Blue Origin has emerged as the likely buyer for United Launch Alliance

This is overall a good, and needed thing. While the BE-4 engines from Blue Origin are fantastic, they need the level of system maturity that is represented by ULA. Together, I see a real chance to be competitive with SpaceX long term. Yes, they have work to go before they could do reusable launch, but the combined company probably has the best chance to do so.<p>The more reusable launch providers the better for the industry and for human kind.

Huh, my mental model was always that Blue Origin is a small-ish company, and ULA is a behemoth made from merging two already-behemoth launch companies. I guess I never validated these assumptions, and I didn&#x27;t really count the amount of money that Bezos might put into such a deal.

I don&#x27;t see how this would be beneficial for Blue Origin. Their next rocket, New Glenn, is planned to be finished this year. Unlike ULA&#x27;s smaller Vulcan rocket, its lower stage will be reusable. It seems likely that New Glenn will be cheaper than Vulcan once they are able reuse the stage a couple of times. Especially per ton of launch mass. Then they have no reason to keep operating Vulcan.

Is anyone else getting kinda unnerved that the biggest billionaires are starting to shift focus towards owning, and importantly, calling the shots at large military contractors?

They were always the most likely buyer if you were paying attention.<p>I admit to being pretty disappointed at the confirmation though. Blue Origin would of done just fine without this merger and 3+ companies competing for US space launches instead of 2 would of been healthier.<p>Maybe Tony Bruno will launch his own space company? I always thought Boeing and Lockheed were holding him back.

Welcome your monopolistic, plutocratic overlords.

That&#x27;s why Jeff is selling his AMZN stock