Blue Origin Is Planning To Open New Launch Sites Outside the US - Slashdot

Posted by BeauHD

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  Blue Origin have yet to launch anything into orbit they are still at the what goes up must come down stage.

  • Kazakhstan

    They could launch tourists from Kazakhstan:)

    • Re: Kazakhstan

      They realized that no amount of strategic congressional placement of facilities can bridge their tech gap. They are going to try and swindle the Europeans.

  • Re:

    Well, as the old saying goes, there is no place like home. Planet Earth is Blue Origin's home and they want to stay at home. What's wrong with that?

• The environmental regulations are so strict that you can't do anything anymore in the EU, let alone shoot tourists for fun into the air.

  • The environmental regulations are so strict that you can't do anything anymore in the EU, let alone shoot tourists for fun into the air.

    Ariane rockets are launched from French Guiana. Europe is too far north for launches. Are EU regulations for places outside of Europe the same as for European soil?

    • Re:

      Russians seem to manage with Baikonur which is about the same latitude as Lyon, plenty of places in the EU that are closer to the equator than that, including ones where the launch path would be over water.

    • Re:

      Most of Europe is indeed too far north to efficiently (delta-V wise) launch GEO or GTO payloads, but it's certainly fine for other thinks like polar, LEO, and other non-stationary orbits. The problem is that Ariane 5 has one more luanch and it's done. Ariane 6 is still in the normal Europe little-country discussions where everyone wants to change the recipe of the soup, so they haven't even settled on whether it will be resuable, partially reusable, or just bigger than the previous fails. Expect no launc

• They would have a better chance of catching up to their 'rival' SpaceX if they started to launch satellites into orbit sometime. Right now SpaceX has an infinite head start.

  Its like a championship winning sports team vs one that has only played a couple friendly matches.

  • Re:

    I would hazard a guess that they are looing to Europe to avoid competition with SpaceX. By launching in Europe they can offer services that for whatever reason need to launched from European soil.

    • 1 hidden comment

    • • It's cheaper in French Guiana due to the Earth's tangential speed there. Nothing to do with politics.

        • 2 hidden comments

        • Re:

          There is no contradiction; French Guyana is EU soil (see the list of Outermost Regions of the EU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ). Blue Origin could set up business for EU customers from French Guyana (Kourou 5N); or from the Canary Islands (Tenerife 28N) at the same latitude as their current installations of Cape Canaveral.

      • Re:

        It's also about the whole not having to launch over populated areas thing. They picked on launch site that lets them hit GEO, Polar, etc from one spot.

      • Re:

        French Guiana is European, as in EU, soil.

    • Re:

      They're already avoiding competing with SpaceX... they're not competing with anyone.

      Maybe their plan is to get into the launch site business? Sad to wind up as a glorified realtor and land squatter

• • Re:

    ^ THIS ^

    Blue Origin has proven they can get their little hopper off the ground more than once and into near-Earth space above the von Karman line...

    ...but Blue Origin has yet to prove they can do anything truly challenging like delivering a payload to the ISS or placing a satellite into a geosync'd Earth orbit.

    After all, how much business will there truly be in space tourism ? Just ask the folks over at Virgin.

• Like just about every other company, they will wait until the day before the concrete sets on the launchpad before thinking about getting some rockets to launch from it, then be totally surprised that the rockets cannot be designed, built and flown on the same day.

  • Re:

    Company with 16 launch pads and 0 orbital class rockets cannot figure out where they went wrong.
• ...Woody!
  
  Something tells me he's looking for a remote, hollowed out volcano on an uninhabited island to launch his rockets from. Mwahahaha!

• I mean, maybe polar from somewhere on the Norwegian coast?

  Not sure there is a spot for going to GEO type orbits - you gonna try to launch from the east cost of Spain and drop things in the Mediterranean?

  Can't see the point for there tourist flights - if the folks can afford the launch, they can afford to fly to the US for those.

• "Amazon's Project Kuiper also plans to use Blue Origin's rocket New Glenn for at least 12 launches between 2024 and 2029" is a joke. Just over 2 launches per year is not enough to get a constellation going.

  SpaceX has averaged more than one launch per week over the past two years. That is why Amazon has been trying to win in the courts, since they certainly can't win from the launchpad.

• New Sheppard probably won't fall under ITAR as it's strictly a suborbital launch vehicle. New Glenn will fall under ITAR export restriction.

  • Re:

    I'm fairly sure ITAR restrictions apply irrespective of orbital capability, ICBMs are suborbital and ITAR covers lots of short range rocket tech as well.