Ashlee Vance spills the beans on the secret exciting life of space startups Bloomberg journalist and former Register vulture Ashlee Vance has finished a five-year in-depth investigation into Earth's potentially multi-trillion-dollar private space industry, which will be published in the form of his upcoming book: When The Heavens Went On Sale. His previous tome was the best-selling biography of Elon …
Well, except those whole pesky BE-4 things...
Anyway, not sure one can accurately claim that "the orbital launcher is stalled" when:
1) There was an incident last year (Sep 19, 2022, flight NS-23) which grounded that project for investigation (as it should). So is SpaceX "stalled", because Starship/Extra-Bangy-Booster is grounded for investigation, too...
2) NASA handed Blue Origin a New Glenn launch for a Mars launch in 2024 (-ish, obviously), and they did this in February of this year (Feb 10, to be exact).
Blue Origin is generally very, very quiet about most of what they do, unlike the Chief Twit's outfit, but that doesn't mean they aren't doing things!
One player that seems to be a bit of a dark horse in the business is Blue Origin. Because they aren't specifically targeting commercial satellite work, their efforts are either under-reported or pooh-poohed -- the Shatner/Bezos edge-of-space thing being an example; much was made of the "didn't really get to space" aspect, and significantly less on the "safely launched and recovered a 90 year 6 month old dude while not destroying large parts of Texas" thing. And that wasn't a fluke, either: Shatner at 90.5 beat the record set by Wally Funk at 82, also on a New Shepard, who in turn beat John Glenn at age 77, on a Shuttle (and a Mercury, but he wasn't 77 at the time!).
Which is a nice segue to note that it will be interesting to see New Glenn fly, theoretically late next year... oddly enough, at roughly the same time as our return to the moon (on SLS/Artemis II, and not landing).
When pressed, they dismiss the risk of a Kessler syndrome. That's a red flag, hyping the potential while dismissing risks. There are a few examples of planning to account for or reduce the impact of an exponential debris problem, such as SpaceX and at least one other designing their LEO satellites so they'll experience re entry within five years or less, as well as operating in a low enough orbit the debris will also de orbit due to friction, or claiming they'll simply launch replacements as fast as they degrade since their satellites are so cheap. But this feels very much like head in the sand wishful thinking/ intentionally ignoring consequences we can't model very well. When the number of launched satellites is going up exponentially, some by companies that have risk of going under, some by companies or groups that are taking a move fast break things mentality, I can't imagine we're not going to collectively need to clean up the mess within a decade. It could close out certain orbital planes entirely for decades, even the lower ones they claim could clean themselves up. It all depends on the details of the debris field/cascade, which we won't know until we experience it. It would be nice to not have to experience it...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
