{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreiedq2v532n5gc22zeprchcoczclabjqwm32fo4wcjffy4j6uum5re",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:sl2hrcwo6voaorzsr26d3bo2/app.bsky.feed.post/3mngqfmucdcb2"
  },
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreidhlcpnnt7h6xp45wzp4xbpmvuuoeln5cddk4lrwvkfgxqswu7gci"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
    "size": 51050
  },
  "description": "Blue Origin’s exploding rocket is a setback for America’s new Moonshot.",
  "path": "/back-to-the-ol-drawing-board/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T04:00:47.000Z",
  "site": "https://goodoil.news",
  "tags": [
    "It was never going"
  ],
  "textContent": "A post popped up on my X feed two days ago, from someone who lived in the area and heard an enormous ‘boom’ from the direction of Cape Canaveral. _That didn’t sound good_ , he said. It wasn’t.\n\nIt was, as he and everyone reading the post, immediately guessed, the sound of a rocket burning its fuel load far quicker than intended. In this case, fortunately, a test-firing, with no astronauts on board. But the Blue Origin rocket, named with a certain unintended irony, “New Glenn” (**John Glenn** famously described the tension of sitting atop tonnes of high explosives controlled by hundreds of thousands of parts, all made by the lowest bidder), is a key part of America’s bid to return to the Moon within two years.\n\nSo, where does the explosion leave the new Moon programme?\n\n> It was never going to be pretty if hundreds of thousands of gallons of highly flammable liquid oxygen, hydrogen, and methane suddenly erupted. But that’s what happened at 9:00 p.m. EDT last night at launch complex 36 on the grounds of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, when a New Glenn rocket, built by the **Jeff Bezos** -owned Blue Origin aerospace company, ate itself in a massive fireball during a test of its seven first-stage engines. The giant explosion hurled flames, gas, and debris hundreds of feet in the air, utterly destroying the 322-ft rocket and partly destroying the launch complex itself […]\n>\n> “Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly,” read a sparing post by **Elon Musk** , boss of rival rocket company SpaceX.\n\nAs well he might: SpaceX has had its own share of rockets going kerblooey, which is not to say that either company has some kind of dire record of failure, only that packing high explosive into a metal tube and setting it alight is an inherently risky business. Something NASA discovered many times over in the original Space Race.\n\nThe incident is a serious complication for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the Moon again. The schedule was already described by space policy expert **John Logsdon** as “success-oriented” (NASA shorthand for ‘setting very ambitious target dates’). Logsdon assessed that the explosion “certainly throws a monkey wrench in the Artemis schedule, which was probably not achievable even before the explosion”.\n\n> There’s no overstating how much NASA’s Artemis moon exploration program depends on SpaceX and Blue Origin delivering the goods. So far neither has covered itself in glory.\n\nThat is a load of rubbish. SpaceX has already achieved what government-run space programmes hadn’t managed for decades: slashing the cost of delivering a payload to orbit. That doesn’t mean, though, that the New Glenn explosion isn’t a major setback.\n\n> Artemis relies heavily on commercial heavy-lift vehicles. SpaceX’s Starship was selected to provide the Human Landing System (HLS) for Artemis III and beyond. However, Starship remains in an extended test phase with multiple flights yielding mixed results, and the vehicle is currently grounded following its most recent attempt. The lunar lander variant has yet to fly.\n>\n> Blue Origin was developing a parallel HLS option, the Blue Moon Mark II, intended to give NASA a second lander for Artemis III. That spacecraft depends on New Glenn for orbital launch. A cargo variant of Blue Moon was also slated for a lunar landing demonstration before the end of 2026, and NASA had recently contracted Blue Origin to deliver rovers to the lunar surface ahead of crewed missions. All of those plans now face delays.\n\nLogsdon noted the broader implication: “If the New Glenn booster is out of service for some months, either the Artemis 3 schedule has to slip or NASA has to move ahead with sole dependence on the lander version of the SpaceX Starship. That option has its own problems. Starship is currently grounded after multiple problems on its last flight and the Starship lander version has never flown.” Meanwhile, NASA’s plans for a Moon base are heavily dependent on the New Glenn rocket.\n\nThen there’s the damage the explosion wreaked on the launch pad itself. Rebuilding Launch Complex 36 will not be quick. Blue Origin operates from a single Florida pad. A comparable SpaceX Falcon 9 pad explosion in 2016 grounded the company for three-and-a-half months and kept that specific pad out of service for a full year. Blue Origin has no equivalent backup facility in the near term.\n\nThe episode is a reminder that spaceflight remains an inherently high-risk enterprise. The original Apollo program that put men on the Moon endured repeated technical failures during development, including explosive test stand accidents and the tragic Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts on the launch pad. The Soviet Union’s N1 lunar rocket suffered a catastrophic explosion on its first flight attempt in July 1969, destroying both the vehicle and the launch complex and effectively ending Moscow’s crewed lunar hopes just weeks before Apollo 11 succeeded.\n\nArtemis has more calendar time than the Soviets had in 1969, but the technical and schedule pressures are real. Blue Origin must complete a thorough investigation, repair the pad and return New Glenn to flight status. NASA and its commercial partners will need to reassess timelines for Artemis III and subsequent missions.\n\nSpace travel has never been routine and this latest setback reminds us that it still isn’t. Yet.\n\n* * *\n\n💡\n\n****If you enjoyed this article please share it using the share buttons at the top or bottom of the article.****",
  "title": "Back to the Ol’ Drawing Board",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-04T04:00:47.354Z"
}