Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket blasts into orbit. Is SpaceX feeling the heat?

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00:00Peter, can we say that this launch was a success?

00:04We can. Its main mission was to achieve orbit, and it did that,

00:08and it did it in spades. This was the first time a launch intended to reach orbit

00:14reached orbit on its first attempt. Okay, we know that this launch was initially scheduled for 2020,

00:21and then it was meant to come around on Monday when it had to be postponed last minute due to

00:26an ice problem, but it went up into space. It reached orbit. Mission success. Now, there were

00:33some other problems that happened, notably with the booster. This was meant to return to a floating

00:40platform in the sea named Jacqueline, lovingly after J. Bezos's mom. I'm not sure I'd like to

00:48be named after a large boat, but there you go. It didn't manage to hit the barge. We're not exactly

00:53sure where it is, but we can probably be sure it's somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. That said, space,

00:58as we know, is very much a trial and error game, and it's not the worst thing in the world that

01:03they didn't manage to do that on their first attempt. So, by and large, mission success.

01:08So, tell us a little bit more about what makes this rocket different than the others.

01:13Well, we've entered a world and another era of very, very big rockets. SpaceX's Starship comes

01:21to mind. That's the most advanced by far. Then we've got things like China's Long March 5. We've

01:26got Europe's Ariane 6, NASA's SLS. We're talking about very, very large rockets, and this is Blue

01:34Origin's one. What does it have to offer that's a bit different? It's got the widest fairing of any

01:40of them. The fairing is the tip of the rocket that splits apart when you want to deliver the

01:45payload. So, for instance, in this case, a satellite, or in future missions, it could be

01:50a cargo, or refueling, or a lander, something like that. It's seven metres wide, which may not

01:56sound enormous, but it is, if you're talking about a very, very tall, long, thin rocket, and it's

02:01wider than the other ones, so you can fit more voluminous stuff in there. That's really what

02:06it's got going for it. Now, you mentioned SpaceX, which is, of course, the project of Elon Musk.

02:14Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos. We know that the two billionaires are competing

02:18in space. Is this the sign that Blue Origin is finally catching up to SpaceX?

02:24I think that's maybe putting a bit strong... We can say it's offering something different with

02:29that wider payload availability, but it's so far behind in terms of its testing cycle compared to

02:36Starship. Starship, in just a few hours, is going to launch another test which could see its booster

02:43caught by those chopsticks, the same operation that we saw in October that really stunned the

02:49world. That's how far ahead Starship is. They've done several iterations of tests so far. This was

02:54only the first one for New Glenn in what needs to be many, many tests before they can actually be

03:00put into a mission. Other than that, well, SpaceX is so far ahead in other domains, things like

03:07satellite constellation Starlink. New Glenn is expected to launch Blue Origin's own version of

03:13Starlink once it becomes operational, but that's a few years off. We have to say that Falcon 9,

03:20which belongs to SpaceX, has become, much to the chagrin of Europe and Arianne, the premier way

03:26to launch satellites today in terms of NASA's Artemis mission, which plans to put humans back

03:32on the moon in the next five years. The first two moon landings are going to be in partnership

03:37with SpaceX and with Starship. It's only the third that's going to be carried out by New Glenn and

03:44by Blue Origin, so they're very much playing second fiddle. And the situation might get worse

03:50for Jeff Bezos depending on what happens next week. We know there's a big event in the US.

03:55Who's going to be the new head of NASA? Well, Trump wants it to be a man called Jared Isaacman.

04:01He has bankrolled two SpaceX missions to go up to space himself, and he's very close to Elon Musk.

04:09We know that Elon Musk has the ear of the president, so Jeff Bezos might find it more

04:16difficult in future to get those lucrative NASA contracts. Thank you very much, Peter O'Brien,

04:23for all this on the story.

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