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The Orbital Reef space station is one
of the most exciting concepts we've seen in

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the modern day space race. It
is a fantastic vision of the future where

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people are living and working in a
gigantic and technologically advanced orbital platform hundreds of

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miles above the Earth. This is
what the twenty first century is supposed to

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look like. But two years on
from the project announcement and reality is setting

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in for Blue Origin and their ambitions
for space station construction. Now we are

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left to ask, was the dream
of orbital Reef too good to be true?

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This is the space race. The
thing about Orbital Reef is that it

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is the best space station design we
have ever seen, and by that I

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mean we obviously have to disregard any
speculative fiction ideas like O'Neal cylinders and von

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Braun's rotating ring station and just focus
on practical proposals for space stations that actually

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could be built with existing means.
NASA was confident enough in Blue Origins concept

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that they granted the company one hundred
and thirty million dollars to develop Orbital Reef,

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with the expectation that it could be
up and running as early as twenty

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twenty seven, which would dovetail beautifully
with the final decommissioning of the ISS.

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In theory it was all worked out, Blue would partner with more established aerospace

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companies like Sierra Space and Boeing to
round out the hardware and transportation needs for

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the station. Their sister company Amazon
would handle the logistics and supply chain management.

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Amazon Web Services would provide all of
the computing power and connectivity that the

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project could possibly require. The backbone
of the orbital REEF would be a trio

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of gigantic core modules, each one
over six meters in diameter and around twelve

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meters in length, plus a docking
Note there is no rocket currently in service

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that could handle a payload anywhere near
that size. Only Blue origins soon to

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come New Glen would be able to
do the job. The also soon to

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come dream Chaser space plane from Sierra
Space would handle crew, transport and supply

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alongside the kind of working but still
not really Boeing Starline or capsule. The

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inflatable life modules from Sierra would allow
the team to very quickly grow the internal

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pressurized volume of the station to eight
hundred and thirty cubic meters establishing what Blue

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referred to as a mixed use business
park in space where anyone could visit either

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as a tourist, a researcher or
a business trying to leverage the microgravity environment.

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And just like all projects in their
conceptual phase, it sounded fantastic in

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theory. Right now, we are
exactly two years from the orbital ref announcement

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and one third of the way through
the project timeline to get Phase one operational,

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and Blue Origin have virtually nothing to
show for it. In fact,

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the latest report that we've seen from
CNBC claims that the partnership between Blue and

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Sierra Space has already started to fall
apart. So what's going on here?

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Well, According to three anonymous sources
who spoke to CNBC, the companies are

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looking at a potential end to the
Orbital Reef project due to a general lack

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of progress on the station's design and
construction, in addition to a restructuring of

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priorities at Blue Origin. In hindsight, there have been signs the Orbital Reef

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project was in trouble. The website
for the project, created jointly by Blue

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and Sierra, hasn't published an update
on the station's development in more than a

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year, and neither company has posted
job openings that mention anything to do with

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orbital Reef. Additionally, Sierra Space
dropped references to orbital Reef in its most

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recent press releases, focusing solely on
its own inflatable habitat work now. Blue

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Origin refused to comment directly to CNBC
about the anonymous claim, but shortly before

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the story was published, Blue made
a post on x that says we continue

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to make progress on our Commercial Destiny
Nation's Space Act agreement with NASA and Blue

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Origins vision of millions of people living
and working in space to benefit Earth.

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Our team is currently testing window frames
and materials in a relevant space environment,

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and they included a cool rendering of
what the inside of a space station might

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look like. Now, look,
I'm not gonna sit here and try to

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mock the complexity of building a window
for a space station, especially windows as

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gigantic as those on the orbital Reef
concept art. That is obviously a very

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difficult engineering project. But at the
same time, if this is the best

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post they could come up with to
refute a news story claiming their space station

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is in trouble, that they've been
testing some window frames. Then Blue is

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not exactly exuding confidence right now.
They've made a couple follow up posts in

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the meantime, and it looks like
their social media team has added periodic mentions

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of orbital Reef to their content calendar. But these are just broad generic statements

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like orbital reef team is actively designing
and test several deliverables to NASA and were

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fully committed to working with NASA to
ensure a continued human presence in Low Earth

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orbit. So nothing of substance there. When NASA was asked for comment on

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the situation, their spokesperson, Rebecca
Wicks, told CNBC the agency has so

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far paid Blue Origin twenty four million
dollars of the total one hundred and thirty

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million dollar contract amount for completing specified
milestones. So looking again at these social

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media posts and how often they reference
NASA, it's pretty clear that Blue's primary

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concern right now is making sure that
NASA doesn't cut them off from the remaining

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one hundred million dollars of taxpayer money. I don't know. To me at

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least, it kind of reads like
an office worker trying to look productive in

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front of their boss. One very
obvious reason that Blue Origin may have lost

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interest in orbital reef is Blue Moon. After years of complaining and filing lawsuits,

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Blue Origin was finally selected to provide
a moonlander for NASA's Artemis p We

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know that Jeff Bezos is obsessed with
landing on the Moon, and after a

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failed attempt to secure the HLS contract
for Artemis three, the revised Blue Moon

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lander was given the green light to
land on the Moon with the Artemis five

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mission. This contract includes three point
four billion dollars in funding from NASA for

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the design and manufacturing of the Blue
Moon vehicle, so you obviously can't blame

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the company for shifting priorities in this
context. There is just so much more

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at stake with the moon landing project
than the space station, not just in

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terms of money, although there is
a lot of money involved, but also

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in trying to make the Artemis program
a success, returning a human presence to

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the Moon, and ensuring that NASA
remains competitive in their new space race against

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the Chinese. Blue Origin also recently
announced that they have a brand new spacecraft

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platform in development called Blue Ring.
The company is pitching this vehicle as a

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multi orbit space mobility platform and they
expect Blue Ring to be used for transportation,

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refueling, data relay, and logistics, including an in space cloud computing

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capability. They don't say this specifically, but it's very likely that Blue Ring

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will be a necessary support vehicle for
Blue Moon. So this all ties together,

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and it even further illustrates that this
company has shifted priorities far away from

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orbital reef Let's shift the focus over
to Sierra Space because this is the most

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disappointing part of the story. While
Blue Origin runs off to land on the

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Moon, Sierra has essentially been left
behind, which is frustrating because Sierra Space

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is the company that's actually been delivering
results. On the same day that Blue

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Origin published their ex post about window
frames, Sierra released a two and a

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half minute video showing all of the
work that has been going on with the

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Dreamchaser vehicle and the inflatable Life module, And shortly after that, Sierra provided

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some photos to NASA Spaceflight that show
work being done on the Dream Chaser's Shooting

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Star Cargo mo module. Real photos
and videos of real people working on real

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products, something that Blue Origin seems
largely incapable of producing as much as orbital

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Reef would be a major accomplishment for
Blue Origin. It would really be a

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significant platform for Sierra to deploy all
of this cutting edge technology that they have

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been working hard on for years.
Orbital Reef wouldn't even be possible as a

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concept without Sierra's contribution, so it
does kind of feel like they're getting the

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short end of the stick, though
this does provide some hope for the future

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of the orbital Reef concept because Sierra
Space doesn't necessarily need Blue Origin in order

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to build and operate an amazing space
station. The Dreamchaser is very close to

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being operational. Their first completed ship, the Tenacity, could have even made

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its first mission to the ISS by
now if it weren't for delays with the

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Vulcan rocket from ULA. Sierra needs
this new booster to get Tenacity into orbit,

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but Ula has run into some pretty
major setbacks, largely due to a

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structural flaw in the rocket's upper stage, but partially also due to Blue Origins

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exploding Bee four engines. So again, circumstances beyond Dreamchaser's control. But if

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the first flight with Tenacity is a
success and the vehicle makes it all the

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way back down to the surface after
completing the mission, then it could only

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take a few years to get the
vehicle crew rated. The SpaceX Dragon two

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was the first ever crew rated commercial
vehicle, and that took around six years

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from the beginning of development at SpaceX
to the first launch with astronauts on board,

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so this can be done. The
Life modules are also very close to

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being ready for an orbital test,
and unlike the Orbital Reef, the full

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sized Life can be launched on any
medium to heavy lift rocket, so Sierra

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could easily book a trip on Falcon
nine and get their first inflatable habitat into

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orbit as soon as it's ready to
go. Beyond that, with the internal

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volume of a small house, the
Life module doesn't really need to be birthed

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to a gigantic structure like Orbital Reef
one. Standalone, Life really only needs

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to be connected to power, propulsion
and a docking port, and it essentially

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becomes its own space station. So
we can at least look at one really

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good thing to come out of this
whole ordeal. It's unlikely that Sierra would

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have been able to put in so
much work and make so much progress on

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their inflatable habitat without being attached to
a marquee project like orbital Reef. As

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amazing as it would be to actually
see blue origins fantastic computer renderings brought to

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life on orbital Reef, we're clearly
not going to be there in twenty twenty

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seven or anytime this decade. I'm
not saying it couldn't happen someday, but

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we wouldn't recommend holding your breath in
anticipation