Blue Origin Joins the Big League

It wasn't long ago Elon Musk was laughing about Blue Origin's successful return of the New Shepard reusable rocket because it was suborbital. Well, Elon, you may not be laughing now that Blue Origins is planning to go head-to-head with the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX by building its own heavy-lift rocket for major off-Earth missions.

The New Glenn rocket (playing on an astronaut's name again) at 313 feet will be almost as large of the workhorse Saturn V rocket at 363 feet, and pack quite a punch with multiple BE-4 engines.

Jeffrey Bezos is certainly looking towards a future beyond space tourism, stating: 

New Glenn is designed to launch commercial satellites and to fly humans into space...The three-stage variant—with its high specific impulse hydrogen upper stage—is capable of flying demanding beyond-LEO missions.

Of course, Mr. Bezos could still work with tourists, but now they can go to the Moon or Mars for a vacation.  This is a very big deal that shuffles the cards again in the private space industry.

ULA Concedes Defeat

It is pretty amazing to see the United Launch Alliance (ULA) walk away from a US Air Force contact, basically handing it over to SpaceX.  The consortium of Lockheed Martin and Boeing admitted they were not prepared for a contract bid.

Explaining ULA's position, CEO Tory Bruno stated: 

The key elements of reliability and schedule, certainly our most important strengths, are not allowed to be considered to differentiate bidders...It comes down to being a price-only comparison, which takes our biggest strengths off the table.

In other words, ULA cannot compete on price.  ULA also wanted to use Russian rockets, while Congress opposes this option.  

In the past the Pentagon would have handed it to them regardless of such readiness, so this is a win for SpaceX and taxpayers. Let the competition continue.

Why Are We Using Russian Rockets?

I can understand that we are dependent on the Russians for a lift to the International Space Station (ISS) while we rebuild our spacefaring capacity after the loss of the shuttle program.  However, we are also dependent on Russian rockets in other parts of our space program, such as the Atlas rockets.  I was reading about how a federal judge recently lifted a temporary injunction against the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) procurement of Russian rocket engines.  Per the Red Orbit article, SpaceX had complained that ULA was violating the U.S. sanctions against Russia.  While the U.S Government determined this was not the case, I still wonder whether this is wise regardless of the sanctions.  The U.S. should be building more of it space program at home, so I agree with SpaceX even if its argument is a little self-serving. 

And what is ULA, which attacked SpaceX's concerns, stating "SpaceX’s actions are self-serving, irresponsible and have threatened the U.S.’s involvement with the International Space Station and other companies and projects working with Russian State entities"?  Per its webpage, ULA is a joint venture between Lockheed-Martin and Boeing running the Atlas V, Delta II, and Delta IV rocket programs.  Its customers include NASA, the Pentagon, and our spy agencies.  And is it a monopoly, as claimed by SpaceX?  Yes, albeit a regulated monopoly as is much of the space and defense industry where a few firms control most of the contracts.  This has been an a sad reality for a long time, which may explain some of the decline in America's space ventures (that, and a short-sighted Congress).  Luckily, we have many new space adventurists with new ideas, with SpaceX being one of many up-and-coming companies willing to offer new approaches to the help America to the stars, or at least low-Earth orbit. 

But the real issue on the table is whether this American monopoly should use Russian rockets.  And I would rather we develop what we need at home but keep some other options on the shelf, which could include a few Russian products.  While some may argue foreign parts are cheaper, we may need to dig deeper into Elon Musk's arguments in his testimony before the Senate in March, when he stated:

 In FY13 the Air Force paid on average in excess of $380 million for each national security launch, while subsidizing ULA’s fixed costs to the tune of more than $1 billion per year, even if the company never launches a rocket.  By contrast, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 price for an EELV mission is well under $100M—at least a $280 million per launch difference, which in many cases could pay for the satellite and launch combined – and SpaceX seeks no subsidies to maintain our business. To put this into perspective, had SpaceX been awarded the missions ULA received under its recent non-competed 36 core block buy, we would have saved the taxpayer $11.6 billion.

And leaving costs and the embargo to one side, we really need to rethink our space program procurement.  We need a little more common sense in the program.  Elon Musk made this as his last point in the March testimony:

Our Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles are truly made in America.  We design and manufacture the rockets in California and Texas, with key suppliers throughout the country, and launch them from either Vandenberg AFB or Cape Canaveral AFS.  This stands in stark contrast to the United Launch Alliance’s most frequently flown vehicle, the Atlas V, which uses a Russian main engine and where approximately half the airframe is manufactured overseas.  In light of Russia’s de facto annexation of the Ukraine’s Crimea region and the formal severing of military ties, the Atlas V cannot possibly be described as providing “assured access to space” for our nation when supply of the main engine depends on President Putin’s permission. 

The part about "President Putin's permission" does not sound that far fetched after the comments a few weeks back by Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space program, who said "I suggest the US deliver its astronauts to the ISS with a trampoline."

Time to wake up, America.  If you build your house on a pile of sand, do not be surprised when it is all washed away.