Blue Origin General Discussion - thread 6

[meekGee]

Berger was soo certain.

Well, at least we'll be spared the endless jokes, though it might've been fun 

Reread the tweet; everything Berger said could be one hundred percent true.

Replay of SLC-6

(Explicitly: BO let it slip that they're interested in SLC-6 about 2 weeks before it was announced that SpaceX will be getting it. Can't remember if it was through Berger or not.)

[Vahe231991]

Since Blue Origin plans to use the Blue Moon lunar landing system as the lunar landing component for the Artemis V mission, I'm curious as to why Blue Origin chose not to team up with Northrop Grumman to revive the canceled Altair lunar lander design given that Northrop Grumman had been contracted to help the Constellation Lunar Lander Project Office develop the Altair system concept and a revived Altair would have allowed Blue Origin to provide an alternative to the Starship HLS variant in terms of developing the lunar landing component for manned Artemis missions.

[cohberg]

/s

I'm curious as to why Blue Origin chose not to team up with Northrop Grumman to revive the canceled Altair lunar lander
Altair would have allowed Blue Origin to provide an alternative to the Starship HLS variant

I too am curious. Here is a quote that I think is relevant

Blue Origin plans to use the Blue Moon lunar landing system

<sub>Alternately:

NG is suddenly looking for a way to lose millions of dollars. It gets into bed with BO on Blue Altair Moon
A bunch of bureaucrats figure out early on that NG doesn't actually own Altair IP, NASA does
Dang
NG asks NASA wave all licensing and royalties for commercial use of the Altair design
NASA says no WTF
NG then FOIAs the designs
NASA takes 4 years to return responsive records which only includes 3 public relations emails and 1 heavily redacted PDF
NG then spends billions to complete the conceptual designs based on the incomplete FOIA

Come launch day, BO realizes that New Glenn can't lift Altair
NG / BO determine that to launch Altair you'd need a Ares V.
Through a series of merges Ares V actually now NG contract. Is Vahe231991 a NG shill!???
After years of development and building, NG concedes that its not cheaper and faster to not develop and build Ares V from scratch.
NG asks BO what the NET date for New Armstrong is.
"NET 2060s. Gradatim Ferociter"
Let's instead launch Altair on SLS.
NG asks its good friend Boeing to do it a solid. Haha get it, solid.
Boeing then asks its good friend NASA to wave all licensing and royalties for commercial use of SLS
NASA is so done with SLS that it says yes.
Boeing then happily builds an SLS for Blue Origin. Never thought I would type that sentence.
Billing terms are $4 billion dollars, NET 30. Per launch.

Appendix P rolls around. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT HAD TO BE REUSABLE!?"</sub>

[Coastal Ron]

Sounds like Blue Origin had a minor reorg, with some people becoming "excess". Not sure this rises to the level of "Layoffs at Blue Origin!", but thought it was something to document.

Employees report a rare round of layoffs at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture - Yahoo News

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-03/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-announces-move-to-miami-from-seattle

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Announces Move to Miami From Seattle

By Spencer Soper
3 November 2023 at 00:23 GMT
Updated on 3 November 2023 at 00:52 GMT

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos said he was moving to Miami from the Seattle region, relocating to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of Blue Origin LLC, his space exploration company.

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/robtfrank/status/1720242240138743880

Jeff Bezos says he’s moving to Florida to be closer to his parents. Another reason — taxes. Washington State has a new 7% tax on capital gains so he will owe $70 million in state taxes for every $1 billion of Amazon stock he sells. And he sells a lot.

[Asteroza]

Well, Bezos becoming an official Florida Man is sure to feed the social media meme machine...


But it does make the question of Bezos interfering with the CEO of BO more due to close proximity, rather than himself becoming CEO, a potential issue if there are some strategic vision alignment problems. Bezos faces strong headwinds if Musk's Starlink turns into a money printer, and may be feeling the gradual approach may put him at a distinct disadvantage should SpaceX suddenly accelerate their operations from the profit windfall.

[meekGee]

Well, Bezos becoming an official Florida Man is sure to feed the social media meme machine...


But it does make the question of Bezos interfering with the CEO of BO more due to close proximity, rather than himself becoming CEO, a potential issue if there are some strategic vision alignment problems. Bezos faces strong headwinds if Musk's Starlink turns into a money printer, and may be feeling the gradual approach may put him at a distinct disadvantage should SpaceX suddenly accelerate their operations from the profit windfall.

Limp IMO is a "corporate doctor", there to do the weeding work before they can start rebuilding management.

Remember practically everyone there joined on John Smith's watch.

I hope he is, since he's not a rocket boy.  I was going to say that he's a good a fit as Scully was at Apple, but then looked it up and in fact he WAS one of Scully's execs at Apple...

So at best he's there to clean up shop. JB, if he understands the problem he's facing, is there to try to rebuild.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
Remember practically everyone there joined on John Smith's watch.
<snip>

Who is John Smith?
Think you meant Bob Smith.

[meekGee]

<snip>
Remember practically everyone there joined on John Smith's watch.
<snip>

Who is John Smith?
Think you meant Bob Smith.

There's got to be a joke in here somewhere. 

Other than the obvious one, which I shouldn't commit to ASCII.

[Ike17055]

<snip>
Remember practically everyone there joined on John Smith's watch.
<snip>

Who is John Smith?
Think you meant Bob Smith.

"John Smith" is also the alias for The Doctor (doctor Who).  SUrley some humor possibilities in that...

[deadman1204]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-03/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-announces-move-to-miami-from-seattle

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Announces Move to Miami From Seattle

By Spencer Soper
3 November 2023 at 00:23 GMT
Updated on 3 November 2023 at 00:52 GMT

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos said he was moving to Miami from the Seattle region, relocating to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of Blue Origin LLC, his space exploration company.

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/robtfrank/status/1720242240138743880

Jeff Bezos says he’s moving to Florida to be closer to his parents. Another reason — taxes. Washington State has a new 7% tax on capital gains so he will owe $70 million in state taxes for every $1 billion of Amazon stock he sells. And he sells a lot.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner - not paying any taxes is the real reason.
Can't have the billionaires paying for the infrastructure and educated workforce they used to get rich. That would be responsible of them.

[meekGee]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-03/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-announces-move-to-miami-from-seattle

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Announces Move to Miami From Seattle

By Spencer Soper
3 November 2023 at 00:23 GMT
Updated on 3 November 2023 at 00:52 GMT

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos said he was moving to Miami from the Seattle region, relocating to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of Blue Origin LLC, his space exploration company.

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/robtfrank/status/1720242240138743880

Jeff Bezos says he’s moving to Florida to be closer to his parents. Another reason — taxes. Washington State has a new 7% tax on capital gains so he will owe $70 million in state taxes for every $1 billion of Amazon stock he sells. And he sells a lot.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner - not paying any taxes is the real reason.
Can't have the billionaires paying for the infrastructure and educated workforce they used to get rich. That would be responsible of them.

Have some sympathy man.  You have ANY idea how expensive marine fuel has gotten lately?  Jeez.  Some people.

[Eric Hedman]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-03/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-announces-move-to-miami-from-seattle

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Announces Move to Miami From Seattle

By Spencer Soper
3 November 2023 at 00:23 GMT
Updated on 3 November 2023 at 00:52 GMT

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos said he was moving to Miami from the Seattle region, relocating to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of Blue Origin LLC, his space exploration company.

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/robtfrank/status/1720242240138743880

Jeff Bezos says he’s moving to Florida to be closer to his parents. Another reason — taxes. Washington State has a new 7% tax on capital gains so he will owe $70 million in state taxes for every $1 billion of Amazon stock he sells. And he sells a lot.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner - not paying any taxes is the real reason.
Can't have the billionaires paying for the infrastructure and educated workforce they used to get rich. That would be responsible of them.

Amazon pays a massive amount of property taxes in the communities they have facilities in which does pay for schools and roads and fire and police protection, so it's not like they pay zero.  In some smaller communities they pay a sizeable portion of the local budgets.  Moving to Florida to avoid $70 million per billion dollars of stock sold just proves he's not an idiot.  New York has had a ton of wealthy move out in the past few years, often to Florida, because the taxes are so high.  Since a lot of these people can operate out of any state, it needs to be part of the calculus when states like Washington add a 7% capital gains tax.  It can backfire.

Hopefully, his presence in Florida will mean he will push to get Blue Origin moving faster maybe with some of that $70 million he saves on every billion.

[Robotbeat]

If Blue DOES buy ULA, what would be the near and mid-term effects?

[JayWee]

If Blue DOES buy ULA, what would be the near and mid-term effects?

After Limp throws out Smith's Honeywell management and streamlines BO, Tory comes in with his own team?
 

[trimeta]

If Blue DOES buy ULA, what would be the near and mid-term effects?

After Limp throws out Smith's Honeywell management and streamlines BO, Tory comes in with his own team?

People have talked about how Limp is likely to basically be Jeff Bezos' hatchet man, so it makes perfect sense for Tory to step in after Limp has finished his job. Whether Tory would want to do that is a separate question.

[Steve G]

If Blue really wanted Tory Bruno, I think they would be able to get him without having to buy an entire rocket company.

[Zed_Noir]

If Blue really wanted Tory Bruno, I think they would be able to get him without having to buy an entire rocket company.

Don't think so. There are non-compete clauses and NDAs issues that is solved by Bruno staying at the new ULA, instead of going to another company.

[meekGee]

If Blue DOES buy ULA, what would be the near and mid-term effects?

Some layoffs, internal warfare, famine, maybe even locust.

Irrespective of a buy-out, NG gets delayed, Vulcan has a longer run than currently predicted.

But - eventually, a buyout means that Vulcan will bow out to NG in a cooperative manner, which is a good thing - once NG is ready, we don't want Vulcan's owner fighting it using procurement/legal/policitcal tools.

[trimeta]

But - eventually, a buyout means that Vulcan will bow out to NG in a cooperative manner, which is a good thing - once NG is ready, we don't want Vulcan's owner fighting it using procurement/legal/policitcal tools.

This would also reduce the likelihood of Vulcan's SMART reuse ever coming to fruition, if the plan is to phase out Vulcan and replace it with New Glenn anyway.