Branson and Bezos flights

[wmw999 2,116]

And the advantage to that is that you’re amused much of the time. Kind of like being easily pleased. Life is better that way. 
Wendy P. 

[SethInMI 145]

its a little funny it feels like Branson and Bezos are like kids playing with toys in a bathtub while Elon is building a yacht next door. Once that billionaire Japanese dude makes his circuit of the Moon the world will forget about the other two.

[jakee 1,254]

On 8/6/2021 at 6:02 PM, SethInMI said:

its a little funny it feels like Branson and Bezos are like kids playing with toys in a bathtub while Elon is building a yacht next door. Once that billionaire Japanese dude makes his circuit of the Moon the world will forget about the other two.

Branson is just dabbling but Bezos is building a super heavy launch vehicle too, just taking a more conventional, less visible (and so far apparently slower and much more expensive) approach to it.

(Meanwhile established tech giant Boeing is trying to make just a capsule to sit on top of an existing rocket and is struggling to get that right.)

[olofscience 420]

38 minutes ago, jakee said:

but Bezos is building a super heavy launch vehicle too, just taking a more conventional, less visible (and so far apparently slower and much more expensive) approach to it.

Slower is an understatement. Blue Origin was founded BEFORE SpaceX was...and they've sent nothing to orbit.

Instead of the strategy of crawl - walk - run, Blue Origin leadership has decided to skip the 'walk' stage and go directly to 'run': https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03/so-what-really-happened-with-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket

It's like a recent A license downsizing from a Nav 290 to a 90 Valkyrie, it'll end well...

[billvon 2,380]

11 hours ago, jakee said:

(Meanwhile established tech giant Boeing is trying to make just a capsule to sit on top of an existing rocket and is struggling to get that right.)

I would note that recently, thrusters on Nakua (new International Space Station module) fired unexpectedly, causing the entire station to start spinning with no way to stop it.  They were extremely lucky that:

1) The thrusters eventually shut down before rates became high enough that pieces of the station started to detach

2) This happened after hard dock.  Had it happened during soft dock the station/docking port/module could well have been seriously damaged - and had it happened just BEFORE docking there could have been a high speed collision that could have destroyed the ISS.

Given all that, the fact that Boeing has just revealed that thirteen propulsion system valves failed during preflight testing of the Starliner - it may be a long time before NASA is OK with letting that thing approach their station.

[Phil1111 908]

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin sues NASA, escalating its fight for a Moon lander contract

Evidently the brotherly love for space is gone.

[murps2000 86]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/faa-bans-virgin-galactic-launches-probing-branson-trip-rcna1882
 

Looks like Virgin Galactic is grounded for a while.