Author Topic: SpaceX vs Blue Origin - Whose Approach / Business Strategy is Better? Thread 1  (Read 566760 times)

Offline edkyle99

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I think SpaceX has a greater chance at bringing a version of BFR online in the next decade then Blue has of bringing NG online, because seeing progress gives me more faith and FH to BFR is a much smaller leap than testing NS is to NG.
In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.  It's engines are being tested on already-operational test stands.   BFR has a factory and launch pad or pads planned and an engine test site under construction with another apparently ready to enter service very soon.

Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   

 - Ed Kyle


Offline envy887

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Blue Origin doesn't have any operational systems at all at the moment. New Shepard should come online soon, though Blue themselves don't seem to use that as a measure of success. They may sell BE-4, but again that isn't a significant revenue stream as far as we can tell. The aspiration of New Glenn is a MASSIVE leap from anything they've done before. First orbital flight, first fairing (not as easy as they look), first use of methane, first flight of BE-4 (scale, fuel, staged combustion are all new), first moving ship landing, and mansy more firsts. Absolutely no doubt this will be delayed, but I would be shocked if they accomplish all these things on a first flight, or even in the first three. I'm sure they'll test many of these things before they try the full up flight, but doing it all at once will be an incredible feat. No one thought SpaceX would get to where they are and they didn't have to do them all at once to operate.

I think there is a strong element of "Well if SpaceX could do it, it can be done" and treating "can" as the same as "will".  I think this tends to go hand in hand with a contempt for "bureaucracy" and "old space" which are treated like the only reasons these things were never done before.  It's true that there were certain technologies that anyone could have exploited before SpaceX came along but that doesn't mean SpaceX waltzed their way into the position they are today.  History is littered with failed space startups, all of which were embracing some great idea the government and oldspace were slow to adopt.  So only looking at SpaceX is one hell of a survivorship bias.  SpaceX has really talented leadership and was really lucky.  Leadership and luck aren't things money can buy.  We haven't seen enough news from inside Blue to know how good their leadership is.  It's just one of the many unknowns.  Where ever there is an unknown people seem to default to assuming "just like SpaceX".  And heck, SpaceX crashed ~20 times before they stuck the landing.  How much would it cost Blue Origin to crash 20 New Glens into the ocean?

SpaceX and Blue have already proven the technical feasibility of almost all the requirements for New Glenn: clustered engines, propulsive landing, downrange landing, BE-3, BE-4, deep throttling. Since we know it's possible, it's just a matter of engineering. And Blue is long past the space startup phase, they have done things no startup got remotely close to, like a flight tested fully reusable suborbital LH2 crew vehicle and a ground tested high pressure MN class ORSC engine.

Bezos can afford to crash all the New Glenns he wants, but as I've mentioned before that is not how Blue operates. They start inside a safe envelope, then push out into the margins. They might crash 2, but are very highly unlikely to crash 20.

Blue will fly New Glenn unless Bezos runs out of money or interest. I can't see either of those happening.

Offline speedevil

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Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   
Money times overall efficiency.
Having access to a $19B/$134B of the money doesn't mean proportionately less useful output. (Ratio of net worths).



Offline johnfwhitesell

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I didn't mean to imply that I think either SpaceX or Blue's success is inevitable.

My intent was not to say you exhibited the tendency.  I just feel that many people think this way and it's related to what you were saying.

Offline Coastal Ron

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In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.

More accurately, all we know is that they have a factory BUILDING that is complete. That doesn't mean they have the means to produce rockets yet.

Quote
It's engines are being tested on already-operational test stands.

So far only up to 70% thrust as far as we know. SpaceX has been firing Raptor too.

Quote
BFR has a factory and launch pad or pads planned and an engine test site under construction with another apparently ready to enter service very soon.

And SpaceX has an army of "been there, done that" rocket engineers and production people that are ready to work on the next phase of the SpaceX plan. Having people and systems in place that already work is a HUGE time saver for new projects.

Quote
Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   

Luckily there is no race, and no real competition either - the BFR/BFS and New Glenn have little market overlap.

No doubt lots of money will be needed, but we in the peanut galley will have the fun of watching two completely different business models and methods of operation work on not one, but TWO world-class rocket systems.

Folks, these are great times we live in...  :)
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline intrepidpursuit

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Blue Origin doesn't have any operational systems at all at the moment. New Shepard should come online soon, though Blue themselves don't seem to use that as a measure of success. They may sell BE-4, but again that isn't a significant revenue stream as far as we can tell. The aspiration of New Glenn is a MASSIVE leap from anything they've done before. First orbital flight, first fairing (not as easy as they look), first use of methane, first flight of BE-4 (scale, fuel, staged combustion are all new), first moving ship landing, and mansy more firsts. Absolutely no doubt this will be delayed, but I would be shocked if they accomplish all these things on a first flight, or even in the first three. I'm sure they'll test many of these things before they try the full up flight, but doing it all at once will be an incredible feat. No one thought SpaceX would get to where they are and they didn't have to do them all at once to operate.

I think there is a strong element of "Well if SpaceX could do it, it can be done" and treating "can" as the same as "will".  I think this tends to go hand in hand with a contempt for "bureaucracy" and "old space" which are treated like the only reasons these things were never done before.  It's true that there were certain technologies that anyone could have exploited before SpaceX came along but that doesn't mean SpaceX waltzed their way into the position they are today.  History is littered with failed space startups, all of which were embracing some great idea the government and oldspace were slow to adopt.  So only looking at SpaceX is one hell of a survivorship bias.  SpaceX has really talented leadership and was really lucky.  Leadership and luck aren't things money can buy.  We haven't seen enough news from inside Blue to know how good their leadership is.  It's just one of the many unknowns.  Where ever there is an unknown people seem to default to assuming "just like SpaceX".  And heck, SpaceX crashed ~20 times before they stuck the landing.  How much would it cost Blue Origin to crash 20 New Glens into the ocean?

SpaceX and Blue have already proven the technical feasibility of almost all the requirements for New Glenn: clustered engines, propulsive landing, downrange landing, BE-3, BE-4, deep throttling. Since we know it's possible, it's just a matter of engineering. And Blue is long past the space startup phase, they have done things no startup got remotely close to, like a flight tested fully reusable suborbital LH2 crew vehicle and a ground tested high pressure MN class ORSC engine.

Bezos can afford to crash all the New Glenns he wants, but as I've mentioned before that is not how Blue operates. They start inside a safe envelope, then push out into the margins. They might crash 2, but are very highly unlikely to crash 20.

Blue will fly New Glenn unless Bezos runs out of money or interest. I can't see either of those happening.

Just because something has been done doesn't mean that it is easy to copy. That's really not how engineering works, especially in system design. I design systems much simpler than rockets and even if someone has full access to my design, if they change something and don't know have the lessons learned that got us there the whole thing will fall apart. With suborbital flight you can slowly increase your altitude until you are just barely touching space, but with orbital you either get there or you don't. Just because SpaceX and RL made it to orbit doesn't mean it is easy.

Offline intrepidpursuit

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I think SpaceX has a greater chance at bringing a version of BFR online in the next decade then Blue has of bringing NG online, because seeing progress gives me more faith and FH to BFR is a much smaller leap than testing NS is to NG.
In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.  It's engines are being tested on already-operational test stands.   BFR has a factory and launch pad or pads planned and an engine test site under construction with another apparently ready to enter service very soon.

Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   

 - Ed Kyle

No, that logic doesn't work for SpaceX or Blue. Money solves things if you are outsourcing, but when you are vertically integrated most of your cost is people, so money either buys you more time or more people. People are a limited commodity. SpaceX has all the time in the world because they have a revenue source that can pay for their overhead for the foreseeable future. Blue gets all the money it wants from Prime subscriptions.

Along with time though is leadership and talent. Blue, with more time than any modern competitor, has never produced an operational product. That doesn't mean they can't, but it is the biggest red flag I see. We don't see inside the company so it isn't really fair to judge too hard externally, but until we see them start actually delivering finished products on shorter than decade scales I'll remain skeptical. However, skepticism from any of us really has no impact on reality, only on our discussions.

Offline Lemurion

My big concern with Blue is that I think they're running up against the issue of the job expanding to fill the time available and they don't have a deadline. I don't think Elon Musk has ever met a deadline he couldn't miss, but the presence of those deadlines keeps SpaceX moving forward.

Blue on the other hand appears to have out-gradatim'd its ferocitor to a significant degree.

I am sure they can produce New Glenn eventually, I'm just not sure how much longer it will take. It took almost 15 years for Blue to conduct its first New Shepard flight, SpaceX took four years for Falcon 1. Admittedly, the first New Shepard (as opposed to PM2) flight was a success while Falcon 1's first three flights were failures and it didn't achieve orbit until 2008.

From my perspective, SpaceX is much better at building production flight hardware and lifting mass into space. On the other hand, I think Blue is doing exactly what Jeff Bezos wants it to do.

There's also the fact that neither company's actually focused on a direct business strategy. Musk wants to go to Mars and Bezos wants to industrialize space. If you measure them against those yardsticks I think SpaceX comes out ahead at the moment and will likely come closer to its much simpler goal sooner.

I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX starts launching BFS to Mars by the 2024 synod, but I don't know that New Glenn will be flying by its suggested 2020 date, and wouldn't be surprised if it slips to 2022 or even 2024 if they have issues with an early test flight. Blue took four years to launch New Shepard after the PM2 failure so I would expect any New Glenn failures to lead to a significant delay while Blue resolves it.

They really have very different goals and thus different approaches.

Offline deruch

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I think SpaceX has a greater chance at bringing a version of BFR online in the next decade then Blue has of bringing NG online, because seeing progress gives me more faith and FH to BFR is a much smaller leap than testing NS is to NG.
In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.  It's engines are being tested on already-operational test stands.   BFR has a factory and launch pad or pads planned and an engine test site under construction with another apparently ready to enter service very soon.

Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   

 - Ed Kyle

Some amount of BFR is going to be manufactured in Hawthorne not San Pedro (the port).  So, you could make an argument that SpaceX has just as much of a factory built, in that they both have at least a building where work will eventually be done.  But the real factory is the tooling.  Not sure how NG and BFR compare on that score.  It probably depends on how much reuse of F9/FH systems is going to take.
Shouldn't reality posts be in "Advanced concepts"?  --Nomadd

Offline guckyfan

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I have little doubt that Blue Origin will eventually build BE-4 and New Glenn. But at what time will BE-4 available? Any significant delay may hurt ULA a lot. At what time will availability of BE-4 be essential for ULA?

Offline AncientU

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I think SpaceX has a greater chance at bringing a version of BFR online in the next decade then Blue has of bringing NG online, because seeing progress gives me more faith and FH to BFR is a much smaller leap than testing NS is to NG.
In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.  It's engines are being tested on already-operational test stands.   BFR has a factory and launch pad or pads planned and an engine test site under construction with another apparently ready to enter service very soon.

Money, boatloads of it, will decide what gets developed and when with these massive rockets.  Which company has ready access to the most billions of dollars, to deal with the inevitable development hiccups along the way?   

 - Ed Kyle

'Factory' building is a trivial exercise -- filling it with tooling, and then learning how to use that tooling is the challenge.  Not obvious that the Blue crew is much ahead in this category, if at all.

Engine development and flight qualification is a horse race -- not apparent which team has the lead.  Both have made lots of progress and have lots of work to finish.  One team has scheduled flights (BFS sub-orbital hops) in the next year...

Dealing with the inevitable development hiccups involves a couple factors: 1. how many hiccups do you encounter, and 2. how experienced is your crew with dealing with such things on the fly.  Building their first orbital rocket, flying a multi-engine configuration, conducting a staging event, controlling an orbital insertion burn, dispensing a payload, controlling orbital attitude, guiding a hypervelocity vehicle with precision to a surface target, operating a landing platform, rigging a 7m rocket off that platform, and refurbishing a flight-proven booster (or building a new one) are all new to the Blue team.  They will need by far the most billions(to which they have access) to fund these hiccups, as well as by far the most time.  Thus, Blue Origin has little chance of getting New Glenn operational before the BFR booster is flying. 

The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.
« Last Edit: 05/31/2018 08:45 pm by AncientU »
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Offline intrepidpursuit

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.

Offline EnigmaSCADA

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.
Is size really that much of a determining factor in cost? My admittedly complete ignorance would assume that once the development of all the systems and integration is done (something i would assume does scale with size), the actual production of something that is 5m vs 7m vs 9m diameter must be small, relative to the initial development. Almost like the difference in fuel costs for a bigger vs smaller rocket when compared to overall launch cost. Again, this is purely a hunch based on zero research by an ignorant lay person with respect to rockets, so be gentle.

Offline johnfwhitesell

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Well the bigger stage will have 7 raptor engines, which is considerably more expensive then the 1 merlin engine on the current 2nd stage.  It will also require expensive, specialized equipment and labor to fabricate and those costs need to be spread out among all the launches.

I dont think throwing away the 2nd stage would necessarily be unaffordable if they streamlined production, skipped the heatshield and reduced the number of engines.  It would probably be a cost comparable to many launches today but with 30 times the payload.  The business model would need to be radically altered to bundling dozens of launches and boosters into one rocket but it could be done.  However it's certainly not as good a long term strategy as reuse so it's no wonder they dont plan to go down that route.

Offline docmordrid

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BFR is an enormous gamble and its massive scale will be unforgiving if there are flight failures, especially in the test phase. What's also scaring me is Tesla,
>

The risk is Model 3 profits. A report yesterday in Germany's WirtschaftsWoche quotes  German engineering groups tearown and analysis of Model 3, and their take is that competitors need to worry.

German....

English story,

Link..

Also; they're prepping to announce a factory in Shanghai to serve the Asian market.
« Last Edit: 06/01/2018 05:58 am by docmordrid »
DM

Offline hkultala

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.

Blue Origin is not planning to keep throwing the second stage away forever.

They will initially throw the second stage away, to have a working rocket (which can fullfill many missions, profitably) earlier, and to gain valuable flight experience.

They will later develop a reusable second stage for it.

This is the same strategy than what spaceX haws been doing with their first stage.
« Last Edit: 06/01/2018 06:14 am by hkultala »

Offline high road

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.

Blue Origin is not planning to keep throwing the second stage away forever.

They will initially throw the second stage away, to have a working rocket (which can fullfill many missions, profitably) earlier, and to gain valuable flight experience.

They will later develop a reusable second stage for it.

This is the same strategy than what spaceX haws been doing with their first stage.

Well, if this is all as written in stone as you imply, that would be a definitive answer to the OP. ;-)

Offline envy887

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.

Blue Origin is not planning to keep throwing the second stage away forever.

They will initially throw the second stage away, to have a working rocket (which can fullfill many missions, profitably) earlier, and to gain valuable flight experience.

They will later develop a reusable second stage for it.

This is the same strategy than what spaceX haws been doing with their first stage.

Well, if this is all as written in stone as you imply, that would be a definitive answer to the OP. ;-)
It is definitely Blue's plan. We'll see how it changes as they try to work it.

Offline AncientU

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The real question is how long does BFS take... that is where the hiccups for the other team will be encountered.  I believe that they should go with a classical second stage to ensure that there is something for the booster to boost when it is ready.

I was on board until that part. They are developing BFS first because it is harder. An expendable second stage would completely ruin the cost effectiveness of the system. There is no market for an enormous rocket unless it is dirt cheap.

That's my problem with Blue. Throwing away a huge second stage makes it pretty hard for them to compete on cost with SpaceX throwing away a much smaller second stage.

Understand your point... that damn reusability paradigm seems to be catching on. ;)

Please Note: Having a reusable booster and classical second stage that can put possibly 200+ tonnes into LEO for the cost of the second stage isn't nothing.  Some (we taxpayers) are spending $4B/year for ten years to make a 'Boeing Rocket' that can launch once per year for $1-2B with half the payload capability and no reusable bits.
"If we shared everything [we are working on] people would think we are insane!"
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Offline edkyle99

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In terms of actual real estate, New Glenn already has a factory built and a launch pad under construction.

More accurately, all we know is that they have a factory BUILDING that is complete. That doesn't mean they have the means to produce rockets yet.
Not quite yet, but at least New Glenn has a building to outfit.  BFR only has a tent.

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 06/01/2018 02:08 pm by edkyle99 »

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