New Glenn: Blue Origin Announcement of Orbital Rocket Plan

[Bob Shaw]

I count 21/23, the first and last New Shepards were failures. %91.

Yes, everyone forgets about that first booster failure. There were several of that variant, however - three in total IIRC, one lost. It makes the stats a bit more comfortable for BO, but they're still not comforting!

[AlexP]

The first failure was in a booster landing, not in ascent.

You wonder how different things would be now if they'd pushed forward with the smaller, BE-3 powered orbital booster initially.

[Robert_the_Doll]

I count 21/23, the first and last New Shepards were failures. %91.

Yes, everyone forgets about that first booster failure. There were several of that variant, however - three in total IIRC, one lost. It makes the stats a bit more comfortable for BO, but they're still not comforting!

You are somewhat mistaken. There was no launch failure on NS-1. As a launch, it was very successful. It crashed while attempting to land due to a hydraulic system failure. If we count that as a total system failure, then we must do the same for SpaceX's Falcon 9, meaning all those early landing attempts mean the whole system is a failure. no matter how successfully the primary mission was carried out. Also, now with any recovery attempt failures on Electron, etc..

[meekGee]

I count 21/23, the first and last New Shepards were failures. %91.

Yes, everyone forgets about that first booster failure. There were several of that variant, however - three in total IIRC, one lost. It makes the stats a bit more comfortable for BO, but they're still not comforting!

You are somewhat mistaken. There was no launch failure on NS-1. As a launch, it was very successful. It crashed while attempting to land due to a hydraulic system failure. If we count that as a total system failure, then we must do the same for SpaceX's Falcon 9, meaning all those early landing attempts mean the whole system is a failure. no matter how successfully the primary mission was carried out. Also, now with any recovery attempt failures on Electron, etc..

The failure doesn't matter.

For the longest time, it was acknowledged that NS was just a stepping stone towards orbital flight, which is the real goal.

After all, that's why NS was such a better idea than VG's SS1, since that one was obviously a dead end.

Ironically, while this was true in principal, NS failed at being a stepping stone and instead became what SS1 was supposed to be - a headline generating joy ride. It never helped NG in any significant way.

OTOH, F9's early flights, landing failures and all, certainly moved the program ahead.  That's how the two programs are measured.

The other point was that even as a stand-alone ride, NS failed after 20 flights. (I'm ignoring the first failure, it's not fair to count that).  That's not "spectacularly successful".

[GWH]

You wonder how different things would be now if they'd pushed forward with the smaller, BE-3 powered orbital booster initially.

I also wonder this! BE-3 would have had a LOT more runtime. I am sure they would have already made orbit. Likely we would see Blue as a launch alternative to the smaller payloads flying on SpaceX.  Certainly could have resulted in a more focused experienced company. Honestly I don't think New Glenn's eventula inaugural launch would have been impacted by more than a couple years.

[deadman1204]

If they are counting all test launches in the launch number (ns 23), then failures during testing DO matter.
Seeing as the rocket is always supposed to land cause it has people in it, a failure to land is a failure.

Rocket blew up when it wasn't supposed to. Thats a failure.

[trimeta]

If they are counting all test launches in the launch number (ns 23), then failures during testing DO matter.
Seeing as the rocket is always supposed to land cause it has people in it, a failure to land is a failure.

Rocket blew up when it wasn't supposed to. Thats a failure.

The booster itself doesn't have people on it, only the capsule does. So the booster landing failure during NS1 is a different category than something going wrong during ascent.

[whitelancer64]

I count 21/23, the first and last New Shepards were failures. %91.

Yes, everyone forgets about that first booster failure. There were several of that variant, however - three in total IIRC, one lost. It makes the stats a bit more comfortable for BO, but they're still not comforting!

You are somewhat mistaken. There was no launch failure on NS-1. As a launch, it was very successful. It crashed while attempting to land due to a hydraulic system failure. If we count that as a total system failure, then we must do the same for SpaceX's Falcon 9, meaning all those early landing attempts mean the whole system is a failure. no matter how successfully the primary mission was carried out. Also, now with any recovery attempt failures on Electron, etc..

The failure doesn't matter.

For the longest time, it was acknowledged that NS was just a stepping stone towards orbital flight, which is the real goal.

After all, that's why NS was such a better idea than VG's SS1, since that one was obviously a dead end.

Ironically, while this was true in principal, NS failed at being a stepping stone and instead became what SS1 was supposed to be - a headline generating joy ride. It never helped NG in any significant way.

OTOH, F9's early flights, landing failures and all, certainly moved the program ahead.  That's how the two programs are measured.

The other point was that even as a stand-alone ride, NS failed after 20 flights. (I'm ignoring the first failure, it's not fair to count that).  That's not "spectacularly successful".

"It never helped NG in any significant way" Other than giving them a lot of flight data on the BE-3 - including flying humans with it - which I imagine would only help their BE-3U program.

Although IIRC the earliest iterations of New Glenn were entirely methlox, it had a BE-4U upper stage, with an optional BE-3U third stage.



And Falcon 9 failed on its 19th launch.

So do you consider the Falcon 9's record at that point as not spectacularly successful, either?

[whitelancer64]

You seem to forget the New Shepard, which has been particularly successful.

*Particularly* successful?

Its main purpose was to serve as a stepping stone towards a manned orbital rocket. I don't think that worked out at all.

As a stand-alone vehicle, it did eventually fly, but the failure rate right now is 1/20.  Not terrible but certainly not stellar - especially in light of it being on the very sub end of suborbital.

That was never its only purpose, at any rate, it is now a business in and of itself, providing rides for both space tourists and experiments.

19/20 is a very good track record for a new rocket. Identical to the Falcon 9 track record at 20 launches. Way better than Electron's was, at 17/20.

In the beginning...  Both companies had large goals wrt space.

SpaceX went with "orbital first".  As such, the early F9s (and even F1) did their job perfectly, and as such, again, failures are ok.

BO went with 'manned first".  As such, NS failed in serving as a stepping stone to a manned orbital rocket.

As a stand-alone joyride system (which is now its official goal), 22/23 isn't that good, not for a manned system.  The failure, mind you, is not from way back when.  It's from flight number 23... It is no longer a "new" rocket.  I'm not the guy that counts teething problems as significant later on.

For BO, it's NG or bust.  And right now, it's bust.

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

[trimeta]

"It never helped NG in any significant way" Other than giving them a lot of flight data on the BE-3 - including flying humans with it - which I imagine would only help their BE-3U program.

Given how different BE-3 and BE-3U are from each other (going from combustion tap-off to open expander cycle, for example), I'm not sure we can actually make that assumption.

[Tommyboy]

You seem to forget the New Shepard, which has been particularly successful.

*Particularly* successful?

Its main purpose was to serve as a stepping stone towards a manned orbital rocket. I don't think that worked out at all.

As a stand-alone vehicle, it did eventually fly, but the failure rate right now is 1/20.  Not terrible but certainly not stellar - especially in light of it being on the very sub end of suborbital.

That was never its only purpose, at any rate, it is now a business in and of itself, providing rides for both space tourists and experiments.

19/20 is a very good track record for a new rocket. Identical to the Falcon 9 track record at 20 launches. Way better than Electron's was, at 17/20.

In the beginning...  Both companies had large goals wrt space.

SpaceX went with "orbital first".  As such, the early F9s (and even F1) did their job perfectly, and as such, again, failures are ok.

BO went with 'manned first".  As such, NS failed in serving as a stepping stone to a manned orbital rocket.

As a stand-alone joyride system (which is now its official goal), 22/23 isn't that good, not for a manned system.  The failure, mind you, is not from way back when.  It's from flight number 23... It is no longer a "new" rocket.  I'm not the guy that counts teething problems as significant later on.

For BO, it's NG or bust.  And right now, it's bust.

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

F9 is an orbital rocket. NS is a suborbital joy ride. They are COMPLETELY different types of machines with completely different purposes.
Where do you see the double-think?

[Robert_the_Doll]

You seem to forget the New Shepard, which has been particularly successful.

*Particularly* successful?

Its main purpose was to serve as a stepping stone towards a manned orbital rocket. I don't think that worked out at all.

As a stand-alone vehicle, it did eventually fly, but the failure rate right now is 1/20.  Not terrible but certainly not stellar - especially in light of it being on the very sub end of suborbital.

That was never its only purpose, at any rate, it is now a business in and of itself, providing rides for both space tourists and experiments.

19/20 is a very good track record for a new rocket. Identical to the Falcon 9 track record at 20 launches. Way better than Electron's was, at 17/20.

In the beginning...  Both companies had large goals wrt space.

SpaceX went with "orbital first".  As such, the early F9s (and even F1) did their job perfectly, and as such, again, failures are ok.

BO went with 'manned first".  As such, NS failed in serving as a stepping stone to a manned orbital rocket.

As a stand-alone joyride system (which is now its official goal), 22/23 isn't that good, not for a manned system.  The failure, mind you, is not from way back when.  It's from flight number 23... It is no longer a "new" rocket.  I'm not the guy that counts teething problems as significant later on.

For BO, it's NG or bust.  And right now, it's bust.

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Doublethink? Oh, it's also quite a bit of groupthink in there as well as this narrative is pushed here and elsewhere by a very vocal faction that seems devoted to moving the goal posts always further to the right where New Shepard, New Glenn, and BE-4 are concerned. This is also something that I and others are getting tired of where this is concerned, since no amount of progress seems to matter. And while I do understand some people's frustration that Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos have been far from perfect, they are still doing some very good things. And I think that bothers some people who have bought into the groupthink/doublethink narrative so much so that it is probably going to cause them a great deal of cognitive dissonance should Vulcan, powered by BE-4, fly and do so successfully. This cognitive dissonance long ago was evident in New Shepard's overall success to date by trying to ignore the following:

1. New Shepard was the first vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket to successfully reach space and return safely, just mere weeks before Falcon 9 did.

2. Has carried over two dozen paying customers and over a hundred payloads to suborbital space and back.

3. Is only one of two operational, manned spacecraft and booster systems that can claim to be reusable. In the case of New Shepard, it is a fully reusable system.

4. All of that represents a relatively complex system that Blue Origin has successfully brought to operational status, despite setbacks and delays. They did and have delivered. They even demonstrated something that even SpaceX cannot really do on its CRS flights: NS-23's failure showed that they were still flying an active launch abort system that saved all but two experiments on an unmanned flight, those lost being because they were integrated to the NS3 Propulsion Module.

Do I wish that New Glenn was the original medium-heavy design proposed for Commercial Crew back in the early 2010s? Of course. That was likely a serious mistake on Bezos' and Blue Origin's part to not go that route, but it was a calculated risk to move to what I believe is likely the original New Armstrong launcher, especially once ULA began shopping around for American made engines, they possibly decided to chance skipping the interim design now that additional funding would become available for expediting BE-4 work.

[matthewkantar]

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Ten years after its first flight, BO’s NS (A suborbital toy) has flown ~ 20 times. Ten years after its first flight, Falcon9 (an all up orbital/interplanetary workhorse) had flown over a hundred times.

No double think needed.

[AlexP]

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Ten years after its first flight, BO’s NS (A suborbital toy) has flown ~ 20 times. Ten years after its first flight, Falcon9 (an all up orbital/interplanetary workhorse) had flown over a hundred times.

No double think needed.

Why do people keep posting incorrect things that are easily checked? New Shepard's first flight was in 2015. And stuff about "toys" is unwarranted. It's not as if the actual facts don't already work in SpaceX's favour.

SpaceX vs BO nonsense is supposed to be in its own thread, anyway - https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54911.160

[Starshipdown]

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Ten years after its first flight, BO’s NS (A suborbital toy) has flown ~ 20 times. Ten years after its first flight, Falcon9 (an all up orbital/interplanetary workhorse) had flown over a hundred times.

No double think needed.

Wow, this is a perfect example of what they (Robert and Whitelancer) are talking about! It's a lie, plus it leaves out a ton of context which has been addressed to some extent recently in the SpaceX-Blue Origin comparison thread between the two companies' respective approaches. Just a simple fact check shows:

* New Shepard first flew in April 2015. So four months shy of 8 years since first flight.

* New Shepard has flown 23 times, with one (1) actual launch failure and one (1) actual booster landing failure.

* New Shepard is not a "toy". It is a relatively high-performance vehicle that can and does carry people or payloads or both to suborbital space, and is demonstrated fully reusable.

* New Shepard and New Glenn are mostly paid for out of Jeff Bezos' pocket while Falcon 9 had massive benefit of billions in NASA, military, and eventually commercial dollars to fund it to where it is today.

[r8ix]

* New Shepard and New Glenn are mostly paid for out of Jeff Bezos' pocket while Falcon 9 had massive benefit of billions in NASA, military, and eventually commercial dollars to fund it to where it is today.

When your product works, you win contracts.

[Starshipdown]

I count 21/23, the first and last New Shepards were failures. %91.

Yes, everyone forgets about that first booster failure. There were several of that variant, however - three in total IIRC, one lost. It makes the stats a bit more comfortable for BO, but they're still not comforting!

* Nope. 1 landing failure and 1 launch failure. One affects the outcome of the primary mission and the other just loses the booster.

* There have been four (4) New Shepard Propulsion Modules built: NS1, NS2, NS3, NS4. NS1 was lost on the landing failure, NS2 was retired after five highly successful test flights, NS3 was lost last year on NS-23 (its ninth mission), and NS4 is still in active service and has 8 flights under its belt, six of those with paying passengers onboard.

[TrevorMonty]

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Ten years after its first flight, BO’s NS (A suborbital toy) has flown ~ 20 times. Ten years after its first flight, Falcon9 (an all up orbital/interplanetary workhorse) had flown over a hundred times.

No double think needed.

NS hasn't lost a payload yet. Capsule with experiments onboard were recovered successfully. Mission in way was success as if demonstrated LAS works in real failure.


F9 lost secondary payload on first flight after engine failure. Dragon on midair explosion. Expensive satellite on the pad when F9 explodes during static fire.

Majority of F9 launches haven't been to external customers but internal payloads.

Edit: was writing this during the last post.

[Starshipdown]

Please take this bickering to the dedicated BO?SpaceX bickering thread:
     https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54911.160
Will the moderator please move this trash?

I will point out, at my own risk, that it might help if the moderators would step in the moment that certain SpaceX trolls pop into threads like this to spread their vitriol. And it also might help, Dan, if you hadn't just recently given a like to one of them, one who happed to post a verified falsehood about New Shepard.

Thank you

[whitelancer64]

Both companies took very different development paths. This makes comparing them difficult, and that's virtually never taken into account when Blue Origin is criticized, often for doing the exact same things that SpaceX was doing at a similar point in its history.

19/20 Falcon 9 launches? GREAT!!!! Falcon 9 was a new rocket, they did their jobs perfectly, failures are OK. 
19/20 New Shepard launches? It's not a new rocket, that's not acceptable. Blue Origin is a BUST!!!!

I just hate the blatant double-think hypocrisy.

Ten years after its first flight, BO’s NS (A suborbital toy) has flown ~ 20 times. Ten years after its first flight, Falcon9 (an all up orbital/interplanetary workhorse) had flown over a hundred times.

No double think needed.

Wow, this is a perfect example of what they (Robert and Whitelancer) are talking about! It's a lie, plus it leaves out a ton of context which has been addressed to some extent recently in the SpaceX-Blue Origin comparison thread between the two companies' respective approaches. Just a simple fact check shows:

* New Shepard first flew in April 2015. So four months shy of 8 years since first flight.

* New Shepard has flown 23 times, with one (1) actual launch failure and one (1) actual booster landing failure.

* New Shepard is not a "toy". It is a relatively high-performance vehicle that can and does carry people or payloads or both to suborbital space, and is demonstrated fully reusable.

* New Shepard and New Glenn are mostly paid for out of Jeff Bezos' pocket while Falcon 9 had massive benefit of billions in NASA, military, and eventually commercial dollars to fund it to where it is today.

Also, Falcon 9's first flight was June4, 2010. By June 4,  2020, Falcon 9 had launched 86 times.