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The first attempt by Jeff Bezos' private space company, Blue Origin, to launch a rocket into orbit will be a defining moment for the space business. After receiving the green light from US regulators last week, the Amazon founder appears close to matching Elon Musk in providing humanity with a way to escape the confines of Earth – a feat that would have been unthinkable for a single wealthy individual.
Although Blue Origin preceded Musk's SpaceX launch by two years, it has suffered from years of delays. The successful launch of its orbital rocket, called New Glenn, will finally carry it beyond its current limited work of ferrying passengers to the edge of space, pitting the world's two richest men against each other in an escalation of the private space race.
But Blue Origin's delayed emergence comes as the rocket industry enters a new phase — one that is likely to be more hostile to Bezos' ambitions than if he had jumped into space years earlier. Clearly, Bezos' potential breakthrough comes at a time when his opponent has achieved unprecedented political ascendancy in Washington. Musk's proximity to the next US president has fueled anxiety in the technology sector, as competitors worry about how his newfound influence could be used against them.
For his part, Bezos has already struggled to contain SpaceX politically. For example, after losing a bid to build a lunar lander to NASA, his company warned that the number of contracts Washington was sending to SpaceX threatened to turn it into a monopoly. These days, any official questioning of that growing power seems less likely.
Musk's influence could also be pivotal in shaping space policy in Trump's second term. This could include giving SpaceX a more central role in US plans to return to the moon — something that currently relies heavily on the SLS rocket, a $30 billion project led by Boeing. With just one flight so far, the SLS has done just that All the hallmarks of a white elephantWhich makes it just the kind of junk government that Musk's new Government Efficiency Department seeks to eliminate.
At the same time, thanks to Musk, the economics of the rocket industry are moving inexorably against new entrants like Bezos. The most obvious challenge comes from the combination of SpaceX's Heavy Launch Vehicle and Starship, which together form a giant rocket that can carry 150 tons into space, more than three times New Glenn's capacity.
SpaceX has already succeeded in the eye-catching task of returning the rocket's booster to the launch pad, where it is cradled by a pair of giant mechanical arms. This is a step toward making Starship the first fully reusable rocket, one capable of refueling and returning to service within hours of its final flight.
Most space analysts expect this to happen eventually Pay the cost of getting the payload into space Much less than $1000 per kilo, probably less than $500. This is compared to the lowest price currently advertised, which is $6,000 per kilo. Even without Starship, SpaceX has been able to steadily reduce costs by increasing the volume of launches. Last year, it launched nearly three rockets per week, accounting for more than half of the world's orbital launches. That was a rapid ramp-up from just 33 launches three years ago, the kind of iteration that Blue Origin will take years to match.
However, despite all that still needs to be made up for, Bezos' rocket company will have no shortage of customers. Demand for space launches is expected to far exceed supply over the remainder of this decade, with the US military, for example, looking to find a reliable launch alternative to SpaceX. The race to build constellations of communications satellites to compete with SpaceX's Starlink is entering a new phase, and among the competitors is Amazon's Kuiper project.
For Washington, relying on two billionaires to access space may seem only marginally better than relying on one of them. But there seems to be no going back to the old model of space development, when the government handled all the management and risks. NASA estimated that the $400 million SpaceX spent to develop its Falcon rocket is a tenth of what it would have cost in the public sector.
The trick for governments now is to find new ways to impose their control. This is likely to include new programs like SpaceX's Starshield, a military version of its Starlink network that will give the Pentagon greater influence. For better or worse, getting into orbit seems like a rich man's business.
richard.waters@ft.com
