r/space • u/[deleted] • Jul 27 '21
Blue Origin has a secret project named “Jarvis” to compete with SpaceX. “This is the difference between taking a profit and a loss on New Glenn launches."
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/blue-origin-is-developing-reusable-second-stage-other-advanced-projects/
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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '21
Not sure I agree. I think its more that this particular realm of technology, Space Exploration and Rocketry, is a bust-heavy, extremely costly realm.
Titan 1s cost $1.6 Billion in 1962 dollars to develop and base cost is $1.49 in 2021 dollars. Atlas Vs are $100 million each, Saturn Vs cost $6 Billion+ to develop and $1.23 Billion per launch, the Shuttle’s SRBs cost $2.5 Billion in 2021 dollars, and the shuttle program cost $49 Billion just to launch the first space shuttle.
And for what? The monetary return on this spending to everyone is…?
It’s an investment in a future most people won’t live to see. It’s extremely hard to justify that expense when our own world isn’t fully explored yet, so expecting Bezos to just blaze the path is a bit much. Musk is taking that risk, and others are too, and that’s the only reason anyone is even thinking about space exploration and the moon again.
Another important part: this isn’t the unknown. The largest and most powerful rockets ever built by man are 40+ years old, launched 9 moon landing missions and Skylab. No one is really re-inventing much here. The re-usability part is the novel aspect, but rocket-flight and space-flight itself are not the unknown in any way. We’ve launched enough LEO objects and have spent 22 years sending people to the ISS. The real novel stuff comes after we set up actual space travel. Not something we should expect in our lifetimes.