Why Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin could be a problem for NASA

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:09When a Blue Origin rocket blew up in a test launch, it created one of the biggest rocket explosions in history. And it also set back Jeff Bezos' space ambitions. And this is why. I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Sam & An's wherever you get your podcasts.

0:53Hi, I'm Mari Arora. At 9pm Eastern Time last night, a huge fireball lit up the sky at Cape Canaveral. The massive New Glenn rocket built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company had exploded. It's a huge setback for Bezos' passion project. Luckily, he's not short of funds, as he's acknowledged before. I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this. Bezos has spent at least$8 billion personally funding Blue Origin. Just this week, NASA announced the important role Blue Origin would play in its moon base. But that could now be in jeopardy. NASA has put really ambitious deadlines on these missions.

1:43Something like this, where one of their main suppliers is exploding rockets on its launch pad, has the real potential to impact those missions and how long it takes to get humans back to the moon. So how damaging is this for Blue Origin? And what does it mean for its rivalry with Elon Musk's SpaceX? To talk about the fallout from the explosion, I've been speaking to Sky's science and technology correspondent, Mickey Carroll. Mickey Carroll, thank you so much for joining us. To give us some context here, what actually went wrong? Why did it explode? And why was the explosion so big? So this was a firing test for New Glenn.

2:22Now, New Glenn is Blue Origin's huge cargo rocket. And they weren't launching it at all. They were just testing out the engines and things like that. And it's crucial that this was a firing test because it means the rocket was likely fully fuelled. So there was a lot of rocket fuel in there to set alight. And New Glenn itself is huge. It's 97 metres tall. And so the kind of size plus the rocket fuel has resulted in this massive explosion. Now, Blue Origin has said it experienced an anomaly. I mean, that's the understatement of the century, right? I think you kind of expect an anomaly to be a small mistake, not a massive explosion.

2:58And Jeff Bezos has said it's too early to kind of tell exactly what went wrong. But with something like this, there will be an investigation because it doesn't just affect Blue Origin. It doesn't just affect Jeff Bezos. this has the potential to affect the US's space ambitions. Totally. Okay, so the explosion was massive, partly because there was so much fuel on board. I get that. What I don't understand is, in relation to some of the other rockets we see, how big is this rocket? How big of a deal is this? So New Glenn is humongous, and it's humongous for a reason. So when you see something like SpaceX's rockets that are taking astronauts up to the moon, they're very limited in what they can carry.

3:37Every kilogram of extra weight is hundreds of thousands of pounds. Blue Origin's New Glenn is designed to carry heavy cargo to space. That's what they've always wanted to do. And they took a long time to get to this point. They were working on other projects, but really this is what they wanted. And they were massively delayed in releasing New Glenn. It actually only launched for the first time last year. It's only flown three times. But their whole kind of business plan is to help NASA take stuff up to the moon and into orbit. So it has to be ginormous in order to do that. And you say it's only flown about three times.

4:13And one of those times it didn't work. Is that right? Yes. So it took a long time to get off the launch pad. Actually, when it did, it was pretty successful. I mean, it had problems, but you'd expect that because it was launching for the first time. So it's flown three times up till last month. Last month, they sent New Glenn up and it's experienced an engine failure, which meant it launched some satellites into the wrong orbit. So one of its jobs is to take the Amazon LEO satellites, so the low Earth orbit satellites that will help Amazon spread internet around the world as their competitor to SpaceX's Starlink, is to take those satellites into orbit.

4:53And you shouldn't really put stuff in the wrong orbit because it messes up everyone else who's also trying to put things around the Earth's orbit. Right. So when that happened, New Glen got grounded by the regulators. And this was the first time they were allowed to test it again since that happened last month. And it has resulted in a huge explosion. I mean, residents nearby said their houses were shaking, the sky turned orange. This isn't just a kind of small mistake. Yeah, totally. OK, so when it comes to the damage, we don't know all the details yet. But from what we do know, in terms of the extent of the damage, it wasn't just the rocket, right?

5:30Do you even know how much that would cost to replace? So, yeah, it wasn't just the rocket. I mean, we're talking about the launch pad and the buildings around it. It took the fire crews that were fighting this blaze hours to put it out. They only left the scene this morning. And in terms of the cost of that, the rocket alone, although Blue Origin hasn't said specifically how much it costs, there are reports that it's around$100 million just for one section of the rocket. One section? Yeah, so the first stage booster. So this is a hugely expensive rocket, let alone when you take into consideration the launch pad and the other buildings as well.

6:06Well, I suppose maybe people might think to themselves, well, if anyone's going to pay for it, Jeff Bezos is the one that's got the cash, right? Now, talk me through for a second. What is Blue Origin? For people who might not have heard of it, what is it? So Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos' space company. It was launched in 2000. And it came along at a time when a lot of the tech bros in Silicon Valley were starting to think about space. And he has always wanted it to be a cargo carrier. That being said, it's also become famous for taking tourists up to space. Yes, like Katy Perry? Exactly, Katy Perry putting the ass back into astronaut, as she said last year.

6:45Those flights are launched by Blue Origin. But what they want to be is the cargo supplier for space. And I guess it's sort of like the Amazon vans, right? They've got a niche. Instead of just delivering to your house, they're delivering satellites to low Earth orbit. They're delivering moon buggies to the moon. That sort of thing is their ambition. OK, and speaking of the Moon, we know that Blue Origin won some deal contracting with NASA not too long ago. Is that right? And I suppose the question is, would this explosion impact that? Not too long ago is almost an understatement because it was only on Tuesday.

7:17NASA had this really exciting press conference, to be honest, maybe just for space nerds like me. But they were announcing their details of the lunar base that they're building on the Moon's south pole. And as part of that, they announced which contracts had been awarded to who. And Blue Origin was commissioned to take up the moon buggies to the moon base, which will help astronauts kind of ferry themselves around. They also help explore the moon. They also are expected to, later this year, take a prototype lunar lander to the moon as well. I mean, the timelines on these missions are they don't have much wiggle room anyway.

7:53NASA has put really ambitious deadlines on these missions. Something like this, where one of their main suppliers is exploding rockets on its launch pad, has the real potential to impact those missions and how long it takes to get humans back to the moon and definitely to get humans back with a permanent base on the moon. Right. OK. So that's definitely put a spanner in the works. Also, a spanner in the works in relation to the rivalry between Blue Origin and SpaceX. Right. So we've got Elon Musk on one side with SpaceX, Jeff Bezos on the other side with Blue Origin. And so presumably maybe Elon Musk is popping the champagne?

8:30Yeah, I was really interested this morning because we hear so much about this billionaire space race and the rivalries between them. And Elon Musk started tweeting, as he does. He put out a couple of different posts. In one, he said this was most unfortunate, rockets are hard, which you can interpret in a number of ways. Either he's actually being sincere or he's sticking the knife in a little bit. He also said he was very sorry and he hopes they get back to it soon. And I think probably what's happening here is Elon Musk has exploded a lot of rockets in quite a dramatic fashion. We've seen it close airspace over their launch pads.

9:05He at least knows how Jeff Bezos is feeling right now. So maybe there's a little bit of sympathy there. But certainly they're competing for very similar contracts with people like NASA. So it's not going to be a sad day for SpaceX. When it comes to the wider conversation about the space race, what does the space race mean to the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? Why are we now suddenly feeling like we've got a renaissance of the space race with these two big, powerful, rich men? The space race, I think, is really interesting for everyone because you can look at it in terms of money. We've suddenly got the technology to expand where we're able to make money into space.

9:48So if you're Elon Musk, you want to dominate the low Earth orbit satellites that mean that people will rely on you for Internet. Jeff Bezos is trying to compete with him on that. There's also warfare potentially. So if you're able to put things in orbit, you can potentially help with the geopolitical side of things. But there's national space races that are happening at exactly the same time. And for someone like Elon Musk to be able to provide support for the US when they're trying to beat people like China, will put him in a really good position and make him a lot of money. I think something that I found really interesting during that NASA press conference on Tuesday was that lunar base they're building with the help of people like Blue Origin and SpaceX.

10:30That's part of the space race. And they were quite upfront about that. So this lunar base is going to be hundreds of square miles wide across the moon's South Pole. And the perimeter of that, it looks like, will be the border of where people like China can't go. So we're already staking claims to areas of the moon that we want to explore. and so it's really important for us to get there first so we can say nabbed this bit this is our perimeter you can't cross here so people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are a really important part of that okay so explain this thing to me then you can go to space and basically claim a part of the moon let's say and then other countries can't go there because I thought you weren't allowed to essentially claim pieces of land on a moon or another planet so there are various accords about what you can and can't do.

11:17There's now something called the Artemis Accords, which is obviously linked to the Artemis mission, which puts humans on the moon. And that's a NASA-led mission. So it's a US-led mission. And as part of the Artemis Accords, people will be able to use the lunar base and explore scientific aspects of that and everything that you would want to do. But not every country has signed the Artemis Accords. The suggestion is that Russian astronauts or Chinese astronauts on the moon won't be able to use that base. And therefore, if they say the base is hundreds of square miles wide, then they're not going to be able to cross into that perimeter either.

11:53So how big of a blow is this to Blue Origin? And where does it leave them now? This is a massive blow to Blue Origin because New Glenn is really expensive. I mean, we think it costs over$100 million at least. So just in terms of monetary value, that is huge. It's also a blow because New Glenn, this rocket, is supposed to be reusable. So that would bring the cost down. Also, you could argue makes it more environmentally friendly, if you can talk about that in space terms. So the fact that it's blown up obviously means they can't reuse elements that they might have wanted to. And they'd been quite successful at that.

12:30So that's going to be a bit of a blow for them as well. And when it comes to the competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin, is the understanding that it's good for the space community, for science, for progress, that they are fighting this out. Does that make them both better? Yes, definitely. So the fact that SpaceX and Blue Origin are fighting this out can only ever really be a good thing because they're driving down each other's costs through competition. They're also experimenting on different things. So they're testing out new technology. There are also a lot of other companies. There's people that are trying to mine meteors there's people that are developing space food all of these companies are vying for contracts with people like nasa and every time there's a bit more competition it pushes them to be better and also crucially cheaper mickey thank you so much for making sense of it all well thank you very much for having me you can get in touch with your thoughts on today's episode and share ideas for future episodes by emailing why at sky.uk don't forget to follow this is why on your podcast app and to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

13:35We're back on Monday.

13:39I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.