Author Topic: SpaceX vs Blue Origin - Whose Approach / Business Strategy is Better? Thread 1  (Read 566748 times)

Offline Lars-J

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Where I see things opening up for potential change is with New Armstrong. Despite SpaceX's head start, Blue is likely to have a much easier transition path from New Glenn to New Armstrong than SpaceX from the Falcon family to ITS. Add in the fact that ITS is a specialized design for Musk's Mars plans and a generalist New Armstrong in the same payload class and things change. A reusable general purpose super heavy lifter could give Blue the Moon, especially as ITS is particularly ill-suited to support that market with its design reliance on in situ fuel production and aerobraking.

I fail to see how you can view ITS as not being general purpose. It (the whole system, including the booster) must drastically lower cost of access to space to make a Mars colony possible. A slightly modified cargo version of ITS (with the same booster) can deliver hundreds of tons to LEO.  It could also be used for GTO/GEO, plus deliver and land payloads to the moon and other destinations. The system as described to us will be far more general purpose than you give it credit.

Any reusable upper stage will be have similar limitations as the ITS spacecraft. A fully reusable NG or NA will not be that different - with the exception of scale.
« Last Edit: 04/17/2017 05:33 am by Lars-J »

Offline meekGee

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Musk went from "MCT" to "ITS" and took great care to show how it is a solar system vehicle, not just a Mars vehicle.

NA, meanwhile, is just a name. You haven't seen a design, not to mention hardware.
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Offline MattMason

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Musk went from "MCT" to "ITS" and took great care to show how it is a solar system vehicle, not just a Mars vehicle.

NA, meanwhile, is just a name. You haven't seen a design, not to mention hardware.

An important point, going to New Glenn alone. For good and bad, SpaceX has flown lots of orbital hardware from CCAFS, KSC and VAFB which goes through the specifications and needs of the range, the FAA, NASA and commercial customers. Blue Origin has flown one rocket in the isolated, open desert.

Blue Origin is about to crank out Saturn-sized launch vehicles and no one thinks about the certifications it's going to need just to fly? Remember that the Saturn V would've been the largest non-nuclear explosion on a Bad Day...and New Glenn is a bit bigger.

I'd want extra safety precautions before one of those birds is let off the chain. Size does matter--and that means more precautions. Not just for GSE but for the entire range.

Blue Origin's business strategy must also include one hell of a catastrophic insurance plan if their AFTS goes awry with a New Glenn.

Perhaps also Blue Origin will be a "real" business when its money comes from outside the company, not personally financed.
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Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Remember that the Saturn V would've been the largest non-nuclear explosion on a Bad Day...and New Glenn is a bit bigger

New Glenn at 7 m diameter is smaller than Saturn V at 10 m diameter.

The lesson from the past is "Don't give up the ship." Beal Aerospace thought that NASA's Space Launch Initiative would eat his lunch. He couldn't have been more wrong. Who knows what the future will bring. Having Blue in the mix gives a greater chance that prices per kg into orbit will go down.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Quote
A FEW BILLION OFF
If Jeff Bezos is spending a billion a year on his space venture, he just started
Tim Fernholz & Christopher Groskopf
April 12, 2017

https://qz.com/956607/jeff-bezos-the-worlds-second-wealthiest-human-isnt-spending-billions-on-his-space-venture-blue-origin/

Offline Chasm

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[...]
Blue Origin is about to crank out Saturn-sized launch vehicles and no one thinks about the certifications it's going to need just to fly? Remember that the Saturn V would've been the largest non-nuclear explosion on a Bad Day...and New Glenn is a bit bigger.
[...]

NG is -roughly- half the volume of Saturn 5. Just going by diameter, ignoring details like height.


As discussed above most of the Blue Origin employees are not exactly new in the business. With their reputation of being slow and methodical and all that influence from across the competition ...industry I wonder how much procedure and technology Blue has (re)created in the past years.


There are a lot of concepts floating around, both ancient and current. Papers galore everywhere, prototypes that got canned seemingly in the last second before full scale or flight testing in the past decades. What if someone with a bit of patience set out to work the more interesting and relevant ones up to a prototype stage.

After all building and launching rockets is more than just sticking tanks and engines together. There is a huge list of other more and less obvious things that have to work as well.


Which in turn ties back into the patent discussion. SpaceX is not the only player in the field. Are there existing patents that you want or have to to work around. Are there technologies that may get patented in the future and where having some prior art helps. Not everything is as obvious as it seems, even with the (defeated) landing patent most people are now thinking that landing NG on a moving ship is such a daft idea. I think it is great if they do that. That is using the patent thing for real,not just using it as a blocker for others.

Offline MP99



ITS is wonderful from a human species perspective, but EM's plans to start colonizing Mars in the next decade has no business case. Worse, all he's presented so far is the transport system. He, or another entity, still have to come up with the Mars habitat and sustainable facilities.

Musk has said that ITS will be the hab for the first missions. However, I agree with your general point that we're not seeing surface infrastructure, and that has a long lead time.

Cheers, Martin

Offline envy887

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Musk went from "MCT" to "ITS" and took great care to show how it is a solar system vehicle, not just a Mars vehicle.

NA, meanwhile, is just a name. You haven't seen a design, not to mention hardware.

An important point, going to New Glenn alone. For good and bad, SpaceX has flown lots of orbital hardware from CCAFS, KSC and VAFB which goes through the specifications and needs of the range, the FAA, NASA and commercial customers. Blue Origin has flown one rocket in the isolated, open desert.

Blue Origin is about to crank out Saturn-sized launch vehicles and no one thinks about the certifications it's going to need just to fly? Remember that the Saturn V would've been the largest non-nuclear explosion on a Bad Day...and New Glenn is a bit bigger.

I'd want extra safety precautions before one of those birds is let off the chain. Size does matter--and that means more precautions. Not just for GSE but for the entire range.

Blue Origin's business strategy must also include one hell of a catastrophic insurance plan if their AFTS goes awry with a New Glenn.

Perhaps also Blue Origin will be a "real" business when its money comes from outside the company, not personally financed.

New Glenn is only twice as big as Delta IV Heavy, at most 50% bigger than Falcon Heavy, and substantially smaller than Saturn V and the Shuttle stack, by gross liftoff mass.

Also, everyone involved (BO, USAF, FAA) has certainly thought about the certifications required to fly New Glenn, since they are basically the same as needed to fly Falcon Heavy and Vulcan.

Offline spacenut

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New Glenn may be able to cost less to operate than Falcon Heavy.  Only one booster to refurbish and only 7 engines vs. 27.  Yes FH is smaller, but even with automobiles.  A small car with a small engine still takes as much time to work on a similar problem as a big car.   NG will also have a larger payload volume.   Once it gets operational, SpaceX might have to reconsider a mini-BFR launcher to replace FH.  Also, Musk said the three core heavy version was "hard". 

Also, NG is oversized for the payload capability.  This could be because it is being made more robust for even less refurbishment costs. 

Offline Chasm

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They still have all kinds of engineering reserves in the released NG payload numbers. We'll have to wait end see where the real numbers come out.

The different fairings sizes could be a huge deal, if someone decides to build so large.
Going with the same ratios as on Atlas V or F9 gives NG a 10m fairing. So designing their Blue Moon landers for launch on NG or SLS is more than just a word game.

Offline john smith 19

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Having Blue in the mix gives a greater chance that prices per kg into orbit will go down.
And that's the key to seeing market growth and people starting to think of as "space" being a place where they can set up and run a business.
I fail to see how you can view ITS as not being general purpose. It (the whole system, including the booster) must drastically lower cost of access to space to make a Mars colony possible.
Quote from: Lars-J
"To make a Mars colony possible." Yes. But for any applications in LEO?

Ever noticed how many pickup trucks and how few 18 wheeler cabs there are in the parking lots of shopping malls?

One is ludicrously oversized for shopping trips and the other is not. OTOH if you want to ship 80 tonnes cross country the reverse is true.
A slightly modified cargo version of ITS (with the same booster) can deliver hundreds of tons to LEO.  It could also be used for GTO/GEO, plus deliver and land payloads to the moon and other destinations. The system as described to us will be far more general purpose than you give it credit.
I'm sure no doubts it will be versatile.

They doubt it will be economic.

Using round numbers it's only less than $1000//lb if every one of those payload lbs carries something.
If not then it's the launch price divided by the price and as Arianespace discovered getting just 2 payloads to ride share is tough. Getting 10?

If NA that will apply to them as well.
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Offline envy887

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Having Blue in the mix gives a greater chance that prices per kg into orbit will go down.
And that's the key to seeing market growth and people starting to think of as "space" being a place where they can set up and run a business.
I fail to see how you can view ITS as not being general purpose. It (the whole system, including the booster) must drastically lower cost of access to space to make a Mars colony possible.
Quote from: Lars-J
"To make a Mars colony possible." Yes. But for any applications in LEO?

Ever noticed how many pickup trucks and how few 18 wheeler cabs there are in the parking lots of shopping malls?

One is ludicrously oversized for shopping trips and the other is not. OTOH if you want to ship 80 tonnes cross country the reverse is true.
A slightly modified cargo version of ITS (with the same booster) can deliver hundreds of tons to LEO.  It could also be used for GTO/GEO, plus deliver and land payloads to the moon and other destinations. The system as described to us will be far more general purpose than you give it credit.
I'm sure no doubts it will be versatile.

They doubt it will be economic.

Using round numbers it's only less than $1000//lb if every one of those payload lbs carries something.
If not then it's the launch price divided by the price and as Arianespace discovered getting just 2 payloads to ride share is tough. Getting 10?

If NA that will apply to them as well.

Getting more payloads to rideshare could be easier in a lot of ways. Ariane payloads are essentially a matched set, and if one is late they can't launch profitably. With larger mass and volume margins there's a lot more flexibility in who can ride where. And each passenger is a much smaller part of the launch revenue, so it's not completely impractical to launch anyway even if one misses the boat. The problem is really making everything cheap enough that there are that many payloads.

ITS targets $10/lb to LEO. F9 is already close to $1000/lb. NG is goiing to have to beat $1000/lb and NA, if a ITS competitor, will have to be much, much cheaper.

Offline Robotbeat

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Having Blue in the mix gives a greater chance that prices per kg into orbit will go down.
And that's the key to seeing market growth and people starting to think of as "space" being a place where they can set up and run a business.
I fail to see how you can view ITS as not being general purpose. It (the whole system, including the booster) must drastically lower cost of access to space to make a Mars colony possible.
Quote from: Lars-J
"To make a Mars colony possible." Yes. But for any applications in LEO?

Ever noticed how many pickup trucks and how few 18 wheeler cabs there are in the parking lots of shopping malls?

One is ludicrously oversized for shopping trips and the other is not. OTOH if you want to ship 80 tonnes cross country the reverse is true.
A slightly modified cargo version of ITS (with the same booster) can deliver hundreds of tons to LEO.  It could also be used for GTO/GEO, plus deliver and land payloads to the moon and other destinations. The system as described to us will be far more general purpose than you give it credit.
I'm sure no doubts it will be versatile.

They doubt it will be economic.

Using round numbers it's only less than $1000//lb if every one of those payload lbs carries something.
If not then it's the launch price divided by the price and as Arianespace discovered getting just 2 payloads to ride share is tough. Getting 10?

If NA that will apply to them as well.
$1000/lb? No. $4/lb is the goal for the tanker version of ITS.

So if they get within a factor of 10 of that goal per launch and the useful payload is just right 10% of the total, then you're still looking at $400/lb.

ITS tanker has a goal of a per-launch cost less than Rocketlab's Electron. If they magically achieve that, then it doesn't even matter if the rocket is carrying 99% ballast, it'll still make sense.

If you're going to argue about ITS nomaking sense economically, then at least use the figures we know about it.
 Not pickup truck analogies that are irrelevant.
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Offline corneliussulla

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The ITS could destroy Bezos orbital tourism effort in one blow. If ITS can take 100 people to Mars surely it can be fitted to take 200-300 round the earth 3/4 times before relanding. Tickets could be sold for $30,000 each. That's $60-$90 mill a flight. That's not to mention possible cruises around moon, or lunar landings for tourists, lets say at $150,000 for 100 people. I think at first these sort of businesses are likely to draw much more cash to SX than colonising Mars.

To be honest I am not sure many people will want to move to Mars after all I don't see a massive rush for real estate in Antarctica or northern Canada and both those places are way more hospitable than Mars

Offline guckyfan

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To be honest I am not sure many people will want to move to Mars after all I don't see a massive rush for real estate in Antarctica or northern Canada and both those places are way more hospitable than Mars

Unlike Mars those two places don't have the potential to ever become completely independent.

Offline sanman

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Unlike Mars those two places don't have the potential to ever become completely independent.

Leaving aside the whole Mars terraforming thing, which would require millennia, the Moon probably has same or better prospects of achieving independence as Mars - because the Moon is more easily reachable and thus more colonizable. The Moon's closeness to Earth is like an insurance policy that would entice more people - if anything went wrong, if serious illness resulted, Norovirus/etc, it's easier to rotate people back to Earth. If the lunar colony faced serious peril, colonists could be evacuated back to Earth more readily.

Musk has said that a prerequisite for going to Mars is being ready to die - perhaps Bezos' slogan for colonizing the Moon would be that you don't have to be quite as ready to die, given the Moon's greater safety margin.

Offline high road

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The big advantage of SpaceX's plan is that it's got a better high concept. Saying, "I want to build a colony on Mars," is a very concrete and easily visualized goal in comparison to "I want to see millions of people working in space."

Remind me how the colony on Mars makes money to survive long enough to achieve self-sustainability? (including producing all that technology required to stay alive and expand the base). Because that's the part I'm having trouble visualizing. Colonies that don't make money, fail. Check all of history.

Providing transportation to microgravity factories in LEO seems to be the only source of income that might eventually be capable of generating enough income to sustain a colony on Mars, if that company wants to continue to use all of their profits to that end.

To be honest I am not sure many people will want to move to Mars after all I don't see a massive rush for real estate in Antarctica or northern Canada and both those places are way more hospitable than Mars

Unlike Mars those two places don't have the potential to ever become completely independent.

If there are people willing to live on a planet that is more dangerous than any place on earth, just for the sake of independence, there should be people who want to do so on Earth. Where are the completely self sufficient villages on Earth? (completely as in: not freeloading or otherwise tapping into the goods and services produced by the rest of the economy). Where are the ships floating on international waters, providing everything for themselves? That would be vastly easier than setting up shop on Mars. Where are the islands that have been bought up by these groups to set up shop on dry, independent land? Because that would be much cheaper than hauling everything to Mars.

So to get back on topic: while I think Bezos has the most achievable end goal, his latest 'going suborbital allows us to launch much more, much cheaper and learn faster' launch has been over six months ago again. That's longer than what SpaceX needs to recover from their rockets blowing up. Not showing signs of catching up. On the contrary, SpaceX caught up with them if you ignore the orbital vs suborbital part. Furthermore, SpaceX seems to be quite adept at providing new services that are not quite as useful for Mars, as long as they expect to make a profit from it. So eventually, they will cater to whatever industry in space. As it looks now, SpaceX will go further along the path towards 'millions working in space'. So even if their permanent settlement of Mars plans don't work out, the bubble of human activity will have grown, in a sustainable way. No renewed mission accomplished - btdt budget cut when humans land on Mars will change that. That is the approach/business strategy that I think is best.

As before, I'll review my opinion when new hardware starts flying, be it suborbital, orbital, heavy, or tantalizingly insane.

Offline sanman

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Musk has said he doesn't want to allow outsiders to own much stock in the beginning period, because he doesn't trust the instincts of the business community and their short-term profit-oriented thinking. So obviously he wants to take greater risks and push farther out from conventional revenue streams than ordinary investors might accept.

Likewise Bezos is spending billions of his own money - notice he's not going to the external capital markets for funds - even while his whole "Gradatim Ferociter" approach is relatively more risk-averse.
What's Bezos' excuse for not taking Blue Origin public sooner rather than later?

Offline Robotbeat

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Blue Origin is Bezos' sandbox.
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Offline sanman

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That's an expensive sandbox with some very tall goals. I think Bezos intends to use Blue to carve a path to space, and not just make some temporary tracks in the sand.

Why not defray the risk onto others, as well as the high capital costs by bringing in outside investment?
Is it again due to concerns similar to those Musk has voiced, about the short-term profit-focus of traditional investors? Is there a dearth of sufficiently visionary investors?

Notice how for Hyperloop, Musk has immediately brought in outside teams of innovators from the start, using X-Prize style competitions. Since Musk has no formal Hyperloop business to focus efforts, he's willing to cultivate a broader community to solicit their free labor and help give the idea legs. Meanwhile, Musk and Bezos keep their space efforts under tighter reins, as commercial enterprises. Maybe both men don't like having to report to others when it comes to the personal vision thing.

And yet is it really absolutely true that traditional investors and their priorities would only constrain the development of space enterprises like SpaceX or Blue Origin? What's wrong with profitability? Doesn't it help to drive progress?

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