with every other rocket launch livestream I've watched (SpaceX, NASA, Rocket Lab, etc) when there's a delay they would announce it explicitly.
instead, it was at T-18min, they spent a few minutes talking about how fancy the engines were, and then finish with "alright, with 35 minutes left on the countdown..."
edit: they did it again. 11 minutes, they've pretty clearly told the talking heads to vamp, so they're rambling about how cool the "rocket park" is (and how they had to relocate a bunch of turtles while building it) and meanwhile the countdown disappears for a few seconds then resets to 38 minutes.
Cynically, this feels like Corporate Messaging 101: don't ever admit that anything bad happened. Ignore it if you can. If you can't anymore, spin it into something positive at all costs. If it's bad news, be as vague and euphemistic as possible.
It also took SpaceX some time to figure out how to communicate scrubs to the viewers. I think they guy's name was Inspruker who did a really good job of keeping us up to date even when he was lacking official information. This was back before they were landing the rockets, when we'd wait literally months between Falcon launches.
So SpaceX has had a decade of figuring out what, and how, to inform the viewers. Blue Origin might not be comfortable with that yet.
Audience? You mean all the space clients like Nasa, DoD and zillions of new space satellite vendors like IceEye etc? The public stream is nice to have but not critical.
I personally felt it was obvious when the countdown was reset. IMHO the show before countdown from 10s to zero is just filler.
What's the normal vibe on how it feels to work for Bezos on Blue Origin and how does it compare to working for Musk at SpaceX? Is one feeling like startup vs the other feeling like enterprise, or does one feel like the boss is too involved and the other too distant, etc?
I had a close friend who was at Blue for a few years under Bob Smith (former CEO). It wasn't great. Just a toxic culture it seemed like, and their HQ is a giant stretch fabric tent with terrible acoustics lol
This is going to get scrubbed I think. So many pushbacks. They should make scrubbed missions retain the flight designation and the new flight should get a new number.
“Anomalies” “workarounds” “off-nominal situations” “whatever they’re finding that may be a little bit off” are all words you don’t wanna hear at launch I guess.
Okay that’s probably one too many delays now. I’ll have to see if it launches in the morn
Readit News
> Dark-Sky 1 is jointly funded by DIU and Blue Origin. [5]
DIU is "The Pentagon’s commercial technology arm, the Defense Innovation Unit"
[1] https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-ring-pathfinder-payload
[2] https://www.diu.mil/latest/companies-selected-for-diu-orbita...
[3] https://www.meritalk.com/articles/diu-orbital-logistics-awar...
[4] https://www.geekwire.com/2024/blue-origin-ring-darksky-1/
[5] https://spacenews.com/defense-innovation-unit-awards-three-c...
https://bsky.app/profile/sciguyspace.bsky.social/post/3lfmbm...
https://x.com/sciguyspace/status/1878713938109776032?s=46&t=...
The stream has now confirmed it.
Dead Comment
instead, it was at T-18min, they spent a few minutes talking about how fancy the engines were, and then finish with "alright, with 35 minutes left on the countdown..."
edit: they did it again. 11 minutes, they've pretty clearly told the talking heads to vamp, so they're rambling about how cool the "rocket park" is (and how they had to relocate a bunch of turtles while building it) and meanwhile the countdown disappears for a few seconds then resets to 38 minutes.
So SpaceX has had a decade of figuring out what, and how, to inform the viewers. Blue Origin might not be comfortable with that yet.
I personally felt it was obvious when the countdown was reset. IMHO the show before countdown from 10s to zero is just filler.
But damn it's annoying those delays
Do you really think that’s better?
I don’t.
holy false dichotomy, Batman
Oh well.
Original: the AP is restreaming the launch here: https://www.youtube.com/live/Yb-27DvLcN8?si=W1Qt7DfaSz7yxuL9
Everyone I know locally who has worked for Blue Origin has had extremely negative things to say about it, pretty much without qualification.
So, not great!
Deleted Comment
“Anomalies” “workarounds” “off-nominal situations” “whatever they’re finding that may be a little bit off” are all words you don’t wanna hear at launch I guess.
Okay that’s probably one too many delays now. I’ll have to see if it launches in the morn
Space is hard.