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lunar_mycroft 10 hours ago

No, this would be crushing regardless. Even if Blue Origin had dozens of rockets ready to go, they can't fly without without the pad, which will take around a year to repair (based on previous examples).

m4rtink 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This was an issue already in the Soviet times, with a couple cases of early rocket explosions destroying the pad and causing long delays, including one spectacular N1 explosion leveling its pad and needing lengthy expensive rebuild.

As a result they went to extensive lengths to avoid pad damage, including never terminating rocket thrust in the first (IIRC) 60 seconds of flight. Better let the rocket crash into something nearby than to explode at the pad.

bradyd 2 hours ago | parent [-]

[dead]

baq 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah exactly. Blowing up the rocket is the easy part. Reliably blowing up rockets on a high cadence is hard.

servo_sausage 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If one pad is the bottleneck, and the goal is to ramp up to be a spacex competitor, then build more than one...

Falcon has shown the playbook, and the demand for launch... The goal should be 2-4 launch sites in the medium term; with a second site very early to avoid exactly this.

lunar_mycroft 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Until recently, SpaceX only acquired new pads because they needed a completely new launch site (SLC-4 in Vandenberg) or needed to launch a vehicle that their existing pad(s) didn't support (Falcon Heavy for LC-39A, Starship for Pad A in Boca Chica/Starbase). Currently, Blue Origin's only orbital launch vehicle is New Glenn, and their Vandenberg pad is still under construction.

pbrum 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was going to say this too. And since we're at it: does anyone know how many launch pads the Chinese private space companies have, combined?