The rocket that scares Musk – Blue origin sends up New Glenn

Elon Musk has dominated space traffic for years.

Today, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos intends to fly past him and win the “war of the tech stars”.

At 1 a.m. American time, Bezos’ first rocket lifts off from classic Cape Canaveral in Florida.

– Happy journey, Musk greets X.

The tech brothers are already the richest in the world, now they will compete to be the biggest in space.

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk dreams of populating Mars, and believes that NASA should cancel his lunar project which is “a distraction”.

Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos wants to move all dirty factories into space and make Earth an ecological paradise, writes CNN.

– They don’t like each other, and never have. They have always argued back and forth about who is the great visionary. This is the big fight in tech. It started with this competition between Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, says tech journalist Kara Swisher to CNN.

Elon Musk already has a big head start. His space company Space X launched its first rocket in 2008. Now the Falcon 9 rocket is flying regular tours to space.

Space X has over six thousand satellites in orbit around the Earth, and owns two thirds of all internet satellites.

First postponement

Monday morning at 07:00, it’s finally time for Amazon billionaire Bezos’ space company Blue Origin to challenge Musk, almost five years after the planned maiden voyage.

There is heavy symbolism surrounding Bezos’ first launch.

The rocket takes off from the “Space Coast” at Cape Canaveral in Florida, where Bezos has built his space center near the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

From there, almost all American space missions have started, including Apollo 11, which was the first to land on the moon.

Blue Origin’s 30-story rocket is called New Glenn and is named after John Glenn, who in 1962 became the first American to fly into orbit around the Earth.

The fact that the rocket is so large is also important in the war of the tech stars.

Lucrative contracts

It’s about getting as big a load as possible for as little money as possible.

– To be able to compete with the Falcon 9, you have to be as good or better on price, says Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, which analyzes the space industry

New Glenn, which is classified as a “heavy lift rocket”, can carry loads of up to 45 tons according to CNN, which is almost twice as much as the Falcon 9.

At stake is the fight for lucrative contracts with the US military and telecom companies that want to launch satellites, and perhaps other types of military projects.

In June, for example, the Pentagon went out with a procurement of approximately SEK 60 billion for “national security projects”.

– They compete. Of course Jeff wants some of these space contracts, and of course Elon wants to dominate here, and already does, says Swishter.

Reusing the rocket

For New Glenn’s maiden voyage to be successful, it is not enough to reach orbit around the Earth. The first rocket stage will also return and land unscathed on an ocean-based landing pad named Jacklyn, after Bezos’ mother.

Like Space X, Blue Origin wants to reuse its rockets to bring down the cost of space travel.

If Blue Origin succeeds, it will be sweaty for Musk, because there are many and large government contracts in the pot.

Musk’s answer: Starship

However, Musk is not completely unanswered.

Right now, Space X is developing the largest rocket in world history, which Musk has named Starship.

It will be 121 meters high and will be able to carry loads of 300 tons into space, if Space X succeeds with the project.

– I think SpaceX continues to lower the cost of space access, they will always be number one, says Caleb Henry.

The launch of New Glenn can be followed via a live stream here from 05.30 Swedish time.

The postponement is planned for 07.00 Swedish time.