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Blue Origin failing to deliver on time is a big part of the reason ULA is floundering. ULA bet on Blue Origin being able to provide engines for the Vulcan Cent
by stametseater 4y ago
Blue Origin failing to deliver on time is a big part of the reason ULA is floundering. ULA bet on Blue Origin being able to provide engines for the Vulcan Centaur in a timely manner, but what they got were years of delays.
And now that Bezos had his little joyride, he seems to have checked space off his bucket list and turned his attention towards yachting with his new wife, so I don't expect we'll see productive management reform in Blue Origin anytime soon.
The real space race is between SpaceX and China.
- ben_w 4y agoFor the moment it's SpaceX vs everyone else combined, given how far ahead they are. I won't rule out China rising to the challenge, but I also wouldn't want to rule out Relativity Space and their 3D printing, nor some as-yet unannounced group saying they've made a breakthrough with superconducting levitation or active support structures or skyhooks or fusion-powered second stages that let them go directly (from a high altitude but suborbital first stage so you don't have to worry about backscattered radiation from the air) to Δv = 0.1c.
- panick21_ 4y agoYeah but here is the reality of the situation. The AR-15, the alternative engine, was years behind the BE-4 in development and likely would have been delayed just as much and also costs more for worse performance and a with a company behind it that has no independent interest in the engine. Also, ULA is not floundering. In fact the opposite. Amazon bought all Ariane 5s and given the increasingly constrained launch market, if you have a heavy lifter that can launch, you likely get some contracts. Bezos might be yachting, but he is currently spending 2-3 billion a year on a company that doesn't have revenue. So he is serious and they will just push threw.