Blue Origin reveals designs for moon landing technology

Once again Bezos succeeds in upstaging Musk.
Nice to know that there's some competition in the new space race keeping things varied and versatile.

Apparently they've been researching and developing lander technology for 3 years.
(including a few links in case filters prevent folks from seeing a couple)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-moon-lunar-lander.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/science/jeff-bezos-moon.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-moon-lunar-lander-2019-5

Going back to the lunar south pole to get water/ice for space exploration is an idea whose time has come.

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-lander/

Nytrunner said:

Once again Bezos succeeds in upstaging Musk.

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How is announcing plans to go to the moon upstaging Musk, who long ago announced plans to go to Mars? If Bezos gets a rocket in orbit I'll think he's serious about the moon. If he actually lands on the moon he will have upstaged Musk.

What was the other time he did it if you're saying "once again"?

and New Glen is the rocket that will take this lunar lander to the moon? Love seeing Bezos and NASA going to the south pole!

Mushtang said:

What was the other time he did it if you're saying "once again"?

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Leveraging the moon as a resource "lever" and tech proving ground and capitalizing on current administration goals. It's comes off as an idea that's more grounded, attainable, and reasonable than "LETS GO TO MARS NOW!". Great spin campaign

It falls in the same vein as when they revealed the new shepherd vertical landing just before the falcon 9 made it's first successful landing. More Bezos PR machinations.

Those interested in space and understanding of the technology and challenges know that this is cool, but can see through the grand announcements and promises (from BO and the X) and realize that the final form will probably look a bit different than the big concept reveals. But in the meantime Musk and Bezos will do what they can to capture the attention and excitement of the masses

Until Bezos accomplishes anything other than going straight up and down, I will take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt. I find his style of self-promoting unappetizing in that he tends to try to equate his accomplishments to what others, mostly SpaceX, have accomplished. Don't get me wrong I follow BLue Origin closely and watch their launches live, and with as much enthusiasm as SpaceX, but they are not anywhere near a SpaceX yet.

Hopefully, Bezos sticks with it and accomplishes what he promotes, but there is a big difference, as I see it, between him and Musk. I have no doubt Bezons is looking at this from a business exploitation perspective, whereas I believe that Musk's intentions are a bit more altruistic.

It is hard to be excited about an event that was masked with secrecy. No livestream, in 2019, of a mission to the moon? Really? It's hard to compare SpaceX with Blue Origin at this point when Blue Origin is promising this on an engine that hasn't been tested, a rocket that has not flown, and systems that have not been put to the test on anything besides a suborbital New Shepard. New Shepard also cannot be directly compared with the first stage of the Falcon 9. It's much easier to land a rocket that goes straight up and straight down compared to an orbital class rocket booster that achieves a much higher velocity and more complex maneuvers. I wish Blue Origin the best and hope they succeed with their plans, but keeping everything hidden from the public makes it hard for people to actually get behind them and look forward to their future missions. We will see how New Glenn works out once it eventually flies, I hope to see some competition in the market as it will help to boost the transition to more reusable technologies.

Ah, but they aren't selling it to you or I. They're selling to investors and government funders. And having been behind the curtain of private and government space (as well as the other side of the A&D coin) it's sounding like BO is building a sell package that's more palatable then the X's "scrappy engineering", even if the falcon 9 and merlin combo is more proven in real world test. (although the spacex technology that will be attempting to go to mars is pretty immature also)

Could the lander be put on the SLS?

If I was BO, I'd be trying pretty hard to convince NASA it could

Nytrunner said:

It falls in the same vein as when they revealed the new shepherd vertical landing just before the falcon 9 made it's first successful landing.

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Nah. Space-X’s Grasshopper had made plenty of vertical landing tests, which is all BO has done even today, before then. The successful Falcon 9 landing was part of an actual mission and wasn’t a test.

As others have said, I’m looking forward to BO flying some successful missions someday, I hope they do land on the moon, but they’re currently way behind Space-X and haven’t upstaged them in any way yet.

BO just needs to convince ULA to use Federal Pork to buy them out some more.

Mushtang said:

haven’t upstaged them in any way

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I'll have to partially disagree, but fortunately that hasnt been outlawed yet

To you or I? Of course they havent.

To the unfamiliar masses who havent been paying attention to technical development, it's the story (and who tells it better) that matters. Some like the mystery of BO, some like the "transparency" of the X

You'd be surprised what otherwise intelligent people don't know about things they arent interested in. I remember a good friend of mine in '14 saying "Wait, isnt NASA cancelled? The shuttle is all shut down now right, so i thought they dont have anything to do anymore" (and hes still an intelligent capable engineer)

It would really be nice to put the GateWay module away in mothballs. Perhaps, save it for the day when it can be put into a solar orbit as a transfer station to Mars. Then take the money and find the water/ice at the lunar south pole and develop the hardware to harvest the water and produce hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis Then develop the hardware to liquefy the hydrogen and oxygen. Doing all this requires no new concepts, but the off-the-shelf hardware does not exist now.

FYI - Blue Origin had a vertical landing rocket prototype (Goddard) that flew in 2006. Yes, 2006. Six years before SpaceX's Grasshopper first flight.

georgegassaway said:

FYI - Blue Origin had a vertical landing rocket prototype (Goddard) that flew in 2006.

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And 13 years later they're *still* doing tests. Someday they'll get to orbit I guess, and fly missions to the ISS or the moon.

georgegassaway said:

Yes, 2006. Six years before SpaceX's Grasshopper first flight.

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2006 (goddard) to 2015 (new shepherd)

Well, their lander technology should be maturing and useful for planetary landing. Maybe not the reuse of orbital launch vehicles, but there's always time.

It would be interesting to see if the different companies with greater success at different aspects of the mission could, i dunno, cooperate?