Opinion - Blue Origin's New Glenn launch ups the ante on the commercial space race

Yahoo

26-01-2025

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin joined the billionaire's space race in earnest when its New Glenn rocket roared from a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in the early morning hours of Jan. 16. The second stage with the Blue Ring payload successfully reached orbit. However, an attempt to land the first stage on a drone ship failed.
Still, the successful launch represents a triumph for the rival rocket company to Elon Musk's SpaceX. It promises to change the economics of space travel, at least in the short term. The success occurred on the first try.
The launch of New Glenn was a long time coming, with development starting as early as 2012. Eric Berger of Ars Technica suggested on X that a leadership change at Blue Origin led to success after a long, plodding process.
'The hiring of Dave Limp as CEO of Blue Origin, and subsequent launch of New Glenn only a little more than a year later, underscores the importance of leadership in aerospace. Multiple sources report a major culture change at Blue vectored toward results.'
The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring an investigation over the failure to land the first stage of the New Glenn before the rocket is allowed to fly again.
Later that day, SpaceX conducted the seventh test of the Starship-SuperHeavy from its launch complex at Boca Chica, Texas. The results were decidedly mixed. The SuperHeavy booster separated from the Starship second stage and returned to the launch pad, caught by the 'chopstick' mechanical arms, mimicking the success achieved in the fifth test of the monster rocket conducted last October.
However, as the Starship fired its engines and proceeded toward orbit, they started shutting down prematurely, followed by telemetry, only for it to be lost altogether. Starship thus reentered the atmosphere in pieces, streaking across the sky over the Turks and Caicos Islands. The sight was eerily similar to what happened to the space shuttle Columbia when it broke apart in the skies over Texas in February 2003. The FAA was obliged to reroute some planes from the danger area.
It should be noted that Starship has incorporated a number of enhancements, making it a completely different vehicle from previous iterations.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on X what the flight controllers found to be the cause of the 'Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly' or explosion. 'Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.'
Musk believes the solution is straightforward. 'Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area,' he wrote. 'Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.'
The FAA may have something to say about that. Past experience tells us from previous mishaps that the regulatory agency will require months of investigation before SpaceX is allowed to fly again. In this case, the FAA has charged SpaceX with conducting the investigation under its supervision. SpaceX will not fly until the agency approves the results and the corrective action,
On the other hand, President Trump, with whom Musk has a close relationship, will have authority over the FAA. Will the investigation be expedited to fit Musk's desire to fly again quickly rather than the business-as-usual of plodding bureaucracy? The Starship, in one form, is designed to take human beings back to the lunar surface before the end of the second Trump presidency. Any long delay would place that goal in doubt.
The first flight of the New Glenn and the seventh flight of the Starship prove that launch vehicle development features spectacular explosions and crashes on the road to becoming operational.
SpaceX has spoiled us with its Falcon family of rockets, launching and then landing with a normality unimagined just a few years ago. It took a lot of failed launches for the company to achieve the reliability and low cost of the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy with a lot of failed launches. The phrase 'failure is not an option' is a misnomer. Each failure is a learning process. Failure is necessary to achieve eventual success.
Success for the Starship and the New Glenn will open the moon, Mars and beyond to human activity. The Starship will land humans on the moon in a few years. New Glenn will launch the Blue Moon lander as an alternative to the SpaceX monster rocket.
The wonders that these two rockets may create are almost beyond evaluation.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
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