Jeff Bezos to give forth at US space symposium Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, will speak at the Space Foundation's 32nd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs on 12 April, sandwiched between appearances by the Air Force Space Command's top man General John E. Hyten, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O Work. The four-day shindig, running from 11-14 April, …
That's exactly what I came to the comments to post - I would have thought the fastest way to avoid the dependence was to just give the existing contracts to somebody who didn't use them.
If only there was an internet billionaire with a space technology company that didn't use the RD-180. They could call the company SpaceEx or something, that would be cool. Like Space Exploration.
I've spent ten minutes on the internet trying to find a concise clarification of what Bezos is on about. No real joy. Some snippets, though:
- The BE-4 is about 3 times more powerful than the Merlin that SpaceX currently use.
- The BE-4 could be used in conjunction with existing NASA rocket stages
- SpaceX have been working on the Raptor, a motor of equivalent power to the BE-4. It is tied up with Musk's plans for Mars, such as possibly running on methane which could be sourced on the Red Planet.
-The BE-4 is further along the development path than the Raptor.
I think SpaceX's approach to that though is just to Kerbal it and slap more engines on. Which seems to be working OK for them. Certainly there have been more successful launches powered by SpaceX engines than Blue Origin ones. And the Merlin has more power than the BE-3 which is Blue Origins existing engine.
I mean I have a design for a rocket engine I've just drawn on a post-it which puts out 350,000GN of thrust, but nobody seems to want to give me any money for it.
Also, Blue Origin is a stupid name. It sounds like a low emissions Hyundai.
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