Announcing Orbital Reef - Your Address in Orbit [Blue Origin, so, uh, no]

YouTube ^ | October 25, 2021 | Blue Origin

[SunkenCiv]

Blue Origin and Sierra Space have announced plans for Orbital Reef, a commercially developed, owned, and operated space station to be built in low Earth orbit. The station will open the next chapter of human space exploration and development by facilitating the growth of a vibrant ecosystem and business model for the future. Orbital Reef is backed by space industry leaders and teammates including Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University.

Designed to open multiple new markets in space, Orbital Reef will provide anyone with the opportunity to establish their own address on orbit. This unique destination will offer research, industrial, international, and commercial customers the cost competitive end-to-end services they need including space transportation and logistics, space habitation, equipment accommodation, and operations including onboard crew. The station will start operating in the second half of this decade.

Announcing Orbital Reef - Your Address in Orbit | October 25, 2021 | Blue Origin

[SunkenCiv]

Blue Origin can't actually *get* anything to orbit, despite billions spent, a head start, and a flurry of legal filings.

[SunkenCiv]

SpaceX Starship could to conquer Mars without ISRU (at first). Big claim huh? Today, we want to explore the logistics for the first possible Mars return missions with Starship. We will look into how and why we can tackle this before in-situ resource utilization has been established. We get us up to speed with the expected performance of Starship (As we know it so far) and assess the overall requirements for such a mission.

SpaceX Starship could conquer Mars missions without ISRU (at first) | October 26, 2021 | Marcus House

[SunkenCiv]

Orbital mechanics can be oddly unintuitive at times, so I set out to cite a few examples where the most natural thing to do it the opposite of what you want to do.

The Most Confusing Things About Spacecraft Orbits | May 11, 2018 | Scott Manley

[algore]

I will wait for the 5th babylon station, I heard bad things happen to the first four.

[fruser1]

Do they have smoking rooms?

[Pelham]

It will be amusing if Orbital Reef needs to use a SpaceX rocket.

[John Milner]

And you think it takes too long to get a letter from a couple states away. Wait until you provide this as your forwarding address!

[Boogieman]

Not sure why I’d need an address in orbit when the post office doesn’t cover that zip code.

[Boogieman]

Just play Kerbal Space Program for an hour and you’ll understand orbital mechanics pretty good :)

[SunkenCiv]

Good call.

[Red Badger]

...The Mars Shot!..................