitely. It's also important to note that New Shepard and New Glenn have significant technology overlap - NS development costs won't have to be amortized by passenger flights alone.
  - Cogito 8y ago
    From the article: > While Blue Origin has not disclosed its per-flight operating costs, Teal Group aerospace analyst Marco Caceres estimated each flight could cost the firm about $10 million. With six passengers per trip, that would mean losing millions of dollars per launch, at least initially.
adventured 8y ago
> I don't see how having a loss leader for viewing space is going to work out for them financially. What are you going to upsell? I see a lot of the same mistake being made in this thread. Confusing short-term vs long-term. The tourist business is a meaningless part of the long-term strategy that Bezos is pursuing. Short-term it might bring in some revenue as they pursue building ever more powerful rockets. You're better off entirely disregarding anything Blue Origin does as it relates to tourism, it's a momentary toy for stage one; it's not where they're going. As a side, it also has the simultaneous benefit of enabling Blue Origin to get paid to work on dealing with civilians in space, as they seek to push further in the general direction of building infrastructure in space over decades. To go that direction, they'll have to build-out systems that are extremely well designed for non-astronauts. If your vision is to have very large numbers of people in space, your requirement can't be that they're all as well trained for space as astronauts are today. Bezos currently has $143 billion of paper worth to utilize. It's not going to be spent on a $50 million per year space tourism business.
mrep 8y ago
Jeff bezos is worth 143 Billion dollars [0] and he sells a billion dollars a year to fund his toy space company blue origin [1]. With your standard 4% takeout from investments, he could increase their funding by 6% forever and not lose any money. With the way Amazon stock is growing, that could be an order of magnitude higher. Financials mean nothing to this company. [0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=jeff+bezos+worth&oq=jeff+bezos+worth https://www.google.com/search?q=jeff+bezos+worth&oq=jeff+bez... [1]: http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/jeff-bezos-amazon-stock-sale-blue-origin/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/05/jeff-bezos-amazon-stock-sale-b...

tbabb 8y ago

Is Blue Origin's business model exclusively space tourism? If so, I think that's unlikely to sustain them. SpaceX is busy building the intercontinental railroad to space; if Blue Origin is not building toward a similarly ambitious and lucrative goal it looks like they're going to get left behind.

elvinyung 8y ago
Did you mean to make an analogy to the "transcontinental railroad"?
- tbabb 8y ago
  Oops, yes. (Must have been thinking about intercontinental ballistic trains).
adventured 8y ago
Bezos has, for about a decade now, laid out his intention to have Blue Origin put what he calls the heavy lift infrastructure into place to dramatically broaden the use of space for industry. He relates it to the way Amazon didn't have to invent credit card processing, build fiber optic networks, invent operating systems, invent the microprocessor, create UPS and Fedex, et al. before he could start the company. His goal is to provide core space infrastructure so new businesses can be built on top of that. Long-term he believes it's a practical growth requirement to move industry off of earth, that if we don't do so we're condemning ourselves to stagnation. https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-internet/ https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-i...
handbanana 8y ago
Their model is not exclusively space tourism. I imagine this is either PR or fundraising (or a mix of the two).
- larkeith 8y ago
  Mainly PR - at $200k/person, you'll be losing millions on every flight.

badrabbit 8y ago

Honestly,I would be more willing to pay for a ride into the Mariana trench or other extremely deep ocean expeditions. I get it's about the experience but imagine seeing creatures few people (if anyone) has ever seen. I read something the other day on the lines of "10+ people have been to the moon but only 3 have been to the Mariana trench". I always dreamed of going to places here on earth hardly anyone has been to,space is great but I feel like it wouldn't be very exciting unless I get to explore and interact with the environment,maybe a lunar expedition will be available before I get too old. (Drop me a reply if you know of any jobs in remote places nobody wants to go to)

Kagerjay 8y ago
I'd rather go to space than the mariana trench just because of all the unknowns going into the deep sea would make me paranoid
- hellofunk 8y ago
  Valid point. Going into space, by comparison, is time-tested and a solved problem. You will know exactly what to expect from the start.
larkeith 8y ago
Not quite Marianas Trench levels of remote, but the first place that springs to mind is Antarctica; I'm not familiar with the organization of the various research stations, but there is presumably some number of support staff needed on-site to keep everything running.
- bebop 8y ago
  The US contractor is Raytheon and they have job postings on their company website. Here is the wiki for their operations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Polar_Services_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Polar_Services_Compan...
- adrianN 8y ago
  I have looked into getting a job in Antarctica. There are indeed some support people required. If you can drive big vehicles for example, that's something they need. The Ice Cube project even needs a couple of IT people. However, jobs in Antarctica have fierce competition.

chx 8y ago

I'd be happy to take out a mortgage if this ride includes going around the Earth at least once. If it's just a go up, be up very briefly then I'd be less enthusiastic. In other words, I am not Besos-rich but hell yes, I am going to space!

endianswap 8y ago
Yeah, I share the same sentiment. 200k+ for a few minutes in zero-g just isn't enough for me, but if it we're a few hours in zero-g as we go around the globe once? That'd be awesome and I'd easily justify that price.
- chx 8y ago
  Yeah if I want to feel freefall for a short time, I can just go for a tandem jump for 0.1% of this price. I even heard of indoor skydiving being fun and supposedly they are opening one here in Vancouver, BC next year.
  - gruez 8y ago
    >I can just go for a tandem jump for 0.1% of this price But neither of those is 0g. Skydiving is sort of 0g at the beginning when you’re accelerating, but that tapers off to 1g as you approach terminal velocity. Same goes for indoor skydiving.
- trevyn 8y ago
  Parabolic flight is about $5k and gets you a few minutes of zero-g in several 30-second chunks.
  - chx 8y ago
    Ooooooo this sounds amazing, thanks for the tip.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  Once around in LEO takes about 90 minutes.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

arijun 8y ago

I don’t see where they come up with the estimate of $10 million per flight? Given the full reusability of the rocket, the cost per flight will be far, far below that?