Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Orbital Reef space station is oneof the most exciting concepts we've seen in
the modern day space race. Itis a fantastic vision of the future where
people are living and working in agigantic and technologically advanced orbital platform hundreds of
miles above the Earth. This iswhat the twenty first century is supposed to
(00:21):
look like. But two years onfrom the project announcement and reality is setting
in for Blue Origin and their ambitionsfor space station construction. Now we are
left to ask, was the dreamof orbital Reef too good to be true?
This is the space race. Thething about Orbital Reef is that it
is the best space station design wehave ever seen, and by that I
(00:45):
mean we obviously have to disregard anyspeculative fiction ideas like O'Neal cylinders and von
Braun's rotating ring station and just focuson practical proposals for space stations that actually
could be built with existing means.NASA was confident enough in Blue Origins concept
that they granted the company one hundredand thirty million dollars to develop Orbital Reef,
(01:07):
with the expectation that it could beup and running as early as twenty
twenty seven, which would dovetail beautifullywith the final decommissioning of the ISS.
In theory it was all worked out, Blue would partner with more established aerospace
companies like Sierra Space and Boeing toround out the hardware and transportation needs for
(01:27):
the station. Their sister company Amazonwould handle the logistics and supply chain management.
Amazon Web Services would provide all ofthe computing power and connectivity that the
project could possibly require. The backboneof the orbital REEF would be a trio
of gigantic core modules, each oneover six meters in diameter and around twelve
(01:49):
meters in length, plus a dockingNote there is no rocket currently in service
that could handle a payload anywhere nearthat size. Only Blue origins soon to
come New Glen would be able todo the job. The also soon to
come dream Chaser space plane from SierraSpace would handle crew, transport and supply
alongside the kind of working but stillnot really Boeing Starline or capsule. The
(02:12):
inflatable life modules from Sierra would allowthe team to very quickly grow the internal
pressurized volume of the station to eighthundred and thirty cubic meters establishing what Blue
referred to as a mixed use businesspark in space where anyone could visit either
as a tourist, a researcher ora business trying to leverage the microgravity environment.
And just like all projects in theirconceptual phase, it sounded fantastic in
(02:38):
theory. Right now, we areexactly two years from the orbital ref announcement
and one third of the way throughthe project timeline to get Phase one operational,
and Blue Origin have virtually nothing toshow for it. In fact,
the latest report that we've seen fromCNBC claims that the partnership between Blue and
Sierra Space has already started to fallapart. So what's going on here?
(03:04):
Well, According to three anonymous sourceswho spoke to CNBC, the companies are
looking at a potential end to theOrbital Reef project due to a general lack
of progress on the station's design andconstruction, in addition to a restructuring of
priorities at Blue Origin. In hindsight, there have been signs the Orbital Reef
project was in trouble. The websitefor the project, created jointly by Blue
(03:28):
and Sierra, hasn't published an updateon the station's development in more than a
year, and neither company has postedjob openings that mention anything to do with
orbital Reef. Additionally, Sierra Spacedropped references to orbital Reef in its most
recent press releases, focusing solely onits own inflatable habitat work now. Blue
Origin refused to comment directly to CNBCabout the anonymous claim, but shortly before
(03:53):
the story was published, Blue madea post on x that says we continue
to make progress on our Commercial DestinyNation's Space Act agreement with NASA and Blue
Origins vision of millions of people livingand working in space to benefit Earth.
Our team is currently testing window framesand materials in a relevant space environment,
and they included a cool rendering ofwhat the inside of a space station might
(04:15):
look like. Now, look,I'm not gonna sit here and try to
mock the complexity of building a windowfor a space station, especially windows as
gigantic as those on the orbital Reefconcept art. That is obviously a very
difficult engineering project. But at thesame time, if this is the best
post they could come up with torefute a news story claiming their space station
(04:38):
is in trouble, that they've beentesting some window frames. Then Blue is
not exactly exuding confidence right now.They've made a couple follow up posts in
the meantime, and it looks liketheir social media team has added periodic mentions
of orbital Reef to their content calendar. But these are just broad generic statements
like orbital reef team is actively designingand test several deliverables to NASA and were
(05:01):
fully committed to working with NASA toensure a continued human presence in Low Earth
orbit. So nothing of substance there. When NASA was asked for comment on
the situation, their spokesperson, RebeccaWicks, told CNBC the agency has so
far paid Blue Origin twenty four milliondollars of the total one hundred and thirty
million dollar contract amount for completing specifiedmilestones. So looking again at these social
(05:27):
media posts and how often they referenceNASA, it's pretty clear that Blue's primary
concern right now is making sure thatNASA doesn't cut them off from the remaining
one hundred million dollars of taxpayer money. I don't know. To me at
least, it kind of reads likean office worker trying to look productive in
front of their boss. One veryobvious reason that Blue Origin may have lost
(05:48):
interest in orbital reef is Blue Moon. After years of complaining and filing lawsuits,
Blue Origin was finally selected to providea moonlander for NASA's Artemis p We
know that Jeff Bezos is obsessed withlanding on the Moon, and after a
failed attempt to secure the HLS contractfor Artemis three, the revised Blue Moon
(06:09):
lander was given the green light toland on the Moon with the Artemis five
mission. This contract includes three pointfour billion dollars in funding from NASA for
the design and manufacturing of the BlueMoon vehicle, so you obviously can't blame
the company for shifting priorities in thiscontext. There is just so much more
at stake with the moon landing projectthan the space station, not just in
(06:32):
terms of money, although there isa lot of money involved, but also
in trying to make the Artemis programa success, returning a human presence to
the Moon, and ensuring that NASAremains competitive in their new space race against
the Chinese. Blue Origin also recentlyannounced that they have a brand new spacecraft
platform in development called Blue Ring.The company is pitching this vehicle as a
(06:56):
multi orbit space mobility platform and theyexpect Blue Ring to be used for transportation,
refueling, data relay, and logistics, including an in space cloud computing
capability. They don't say this specifically, but it's very likely that Blue Ring
will be a necessary support vehicle forBlue Moon. So this all ties together,
and it even further illustrates that thiscompany has shifted priorities far away from
(07:21):
orbital reef Let's shift the focus overto Sierra Space because this is the most
disappointing part of the story. WhileBlue Origin runs off to land on the
Moon, Sierra has essentially been leftbehind, which is frustrating because Sierra Space
is the company that's actually been deliveringresults. On the same day that Blue
(07:41):
Origin published their ex post about windowframes, Sierra released a two and a
half minute video showing all of thework that has been going on with the
Dreamchaser vehicle and the inflatable Life module, And shortly after that, Sierra provided
some photos to NASA Spaceflight that showwork being done on the Dream Chaser's Shooting
Star Cargo mo module. Real photosand videos of real people working on real
(08:03):
products, something that Blue Origin seemslargely incapable of producing as much as orbital
Reef would be a major accomplishment forBlue Origin. It would really be a
significant platform for Sierra to deploy allof this cutting edge technology that they have
been working hard on for years.Orbital Reef wouldn't even be possible as a
(08:26):
concept without Sierra's contribution, so itdoes kind of feel like they're getting the
short end of the stick, thoughthis does provide some hope for the future
of the orbital Reef concept because SierraSpace doesn't necessarily need Blue Origin in order
to build and operate an amazing spacestation. The Dreamchaser is very close to
being operational. Their first completed ship, the Tenacity, could have even made
(08:48):
its first mission to the ISS bynow if it weren't for delays with the
Vulcan rocket from ULA. Sierra needsthis new booster to get Tenacity into orbit,
but Ula has run into some prettymajor setbacks, largely due to a
structural flaw in the rocket's upper stage, but partially also due to Blue Origins
exploding Bee four engines. So again, circumstances beyond Dreamchaser's control. But if
(09:13):
the first flight with Tenacity is asuccess and the vehicle makes it all the
way back down to the surface aftercompleting the mission, then it could only
take a few years to get thevehicle crew rated. The SpaceX Dragon two
was the first ever crew rated commercialvehicle, and that took around six years
from the beginning of development at SpaceXto the first launch with astronauts on board,
(09:33):
so this can be done. TheLife modules are also very close to
being ready for an orbital test,and unlike the Orbital Reef, the full
sized Life can be launched on anymedium to heavy lift rocket, so Sierra
could easily book a trip on Falconnine and get their first inflatable habitat into
orbit as soon as it's ready togo. Beyond that, with the internal
(09:54):
volume of a small house, theLife module doesn't really need to be birthed
to a gigantic structure like Orbital Reefone. Standalone, Life really only needs
to be connected to power, propulsionand a docking port, and it essentially
becomes its own space station. Sowe can at least look at one really
good thing to come out of thiswhole ordeal. It's unlikely that Sierra would
(10:18):
have been able to put in somuch work and make so much progress on
their inflatable habitat without being attached toa marquee project like orbital Reef. As
amazing as it would be to actuallysee blue origins fantastic computer renderings brought to
life on orbital Reef, we're clearlynot going to be there in twenty twenty
seven or anytime this decade. I'mnot saying it couldn't happen someday, but
(10:41):
we wouldn't recommend holding your breath inanticipation
The Orbital Reef space station is oneof the most exciting concepts we've seen in
the modern day space race. Itis a fantastic vision of the future where
people are living and working in agigantic and technologically advanced orbital platform hundreds of
miles above the Earth. This iswhat the twenty first century is supposed to
(00:21):
look like. But two years onfrom the project announcement and reality is setting
in for Blue Origin and their ambitionsfor space station construction. Now we are
left to ask, was the dreamof orbital Reef too good to be true?
This is the space race. Thething about Orbital Reef is that it
is the best space station design wehave ever seen, and by that I
(00:45):
mean we obviously have to disregard anyspeculative fiction ideas like O'Neal cylinders and von
Braun's rotating ring station and just focuson practical proposals for space stations that actually
could be built with existing means.NASA was confident enough in Blue Origins concept
that they granted the company one hundredand thirty million dollars to develop Orbital Reef,
(01:07):
with the expectation that it could beup and running as early as twenty
twenty seven, which would dovetail beautifullywith the final decommissioning of the ISS.
In theory it was all worked out, Blue would partner with more established aerospace
companies like Sierra Space and Boeing toround out the hardware and transportation needs for
(01:27):
the station. Their sister company Amazonwould handle the logistics and supply chain management.
Amazon Web Services would provide all ofthe computing power and connectivity that the
project could possibly require. The backboneof the orbital REEF would be a trio
of gigantic core modules, each oneover six meters in diameter and around twelve
(01:49):
meters in length, plus a dockingNote there is no rocket currently in service
that could handle a payload anywhere nearthat size. Only Blue origins soon to
come New Glen would be able todo the job. The also soon to
come dream Chaser space plane from SierraSpace would handle crew, transport and supply
alongside the kind of working but stillnot really Boeing Starline or capsule. The
(02:12):
inflatable life modules from Sierra would allowthe team to very quickly grow the internal
pressurized volume of the station to eighthundred and thirty cubic meters establishing what Blue
referred to as a mixed use businesspark in space where anyone could visit either
as a tourist, a researcher ora business trying to leverage the microgravity environment.
And just like all projects in theirconceptual phase, it sounded fantastic in
(02:38):
theory. Right now, we areexactly two years from the orbital ref announcement
and one third of the way throughthe project timeline to get Phase one operational,
and Blue Origin have virtually nothing toshow for it. In fact,
the latest report that we've seen fromCNBC claims that the partnership between Blue and
Sierra Space has already started to fallapart. So what's going on here?
(03:04):
Well, According to three anonymous sourceswho spoke to CNBC, the companies are
looking at a potential end to theOrbital Reef project due to a general lack
of progress on the station's design andconstruction, in addition to a restructuring of
priorities at Blue Origin. In hindsight, there have been signs the Orbital Reef
project was in trouble. The websitefor the project, created jointly by Blue
(03:28):
and Sierra, hasn't published an updateon the station's development in more than a
year, and neither company has postedjob openings that mention anything to do with
orbital Reef. Additionally, Sierra Spacedropped references to orbital Reef in its most
recent press releases, focusing solely onits own inflatable habitat work now. Blue
Origin refused to comment directly to CNBCabout the anonymous claim, but shortly before
(03:53):
the story was published, Blue madea post on x that says we continue
to make progress on our Commercial DestinyNation's Space Act agreement with NASA and Blue
Origins vision of millions of people livingand working in space to benefit Earth.
Our team is currently testing window framesand materials in a relevant space environment,
and they included a cool rendering ofwhat the inside of a space station might
(04:15):
look like. Now, look,I'm not gonna sit here and try to
mock the complexity of building a windowfor a space station, especially windows as
gigantic as those on the orbital Reefconcept art. That is obviously a very
difficult engineering project. But at thesame time, if this is the best
post they could come up with torefute a news story claiming their space station
(04:38):
is in trouble, that they've beentesting some window frames. Then Blue is
not exactly exuding confidence right now.They've made a couple follow up posts in
the meantime, and it looks liketheir social media team has added periodic mentions
of orbital Reef to their content calendar. But these are just broad generic statements
like orbital reef team is actively designingand test several deliverables to NASA and were
(05:01):
fully committed to working with NASA toensure a continued human presence in Low Earth
orbit. So nothing of substance there. When NASA was asked for comment on
the situation, their spokesperson, RebeccaWicks, told CNBC the agency has so
far paid Blue Origin twenty four milliondollars of the total one hundred and thirty
million dollar contract amount for completing specifiedmilestones. So looking again at these social
(05:27):
media posts and how often they referenceNASA, it's pretty clear that Blue's primary
concern right now is making sure thatNASA doesn't cut them off from the remaining
one hundred million dollars of taxpayer money. I don't know. To me at
least, it kind of reads likean office worker trying to look productive in
front of their boss. One veryobvious reason that Blue Origin may have lost
(05:48):
interest in orbital reef is Blue Moon. After years of complaining and filing lawsuits,
Blue Origin was finally selected to providea moonlander for NASA's Artemis p We
know that Jeff Bezos is obsessed withlanding on the Moon, and after a
failed attempt to secure the HLS contractfor Artemis three, the revised Blue Moon
(06:09):
lander was given the green light toland on the Moon with the Artemis five
mission. This contract includes three pointfour billion dollars in funding from NASA for
the design and manufacturing of the BlueMoon vehicle, so you obviously can't blame
the company for shifting priorities in thiscontext. There is just so much more
at stake with the moon landing projectthan the space station, not just in
(06:32):
terms of money, although there isa lot of money involved, but also
in trying to make the Artemis programa success, returning a human presence to
the Moon, and ensuring that NASAremains competitive in their new space race against
the Chinese. Blue Origin also recentlyannounced that they have a brand new spacecraft
platform in development called Blue Ring.The company is pitching this vehicle as a
(06:56):
multi orbit space mobility platform and theyexpect Blue Ring to be used for transportation,
refueling, data relay, and logistics, including an in space cloud computing
capability. They don't say this specifically, but it's very likely that Blue Ring
will be a necessary support vehicle forBlue Moon. So this all ties together,
and it even further illustrates that thiscompany has shifted priorities far away from
(07:21):
orbital reef Let's shift the focus overto Sierra Space because this is the most
disappointing part of the story. WhileBlue Origin runs off to land on the
Moon, Sierra has essentially been leftbehind, which is frustrating because Sierra Space
is the company that's actually been deliveringresults. On the same day that Blue
(07:41):
Origin published their ex post about windowframes, Sierra released a two and a
half minute video showing all of thework that has been going on with the
Dreamchaser vehicle and the inflatable Life module, And shortly after that, Sierra provided
some photos to NASA Spaceflight that showwork being done on the Dream Chaser's Shooting
Star Cargo mo module. Real photosand videos of real people working on real
(08:03):
products, something that Blue Origin seemslargely incapable of producing as much as orbital
Reef would be a major accomplishment forBlue Origin. It would really be a
significant platform for Sierra to deploy allof this cutting edge technology that they have
been working hard on for years.Orbital Reef wouldn't even be possible as a
(08:26):
concept without Sierra's contribution, so itdoes kind of feel like they're getting the
short end of the stick, thoughthis does provide some hope for the future
of the orbital Reef concept because SierraSpace doesn't necessarily need Blue Origin in order
to build and operate an amazing spacestation. The Dreamchaser is very close to
being operational. Their first completed ship, the Tenacity, could have even made
(08:48):
its first mission to the ISS bynow if it weren't for delays with the
Vulcan rocket from ULA. Sierra needsthis new booster to get Tenacity into orbit,
but Ula has run into some prettymajor setbacks, largely due to a
structural flaw in the rocket's upper stage, but partially also due to Blue Origins
exploding Bee four engines. So again, circumstances beyond Dreamchaser's control. But if
(09:13):
the first flight with Tenacity is asuccess and the vehicle makes it all the
way back down to the surface aftercompleting the mission, then it could only
take a few years to get thevehicle crew rated. The SpaceX Dragon two
was the first ever crew rated commercialvehicle, and that took around six years
from the beginning of development at SpaceXto the first launch with astronauts on board,
(09:33):
so this can be done. TheLife modules are also very close to
being ready for an orbital test,and unlike the Orbital Reef, the full
sized Life can be launched on anymedium to heavy lift rocket, so Sierra
could easily book a trip on Falconnine and get their first inflatable habitat into
orbit as soon as it's ready togo. Beyond that, with the internal
(09:54):
volume of a small house, theLife module doesn't really need to be birthed
to a gigantic structure like Orbital Reefone. Standalone, Life really only needs
to be connected to power, propulsionand a docking port, and it essentially
becomes its own space station. Sowe can at least look at one really
good thing to come out of thiswhole ordeal. It's unlikely that Sierra would
(10:18):
have been able to put in somuch work and make so much progress on
their inflatable habitat without being attached toa marquee project like orbital Reef. As
amazing as it would be to actuallysee blue origins fantastic computer renderings brought to
life on orbital Reef, we're clearlynot going to be there in twenty twenty
seven or anytime this decade. I'mnot saying it couldn't happen someday, but
(10:41):
we wouldn't recommend holding your breath inanticipation
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