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00:00Peter, can we say that this launch was a success?
00:04We can. Its main mission was to achieve orbit, and it did that,
00:08and it did it in spades. This was the first time a launch intended to reach orbit
00:14reached orbit on its first attempt. Okay, we know that this launch was initially scheduled for 2020,
00:21and then it was meant to come around on Monday when it had to be postponed last minute due to
00:26an ice problem, but it went up into space. It reached orbit. Mission success. Now, there were
00:33some other problems that happened, notably with the booster. This was meant to return to a floating
00:40platform in the sea named Jacqueline, lovingly after J. Bezos's mom. I'm not sure I'd like to
00:48be named after a large boat, but there you go. It didn't manage to hit the barge. We're not exactly
00:53sure where it is, but we can probably be sure it's somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. That said, space,
00:58as we know, is very much a trial and error game, and it's not the worst thing in the world that
01:03they didn't manage to do that on their first attempt. So, by and large, mission success.
01:08So, tell us a little bit more about what makes this rocket different than the others.
01:13Well, we've entered a world and another era of very, very big rockets. SpaceX's Starship comes
01:21to mind. That's the most advanced by far. Then we've got things like China's Long March 5. We've
01:26got Europe's Ariane 6, NASA's SLS. We're talking about very, very large rockets, and this is Blue
01:34Origin's one. What does it have to offer that's a bit different? It's got the widest fairing of any
01:40of them. The fairing is the tip of the rocket that splits apart when you want to deliver the
01:45payload. So, for instance, in this case, a satellite, or in future missions, it could be
01:50a cargo, or refueling, or a lander, something like that. It's seven metres wide, which may not
01:56sound enormous, but it is, if you're talking about a very, very tall, long, thin rocket, and it's
02:01wider than the other ones, so you can fit more voluminous stuff in there. That's really what
02:06it's got going for it. Now, you mentioned SpaceX, which is, of course, the project of Elon Musk.
02:14Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos. We know that the two billionaires are competing
02:18in space. Is this the sign that Blue Origin is finally catching up to SpaceX?
02:24I think that's maybe putting a bit strong... We can say it's offering something different with
02:29that wider payload availability, but it's so far behind in terms of its testing cycle compared to
02:36Starship. Starship, in just a few hours, is going to launch another test which could see its booster
02:43caught by those chopsticks, the same operation that we saw in October that really stunned the
02:49world. That's how far ahead Starship is. They've done several iterations of tests so far. This was
02:54only the first one for New Glenn in what needs to be many, many tests before they can actually be
03:00put into a mission. Other than that, well, SpaceX is so far ahead in other domains, things like
03:07satellite constellation Starlink. New Glenn is expected to launch Blue Origin's own version of
03:13Starlink once it becomes operational, but that's a few years off. We have to say that Falcon 9,
03:20which belongs to SpaceX, has become, much to the chagrin of Europe and Arianne, the premier way
03:26to launch satellites today in terms of NASA's Artemis mission, which plans to put humans back
03:32on the moon in the next five years. The first two moon landings are going to be in partnership
03:37with SpaceX and with Starship. It's only the third that's going to be carried out by New Glenn and
03:44by Blue Origin, so they're very much playing second fiddle. And the situation might get worse
03:50for Jeff Bezos depending on what happens next week. We know there's a big event in the US.
03:55Who's going to be the new head of NASA? Well, Trump wants it to be a man called Jared Isaacman.
04:01He has bankrolled two SpaceX missions to go up to space himself, and he's very close to Elon Musk.
04:09We know that Elon Musk has the ear of the president, so Jeff Bezos might find it more
04:16difficult in future to get those lucrative NASA contracts. Thank you very much, Peter O'Brien,
04:23for all this on the story.