My hesitation with the first part of this take (not defending the guy) is that there isn’t really an economic reason to get people to Mars. If the goal was asteroid mining, that might be different.

They also recondense a lot of Methane instead of just venting or burning it.

I understand that some level of contract protests and lawfare is normal. I think their actions like patent and launch pad disputes that just slow down the competition leave a bad taste. Their HLS infographic era was pretty pathetic. Selling ULA engines then turning around and competing with them was underhanded (but predictable). And, personally, without getting into details, they were a pain to deal with when I worked at a component subcontractor.

I think my feeling in general is just that they’ve talked so much big game for so long for no good reason and are just annoying and hard for me to root for.

SpaceX underbidding HLS is a murky one, because they were developing Starship already. There’s no way BO was building their HLS without the contract.

Hmm, Wikipedia says they both go down to 40%. Maybe they’re just being more cautious.

I’m fine with more suppliers hitting the market, especially if they’re working on reuse. New Glenn 1st stage reuse will be helpful if they can get it working. Same with Neutron. And Stoke Nova full reuse.

My issues with BO are more about their whole “business” model being noncompetitive, either through lawsuits or the megabillionaire owner paying for everything and underbidding and winning contracts that should go to real companies, like Rocket Lab, Stoke, Astrobotic, etc.

New Glenn can do a nice, slow, inefficient, boring, regular hover for landing instead of a suicide burn

And the same week as 5 Falcons

first launch 2025

I’ll believe it when I see it

idk if I want to be in a club with Astra

“First try” annoys me because of all the scrubs I stayed up to watch. More like “first launch”.

Absolutely disgusting.

If they wanted to, I bet they could pretty easily make a disposable upper stage and fairing to start deploying Starlinks. And whatever else.

Well that isn’t fully and rapidly reusable. Goddamn. I was starting to feel better about booster reuse soon. Maybe that’s still the case, but, man, what the hell is this.

“Boat has been cleared” seems ominous.

I kind of wish they would ignore boats and let them hang out there at their own risk. Or just fine then a ton of money but not delay for them.

Transporters are so much fun.

I love seeing the infrastructure companies make progress, like the tugs (2 from DeOrbit, 1 from Impulse) and return capsules from Varda and Inversion.

It’s also cool to see these lower launch costs and increased accessibility, like for Pixxel’s Indian hyperspectral sats and SatRev’s non-Earth imaging.

The Mark Rober sat… I’m not the target audience, but, hey, maybe that’ll inspire some kids.

Unfortunately a seagull caught B1085

Good thing both build sites have the same safety policies

When will NSF get a webcam on it?