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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

I was waiting for this announcement. It is unclear to me how "real" this is; Bezo's claims they can meet the timeline of people on the moon in 2024. Since they aren't flying a heavy booster like the Delta IV heavy or the Falcon Heavy yet, and those platforms took about 10 years to go from concept to first flight. Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the first stage booster and building the upper stage{s} himself. Either way, its great to have someone pushing for more progress.

The second successful FHeavy flight cut into the potential demand for New Glenn so the challenge is to remain relevant while building nation-state level infrastructure. Exciting to watch!

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Unlike Elon Musk, Bezos has a tendency to set more accurate timelines.

This is not to say that Space X’s achievements are not incredible. They are. It is just that Elon Musk projection timelines are pretty much always bunk, while Jeff Bezos seems to be better at projecting achievement timelines.

Again, what Space X and Blue Origin have achieved are incredible, and yes Space X has an entirely different set of technology that is capable of sending huge payloads to deep space...

I’m just saying Musk’s timelines are completely unreliable. Bezos’ aren’t (historically).

But SpaceX still moves faster than Blue Origin, even though SpaceX promises to move much faster and then fails to do that.

They're going about it very different ways so I think from a typical bystander it is hard to see. We won't really know how accurate your statement is until we see New Glenn and if BFR ever becomes a reality. But historically BO has been right on the mark with their timelines while SpaceX (and a lot of other Musk stuff) is at least a year behind schedule.

Wrong. SpaceX is objectively faster. The New Glenn is about the size of the Falcon Heavy in terms of payload.

The BFR is a whole different class that is gone be more in line with the hidden BO project the New Armstrong, but we don't really know what that is gone be.

That said, SpaceX is ahead in rockets but this moon lander is something SpaceX doesn't have or is even working on.

By 2008, a publicized timetable for New Shepard indicated that Blue Origin intended to fly unmanned in 2011, and manned in 2012. How is that "right on the mark"?

Blue origin is 19 years old and hasn't achieved orbit.

How 'fast' they each move is beside the point.

However, a quick Googling suggests that Space X has ~3 times the number of employees Blue Origin has and may also have had more money ploughed into it.

The point here is that Elon Musk is infamous for his widely optimistic forecasts while Bezos is more down to Earth (so to speak).

In 2011, SpaceX said they'd fly Falcon Heavy in 2013. It actually first flew in 2018.

On the other hand, Blue Origin hasn't yet reached orbit (something SpaceX did in 2008.) I do believe Blue Origin will be able to execute on Blue Moon, but they also need to demonstrate a _lot_ of hardware before boots on the moon.

In fairness to SpaceX, Falcon Heavy's long delays weren't a result of mismanagement or false claims. The delays were due to Heavy turning out to be largely unnecessary for routine operations and development being put on the back burner. Falcon 9's capabilities (particularly in the engines) were improved to the point where it could handle missions once thought to require Heavy. Those same continual improvements meant that it was a more efficient use of engineers' time to wait for the more-or-less final Falcon 9 design before starting serious work on Heavy.

But I do share skepticism on Blue Origin. It's hard to develop rockets in total secrecy. If New Glenn was anywhere close to flying, even in an expendable test configuration, we'd at least know that much even if they chose to keep the details confidential.

Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done. Bezos still hasn't done anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004 (and that carried people, unlike their current rocket). Their little hopper rocket is leagues away from a proper orbital vehicle. Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos.

That's not to mention all the blatant patent trolling and lobbying that Blue Origin/Bezos is engaged in which constantly tries to hinder SpaceX. (Ex: Trying to patent landing on a barge to stop SpaceX doing it. Ex: Successfully lobbying several congresspeople to delay down selection of launch vehicles for military launches (but failed to delay it).)

Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.

Do you have any more reading material on the political lobbying Bezos is having Blue Origin do? That sounds quite interesting.

>Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done.

As a betting gal, I disagree.

source: $2MM investment in Amazon from back in 2014 has performed extremely well. Stock price isn’t exactly a golden metric, but Bezos knows how and what to prioritize and when to deliver. I would trust Bezos over Elon Musk with real money any day.

Your post makes it appear as if Bezos is devoting the majority of his time to one specific company or venture, and therefore not being the industry leader is some sort of failure. That’s extremely short sighted from my perspective.

The little hopper rocket you described is a better investment from my perspective than anything Musk touches. Hell, if all Bezos had was a literal tin can and merely a promise of using material from that tin can as part of a lunar lander 10 years out, I would still put more faith in Bezos.

My only experience with Tesla is with purchasing a Model S, which was horrible. I no longer have that vehicle. Good riddance.

> I no longer have that vehicle.

Fascinating. As a potential Tesla buyer, would you care to share your experience? Email welcome.

Amazon is not Blue Origin. SpaceX is not Tesla. The Musk/Bezos comparison is regarding spaceflight. And in that regard:

>> Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.

The parent comment is definitely correct. Unless you mean patent trolling. Then Bezos has Musk crushed.

Not sure if you are serious or just trolling, there is really no reason to bring up Amazon or Tesla in this conversation.

> Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.

I'm a little surprised on this. I see Blue Origin as being small on talk. They have been mostly operating in stealth mode. Public isn't really that aware of them, at least no where near the level of SpaceX. They only get publicity when they meet a milestone. Which the thing is that they haven't promised much, but met those milestones on time.

> Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket)

2021[0]

[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2018/blue-origin-resets-schedule-fi...

> Bezos still hasn't done anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004

This is such absurdly reductionist take. Its a whole different level, just having something that can reach space compared to a reliable reusable rocket that can fly real costumers.

There is a reason SpaceShipOne was never used in production, its a tech demo.

> Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos.

They do have a timeline and they have actual costumers already signed.

And furthermore we have seen highly advanced engines, the BE-4 tested. That is a huge achievement.

> People give way too much praise to Bezos.

You are giving way to little. Do you know how few advanced rocket engines like that have been designed in the US? Not since the Space Shuttle. It might also very likely be the first ever methane engine to reach orbit.

I guess it is a lot easier to set more accurate timelines if you only reveal something after working on it for 3 years, like Blue Moon.

> Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years.

It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11.

You’d think we’d be able to do things faster now.

Its a fair point, just a matter of money and a limited number of manufacturers for the bits that make rockets fly. NASA had the advantage that as a single target they weren't overseeing three different SaturnVs, three different launch vehicles, etc. The horses here are Bezos, Boeing, and SpaceX.

There was Red Stone, Atlas, titan, Saturn I, Ib, and V. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. multiple contractors at each phase.

I understand, I wasn't arguing that there weren't multiple contractors, only pointing out that NASA had all of its resources making one system at a time. If we combined the space launch R&D budgets of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Boeing into one pool and focused on one system, it might go faster.

You mean like NASA for the last 40 years?

Strongly disagree. If they were all combined, we would likely have the same level as any given Company’s progress, but no more due to the mythical man month factor.

Instead we have multiple moonshots, bringing diverse approaches, and constrained by a budget. Since we know from Apollo that “if money were no object”, we can do this, it’s a good approach.

The reason we never moved on from Apollo is because economics matter. We were able to beat the tyranny of the rocket equation; now we are seeing if we can do it for a much smaller amount. And we have multiple bets on different approaches.

> It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11.

12 years, and 4.4% of the federal budget (in the peak). In 2007 dollars they spend around $136 billion to get to the moon.

How much is that in 2019 dollars?

About 166 billion, based off of CPI.

On the other hand, fixing it to 4.4% of the Federal Budget makes it $208.8 billion.

That sounds like a huge amount of money, until you consider the Shuttle programme alone cost the taxpayer apporx $196 billion, inflation adjusted.

Supposedly, New Glenn will be ready in 2021. I wouldn't be surprised if this requires New Glenn's bigass fairing— I don't think anyone is currently flying anything with the same size capabilities (although neither is Blue Origin, at the moment)

>Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the first stage booster and building the upper stage{s} himself. Either way, its great to have someone pushing for more progress.

In the past they've talked about launching Blue Moon on SLS. Not that I expect that to launch real payloads by 2024...

That would be crazy expensive.

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