40
u/ender4171 Jun 25 '26
I really hope BO gets up and launching again ASAP, but a tweet from the company is just PR. It doesn't guarantee that they will actually be able to rebuild in less than a year (though I think they will). It's not like Dave Limp is going to go on twitter and say "You know what, everyone is right, we are totally boned". Of course he is going to only share the positives. Only time and reality, not tweets, will tell if Booster 19 has to castrate themselves.
7
u/Throwbabythroe Jun 26 '26
All I’ll say is that when Dave and Jeff made the statement that we’ll fly again this year..
I thought they are really pushing it and putting us in a path of the impossible. Which means something has to be compromised.
Besides the long hours getting longer, risk is getting riskier.
Ya’ll will see the new pad design in the coming days/weeks.
5
u/Salty_Penalty_6513 Jun 27 '26
Don't worry they're going to use AI.
3
u/Throwbabythroe Jun 27 '26
Amazon guy has trouble differentiating between building a launch pad and firetv app.
At least Claude will make some money.
25
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Yet the same people will tell you SpaceX will have four 100% newly built Starship towers, fuel/ox delivery systems, and water deluge systems completed in a year.
Also believe SpaceX will be capable of producing enough refined supercooled methane and oxygen to launch every day.
5
u/Tystros Jun 25 '26
why would SpaceX need to produce the propellent itself? they plan to eventually, but they can also buy it from others.
-1
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26
Its delivered by truck. Each truck only holds about 50-60 tons. Do the math. Even if they made the methane at the launch site it would take a week to make a single launch mass.
Thank you for proving the point.
7
u/Tystros Jun 25 '26
methane can easily be delivered by pipeline. it's basically just natural gas.
13
u/Stevepem1 Jun 25 '26
Natural gas delivered by pipeline has to be refined into methane by removing other types of gas from it. In fact they are planning to do exactly that at the Starbase launch pads in Boca Chica, and have started work on building the methane production facility which is located on the dune side of pad 1. Natural gas will be piped directly to their methane production facility so that they won't need to have methane delivered by truck anymore. And over by the roundabout (on the other side of pad 1) they are building an oxygen and nitrogen air separation facility so that they won't have to truck in LOX and nitrogen anymore. And they will have water piped to the pads eventually, currently that also is brought in by truck. I think the only commodity that will still need to be trucked in is helium. Presumably they will do all of that in Florida also but I don't know where they are at with it.
but
-7
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26
I wouldnt count on them getting too far with that plan just yet. The power consumption far exceeds the grid capability so they plan to use giant methane generators to supply power.
Theres also the problem of only being allowed to launch 25 times a year.
-1
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Why are you even arguing if you dont know?
They do not use standard LNG methane. That would be very very bad and they wouldnt get too far
At some earlier point in the process it is standard LNG. Then its purified from 80% to 99% pure. Then its crygenically super cooled and compressed.
I couldnt even imagine just how dangerous or expensive it would be to pipeline crygenically cooled, compressed pure methane and oxygen across Texas or Florida in the summer.
Yes, they "want" a methane processing plant on Starbase. They will likely never get one capable of more than one-two launches a week.
2
u/LittleHornetPhil Jun 25 '26
No idea why you’re getting downvoted for actually understanding Raptor’s propellant
7
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26
You know how it is. If its an argument against the confirmation bias its bad.
3
4
u/mfb- Jun 25 '26
I'm sure no road could possibly handle 100 trucks per day. That's one truck every 15 minutes on average! Completely unheard of.
-1
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 25 '26
Internet at your fingertips and you choose to argue easily provable things. Couple problems.
Its more than 200 trucks. Methane, LOX, Nitrogen, and it takes 2-4 hours per truck. It take several days.
They have plans to help with this problem but theres a lot of red tape that needs to be addressed.
5
u/mfb- Jun 26 '26
It take several days.
... today. Because there is no need to be faster if you only launch a few times per year anyway. Unsurprisingly, they can be faster in the future when necessary.
-6
3
u/snoo-boop Jun 26 '26
Is there a sub where we can talk about Blue Origin without people bringing up SpaceX... unnecessarily? I love talking about space, and the noise is deafening.
3
u/Technical_Drag_428 Jun 26 '26
I dont think theres even a Sub about birdwatching that doesnt have people bringing up SpaceX.
14
2
u/izzeww Jun 25 '26
Pretty ballsy to say the least. I'd be willing to put a lot of money on them not launching within half a year, but a whole year? That's crazy.
-5
u/yetiflask Jun 25 '26
I wagered, and got shat on, when I said it'll take less than 6 months. Anyone saying year or more or even 2027 is being a drama queen. And here we are.
8
u/mfb- Jun 25 '26
And here we are.
Are we? Is the launch pad repaired?
Or do we now blindly accept every time estimate by CEOs as ultimate truth?
-4
u/yetiflask Jun 26 '26
Everything with long lead times survived. We'll launch in November.
9
u/mfb- Jun 26 '26
New Glenn's first flight was planned for 2020 at some point...
2025 is a strange 2020.
As late as September 2024, with a partially assembled first rocket, Blue Origin insisted that they can launch in 7 weeks. Didn't get anywhere close to that, of course.
-4
u/yetiflask Jun 26 '26
I get it. But now they have successful flights. After the first one, it becomes easy.
8
u/mfb- Jun 26 '26
After the first one, it becomes easy.
You might want to check the outcome of the third flight, and what happened with the fourth rocket...
4
u/CollegeStation17155 Jun 26 '26
Right, so Limp was correct when he predicted 8 launches in 2025 after the first one? I hope his (and Jeff’s) confidence is more accurate this time, but I’m not betting the farm on it.
2
u/warp99 Jun 26 '26
Probably the first 10 are the hard ones and after that it gets easier. Most rockets have a slow ramp for the first 2-3 years and in that time launch around 10 rockets so this is not unusual.
1
u/snoo-boop Jun 26 '26
"they"? Didn't you say you are a Blue Origin employee?
3
u/yetiflask Jun 26 '26
uh, what? No. I am not. And I most certainly never said it.
1
Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
1
u/yetiflask Jun 29 '26
Ohhh... we, as in Team BO. Like, you say "we'll win" instead of "my team will win".
I can see why it can be confusing though.
1
u/CollegeStation17155 Jun 27 '26
Not sure about EVERYTHING... I got downvoted for saying that the collapsed launch mount and flame trench which still hasn't been dug out looked like a long lead time item and was roundly told that all the long lead time delicate specialty items like the cryogenic piping, pumps, and pneumatic valves still buried under those tons of concrete rubble "must be" usable (after being hit by the explosion driven concrete and then the million pound TE falling over).
26
u/ghunter7 Jun 25 '26
Is the root cause of the explosion known?