
Blue Moon - goshx
http://blueorigin.com/blue-moon
======
dang
[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-
moon...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-moon-lunar-
lander.html) has more information.

(Via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19872667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19872667),
which we'll merge into this thread.)

------
patagonia
It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space,
rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has
certainly made it boring.

You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with
the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear.
We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years.
Fusion? 1) It’s gonna be raw resources and real estate, not energy, that we
run out of first. 2) Amazon, the company, is doing all it can to reap profits
at the expense of the environment with seemingly no regards for the health of
the real Amazon and other natural treasures. 3) Amazon, the company, is a
primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with
such as poverty, so that argument falls flat. Not to mention the whole
presentation managed to avoid mentioning SpaceX explicitly and ended with a
self-referencing “Big things have small beginnings” photo of Bezos, kinda
sadly insecure.

I for one don’t want to live in a “manufactured” world that is “manufactured”
by Amazon. My head just kept going to “Amazon Prime Planet”!! My god it will
be efficient, cheap, on time, and chock full of externalities that we can all
ignore because instead of being off-shored and hidden in warehouses, now
they’ll be off-planet. This is how we get the dystopian future none of us
deserve or want.

(edit: Also, did Bezos just rip off the tag line from Prometheus, a movie
whose central thesis is the inherent dangers in attempting to engineer life
and worlds!? Bezos: “Big things start small.” Prometheus: “Big things have
small beginnings.”

~~~
8draco8
Amazon is not saint but market hates vacuum. If Amazon wouldn't exist then
other, smaller companies would fill it's space. That would probably mean more
people employed but environmental footprint would be much greater. It may look
bad if you study Amazon carbon footprint etc. but if not them then someone
else would be doing all that pollution and most likely in far less efficient
way.

~~~
kerkeslager
What's your point? That doesn't make it okay. Amazon could and should pollute
less.

~~~
8draco8
My point is that Amazon is polluting less than multiple small companies doing
Amazon job. Should they pollute less? Yes. Are they polluting less than
others? Also yes. You see grand total numbers of pollution created by Amazon
and compare them to other companies and those numbers are terrible, the issue
is that Amazon, one company, is pretty much whole industry and should be
considered as such. It's like comparing USA pollution to Cameroon. In raw
numbers USA will be far worst, on the other hand, per capita numbers are not
so nice on Cameroon side of things.

TL;DR Amazon is not ideal but still much better than it could be.

------
Robotbeat
I'm honestly underwhelmed. This is not more capability than Apollo (uncrewed
variant of whose lander could land about 5 tons). A really high deck making
egress difficult. Apparently expendable. Given Blue Origin's resources, they
should be shooting far higher.

There's a bunch of small companies pursuing expendable lunar landers of
similar capabilities. I worry Blue Origin will just crowd them out.

A reusable upper stage or reusable lander (or both) would be more interesting
and more important. Bezos is/was the richest man and Blue origin is given
roughly a billion dollars of capital every year, and a relatively modest
expendable lunar lander is their big announcement? And even that they may have
difficulty executing on in a timely manner.

I don't think Blue Origin can't do this. I just think it's far too modest of a
goal for a company with free rein over a billion dollars in additional annual
capital.

...and I'm also skeptical of mass drivers (of the typical type) and lunar
mining. Plenty of shade thrown at Mars, but Mars has vastly more resources.

Additionally, the architecture of the lander is disappointing. A crasher stage
(ala the Surveyor spacecraft which used a kick stage for deorbiting) for most
of descent would be far more efficient. It'd allow a much smaller and cheaper
descent stage and much lower to the ground, making egress much easier.

~~~
azernik
Of _course_ it's less capable than Apollo - we don't have anywhere _near_ the
lift capability of Saturn V anymore, and this program's budget is a rounding
error in the $200B (inflation-adjusted) that went into Apollo.

I think people underestimate just how insane the investment was in that
program: in the neighborhood of 0.25% of GDP for a decade.

~~~
peterlk
I think most people (myself included) do not understand how much technological
improvement costs.

Anecdote: I once had a conversation with a guy who worked at ITER, and he was
pretty bullish (and he had no reason to bullshit me) on the prospect of fusion
as a viable energy source, but frustrated with the internal politics of ITER.
So I asked, "well, what would it take? If I could call up a bunch of rich
people to get funding, how much would it take?" He casually said, "oh,
probably 1.2 to 1.5 trillion dollars". And then I understood why it was a
multinational conglomerate that was funding it, and not a bunch of rich
people.

~~~
rak00n
2016 estimation for the project was $20B [1]. Your number is over 50 times
larger.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-15/world-
s-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-15/world-s-biggest-
science-experiment-seeks-more-time-and-money)

~~~
neuronic
The number is $20B for a "technology of the future" project because if you
would propose a number 20x larger the project would never get started.

How are you going to justify $1.2 _trillion_ to tax payers for something
ephemeral that might work or not, all while their kids cannot get toilet paper
in school?

$20bn is kind of "normal" in government spending and those numbers are quickly
forgotten.

On the other hand, the yearly US defense budget is already half of that amount
and the loud voices do not care.

------
ChuckMcM
I was waiting for this announcement. It is unclear to me how "real" this is;
Bezo's claims they can meet the timeline of people on the moon in 2024. Since
they aren't flying a heavy booster like the Delta IV heavy or the Falcon Heavy
yet, and those platforms took about 10 years to go from concept to first
flight. Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. Perhaps he's
considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the first stage booster and building
the upper stage{s} himself. Either way, its great to have someone pushing for
more progress.

The second successful FHeavy flight cut into the potential demand for New
Glenn so the challenge is to remain relevant while building nation-state level
infrastructure. Exciting to watch!

~~~
hodder
Unlike Elon Musk, Bezos has a tendency to set more accurate timelines.

This is not to say that Space X’s achievements are not incredible. They are.
It is just that Elon Musk projection timelines are pretty much always bunk,
while Jeff Bezos seems to be better at projecting achievement timelines.

Again, what Space X and Blue Origin have achieved are incredible, and yes
Space X has an entirely different set of technology that is capable of sending
huge payloads to deep space...

I’m just saying Musk’s timelines are completely unreliable. Bezos’ aren’t
(historically).

~~~
mlindner
Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done. Bezos still hasn't done
anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004 (and that carried people, unlike
their current rocket). Their little hopper rocket is leagues away from a
proper orbital vehicle. Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their
first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos.

That's not to mention all the blatant patent trolling and lobbying that Blue
Origin/Bezos is engaged in which constantly tries to hinder SpaceX. (Ex:
Trying to patent landing on a barge to stop SpaceX doing it. Ex: Successfully
lobbying several congresspeople to delay down selection of launch vehicles for
military launches (but failed to delay it).)

Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.

~~~
tracer4201
>Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done.

As a betting gal, I disagree.

source: $2MM investment in Amazon from back in 2014 has performed extremely
well. Stock price isn’t exactly a golden metric, but Bezos knows how and what
to prioritize and when to deliver. I would trust Bezos over Elon Musk with
real money any day.

Your post makes it appear as if Bezos is devoting the majority of his time to
one specific company or venture, and therefore not being the industry leader
is some sort of failure. That’s extremely short sighted from my perspective.

The little hopper rocket you described is a better investment from my
perspective than anything Musk touches. Hell, if all Bezos had was a literal
tin can and merely a promise of using material from that tin can as part of a
lunar lander 10 years out, I would still put more faith in Bezos.

My only experience with Tesla is with purchasing a Model S, which was
horrible. I no longer have that vehicle. Good riddance.

~~~
icelancer
Amazon is not Blue Origin. SpaceX is not Tesla. The Musk/Bezos comparison is
regarding spaceflight. And in that regard:

>> Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.

The parent comment is definitely correct. Unless you mean patent trolling.
Then Bezos has Musk crushed.

------
muricula
Blue origin can't build a moon rocket by 2024, so maybe they can settle for
the lander. Here's the vision I bet they're aiming for: a Spacex rocket, a
United Launch Alliance capsule, a Blue Origin lander, and a round of pork
barrel in every Congressional district.

~~~
johnvega
I'm seeing a lot of exponential technology. If Jeff B. takes more risk and
focus, it could be possible. We'll see.

~~~
elamje
Not sure why you got downvoted

~~~
simonh
What on earth is exponential technology?

~~~
OHNO_PIGONS
i think it's a buzz word for things that people think will gain internet scale
cycle of development, one thing begetting another.

------
agildehaus
I'm all for anything that gets us back to the Moon, but this clearly feels
underwhelming versus Starship.

It'd also be good if they got to orbit prior to marketing these grand plans.
Gradatim Ferociter indeed.

~~~
mikeash
I’m glad to see a different approach. SpaceX has the “outrageously audacious”
space well covered. It’s good to have a competitor working on something more
incremental in case it turns out that the giant leap isn’t viable.

~~~
TimTheTinker
Blue Origin is somewhat like the Waymo of space tech. They'll continue
plodding methodically, indefinitely. And you can bet their safety/reliability
record will be nigh near perfect.

Yes, Waymo is the market leader in self-driving technology (unlike Blue
Origin). And there's currently no analogue to SpaceX in the self-driving car
market. The incredible, complementary leadership duo that Musk and Shotwell
present is unparalleled in both markets.

~~~
drusepth
>And there's currently no analogue to SpaceX in the self-driving car market.

Isn't... Tesla analogous to SpaceX in the self-driving car market?

~~~
azernik
Nope.

SpaceX has a working product that is eating its competitors' lunch (from a
nothing company to having almost half the launch market within 10 years).

Tesla doesn't have a self-driving product that works, just standard assisted-
driving tech that every other car company already sells, plus dangerously
overpromising marketing.

------
macmac
Why does everything BO build have to be so fugly? Don't they care, are they
not good enough that they can make it pretty and achieve their technical goals
at the same time or are there hard constraints that dictate the ugliness?

~~~
mitchtbaum
classic trilemma,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilemma)

good, beautiful, real

~~~
macmac
Yeah, but then SpaceX.

------
hanoz
Have I missed a lot of news recently, or is this some strange usage of the
present tense that I wasn't previously aware of?

~~~
AlanSE
Having come from nuclear engineering, I'd say it's pretty typical for people
speaking of large conceptual engineering designs. Paper reactors, paper
spaceships, etc. are often spoken of in present tense. The design exists now
and it has a name - that's the way I interpret it.

------
joemaller1
Disappointed there wasn't an Amazon box in the payload illustration.

------
cwkoss
I'd like to see us put two return rockets on the moon. Would increase the
safety factor of all future manned missions significantly if a crash landing
wouldn't necessarily mean death.

If you could safely verify the return vehicle is ready to go before sending
the people, you could potentially use a one-way lander, vastly decreasing
launch weight.

~~~
mLuby
Better safety factor would be having such regular visits that there's already
another vessel in the area that can divert to assist.

------
apendleton
[https://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7](https://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7)
has a bit more information about the new engine, since there's basically none
in the article. Looks like a small, restartable, low-thrust LH2/LOX engine
meant for in-space use.

~~~
Symmetry
They say it's an expander cycle, given the ISP I assume a closed cycle
expander rather than the open cycle expander they're using as the BE-3U.

------
InTheArena
So the question is going to be if you can lift this with a Falcon Heavy, given
that New Glenn isn't even close to ready, and while the pace that Blue origin
moves at is awesome compared to traditional space vendors, it's way behind
where it needs to be for this, and where SpaceX is today.

------
Aeolun
Is there anyone else that feels like Blue Origin actually has a chance of
making their own timelines, as opposed to SpaceX?

Don’t get me wrong, I love SpaceX, but the down to earth way in which Blue
Origin appears to be working also appeals to me.

~~~
PHGamer
but hasnt spacex done more? i feel like blue origin is actually behind.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Considering the amount of money Bezos has, Blue Origin is far far behind. They
only achieved suborbital flights with low-speed reentry landings.

------
thrden
If this is a lander what will they use to deliver the lander to lunar orbit?
I'll admit I don't follow this sort of news very closely, but it seems quite
exciting.

~~~
mlindner
They'll launch this paper lander on their paper rocket (New Glenn). Nothing
exciting here because there's no hardware being built yet.

~~~
DennisP
Considering they plan to fire the engine this summer, they seem to be building
something.

------
_Microft
Welp, then _I_ am going to say it: it looks underwhelming, both in capability
and looks.

6.5t of soft-landed payload to surface of moon and 2.5kW of power via fuel
cells if Twitter can be trusted. A grand vision of O'Neill cylinders and
whatever in space is nice but how? _How?_ Less _gradatim_ and more _ferociter_
would be nice.

~~~
Stratoscope
Do looks matter for a lunar lander?

Of course it doesn't look as good as the awesome streamlined rocketship
concept art I grew up with in the 1950s, I will grant you that.

~~~
stcredzero
_Of course it doesn 't look as good as the awesome streamlined rocketship
concept art I grew up with in the 1950s, I will grant you that._

While SpaceX's concept for Starship does look that awesome. (In the form of
animations and concept art, not in the form of steel water tower construction
blown over on its side.)

~~~
lutorm
Starship looks like it does because it has to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. If
you don't, aerodynamic shells are just dead weight.

------
lorenzorhoades
There seems to be alot of hate here that blue orgin is not 'shooting high
enough'. This will get 'America' back to the moon and this is a great thing!
Congrats to Blue Orgin team, and I wish them all the luck.

------
twic
I'll take soft-serve over a soft landing any day:

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/blue-moon-ice-cream-
midwe...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/blue-moon-ice-cream-midwest-
mystery)

~~~
libria
Blue Moon Brewing is also having a ball w/ this
[https://twitter.com/BlueMoonBrewCo/status/112661146722524774...](https://twitter.com/BlueMoonBrewCo/status/1126611467225247744)

------
electriclove
Nice to see some advancements coming to landers from the private sector. Hope
they will be able to work with other parties and move the technology forward
and make it cheaper.

------
mediocrejoker
I didn't think Blue Origin had even put something in orbit yet. How feasible
is this?

------
lalos
Anybody willing to bet he will announce building an 'Amazon Sphere' like
structure in the moon? Feel like that project was an experiment for later use
on his other endeavors but using Amazon's deep pockets to pay for it.

~~~
Aeolun
That’d be some office.

------
Rebelgecko
I'm confused. Does this actually exist yet?

The linked page says things like "Blue Moon _is_ a flexible lander", and "Blue
Moon can land multiple metric tons of payload on the lunar surface". Is there
any actual hardware? Or is it entirely CAD drawings and renderings? They seem
to be implying that the hardware currently exists and is ready to go
(presumably for the Pence/Trump 2024 mandate), but the videos and pictures
don't seem consistent with that.

Edit: I found a bit more info elsewhere [1]. They built a nice nonfunctional
model of it. It sounds like it's relatively early in development, let alone
integration. They'll start testing the engines in the next few months. This
sort of hyperbolic marketing copy that abuses verb tenses and grammar is a
huge pet peeve of mine.

[1]: [https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-
lander/](https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-lander/)

~~~
shanxS
It's Amazon's way of working. Starting from PR/FAQ and working backwards.

~~~
libria
Err well publishing the PR while it's still vaporware is not the Amazon way.

~~~
shanxS
I don't mean it as shortcoming for Amazon. Their way of working have brought
them quite far.

As for proving my point: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-Amazons-approach-to-
product-de...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-Amazons-approach-to-product-
development-and-product-management?ref=http://www.product-frameworks.com/)

------
markdown
OT, but their web dev is an inconsiderate jerk.
[https://i.imgur.com/OCpESVs.png](https://i.imgur.com/OCpESVs.png)

~~~
sixothree
I am still surprised by how often devs put full size images into thumbnails.

~~~
jacobush
I have yet to gotten used to that 500x500 pictures are "thumbnail". I
unconsciously expect them to be 32x32 or something... :-D

------
mLuby
I would rather see two engines with enough TWR and gimbaling to be able to
lift off with one failure. Plus then you can place the payload between them
and not mess around with cranes.

.O##O.

/^[$]^\

------
njarboe
Nice to see some private LH2/LOX propulsion being developed, but I was hoping
to see some pictures of some real hardware, not just simulations.

------
colinthompson
Nitpick: the miss-alignment of the rendered shadow with the direction of
shadows in the surface photos they comp over is maddening.

------
justinator
This whole mini-site looks like an extremely audacious undergrad aerospace
engineering group project.

Except when I was an undergrad, it was all about going to _Mars_.

~~~
justinator
Also the city I live in doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it
has a "homeless" problem. The planet I live on also doesn't have a, "how to
get to the Moon" problem, it has a climate change problem, a pollution
problem, a corrupt political system problem.

We've got lots of Hard Problems to solve before we need to go back to the
Moon.

~~~
thomasmarriott
Exactly — THE WAY OUT IS UP:

[https://marriottexpeditions.org/finalmarket](https://marriottexpeditions.org/finalmarket)

~~~
thomasmarriott
"At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the
support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities."

------
jhacker123
Now everyone want to bet on future of future, but they forget the real problem
like global warming (it's just one example its so many). Steve jobs have
vision which is based on reality and solve the real world problem. Hope
someone in tech industry solve the real problem instead problem which is never
exists.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Many of us are working on it. It's a very difficult problem because so many
aspects of the carbon economy are intertwined and baked into culture now. The
"halo" effect around petroleum is extremely strong and disincents many
incremental advances. Could be solved top-down with a carbon tax but that's a
big change and beneficiaries status quo have more of an advantage the bigger
the system change being attempted.

However many people are trying and failing anyway, and that creates a bed of
appropriate technologies that eventually will stand on their own, and perhaps
not _too_ much slower than a top-down solution would work.

------
algaeontoast
When is the accompanying AWS service announcement for MoonDeliveryAsAService?

------
gdsdfe
wait how can they claim having precise landing etc. if the thing have never
been tested? did they land it on the moon before ?

~~~
sidcool
Testing here on Earth could give them some idea I believe.

------
chrstphrhrt
Epic vid, great audible sounds of space ;s

------
jordz
Hmm, no https?

~~~
shanxS
It's https now.

~~~
elamje
Still not https on my browser. Have the dns records updated yet?

------
cerealbad
at the rate this is progressing there won't be a permanent moon habitat until
the 22nd century. probably a good thing since space humans will need to be
genetically modified and quarantined for life.

------
pier25
Astronauts train for years before going to space. Do these space tourism
companies pretend that anyone with enough cash can do it?

~~~
marstomorrow
Elon's stated goal re: astronauts and training is that the technology should
be sufficiently simplified to let anyone go up with minimal training. The idea
of a heavily-trained astronaut is old, and the new thinking is that the people
going to space should be able to spend their time up their doing whatever it
is they are good at - even if just vacationing - rather than learning how to
fly spacecraft etc.

I know this is a Jeff Bezos / Blue Origin article, but I would fully expect
the same to be true here. Jeff has stated multiple times that he sees millions
of people moving to space stations for work and general life. Earth should be
left void of manufacturing and mining and things, which could be moved to
space (and asteroids, etc) leaving Earth to be more of a natural environment
for life to thrive.

~~~
pier25
I imagine that's the end goal but I have a hard time believing we will be
there in just a few years.

Time will tell.

~~~
elihu
A big part of astronaut training is knowing how to fly the craft and knowing
what to do if something breaks. If the machine is automatically controlled and
reliable, you don't need as much training. (Maybe they'll send a trained
person or two along with the tourists?)

~~~
hammock
Not sure I follow that logic. More automation might mean you won't have to use
your training _as much,_ but how does it mean less training? In the event all
the automation fails you still have to know everything an astronaut would need
to know were there no automation.

~~~
zlsa
For Starship, there's absolutely no way a human could fly it anyway. Even if
it weren't fly-by-wire, a human could not control the drag fins and the
engines precisely enough to land safely. Even on Crew Dragon, which will
(hopefully) fly in the near future with crew onboard, there isn't a hardware
joystick. If the vehicle fails to the point where the computers aren't
working, your only option is to deorbit. These spacecraft weren't intended to
be flown manually.

