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The first attempt to launch a rocket into orbit by Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin will be a big moment for the space business. After the Amazon founder received the go-ahead from US regulators last week, Elon Musk finally appears close to providing a way for humanity to escape Earth’s limits – a once-unthinkable achievement for a single wealthy individual.
Although he already knew Musk SpaceX in two years, Blue origin It has suffered from delays for years. The successful launch of the New Glenn orbital rocket will finally bring passengers to the edge of space from the current limited commercial space, pitting the world’s two richest men against each other and intensifying the private space race.
But Blue Origin’s late emergence comes as the rocket business enters a new phase — one that could be even more hostile to Bezos’ ambitions than it would have been had he made the leap years ago. Most tellingly, Bezos’ potential breakthrough comes as his nemesis reaches unprecedented political heights in Washington. Mook’s closeness to the incoming US president has raised concerns in the tech sector, as rivals worry how his newfound influence could be used against them.
Bezos, meanwhile, has already struggled to keep SpaceX in check politically. After winning the bid to build a lunar lander for NASA, for example, the company warned that the number of contracts Washington could enter into SpaceX could turn it into a monopoly. Nowadays, there seems to be even less official question about that growing power.
Musk’s influence could be crucial in shaping space policy in Trump’s second term. That could include giving SpaceX a more central role in America’s plans to return to the moon — a $30 billion project currently being heavily reliant on the SLS rocket, led by Boeing. SLS has only made one flight so far All signs of a white elephantMusk’s new ‘Government Efficiency Division’ has made him a captive of the government that is about to kill him.
At the same time, thanks to Musk, the economics of rocket business are constantly moving against newcomers like Bezos. The most obvious challenge is SpaceX’s combination of a Heavy Booster launcher and Starship, a giant rocket that can lift 150 tons into space, three times the capacity of the New Glenn.
SpaceX pulls off an eye-catching stunt by returning the rocket’s booster to the launch pad, cradled by giant mechanical arms. This is a step toward making Starship the first fully reusable rocket that can be refueled and put into service within hours of its final flight.
Most space analysts expect this to happen eventually. Driving the cost of getting cargo into space Less than $1,000 and possibly less than $500 per kilo. That compares to the low price of $6,000 per kilo that SpaceX currently advertises. Even without Starship, SpaceX has kept costs down by increasing launch volumes. Last year, it launched about three rockets a week, accounting for more than half of the world’s launches. That was a rapid increase from 33 starts three years ago and a frequency that Blue Origin would take years to match.
However, he still needs compensation for all the land, Bezos’s rocket company does not short clients. Demand for space launches is expected to far outstrip supply for the rest of the decade. And the race to build communications satellites with rival SpaceX’s Starlink is entering a new phase, with Amazon’s Project Kuiper among the contenders.
For Washington, relying on two billionaires to find space may seem a little better than relying on one. But there doesn’t seem to be a return to the old spatial development model, with the government taking on all the management and risk. NASA estimated that the $400mn that SpaceX spent on the Falcon rocket was one-tenth of what it would cost the public sector.
The trick for governments now is to find new ways to control. That could include new programs like SpaceX’s Starshield, a military-grade version of the Starlink network that gives the Pentagon more leverage. For better or worse, going into orbit seems like a business for the very rich.
