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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      As was reported in SN [soylentnews.org] on June 25, The Heinlein Prize Trust awarded its commercial space prize to Jeff Bezos "for his vision and leadership in commercial space activities that have led to historic firsts and reusability in the commercial spaceflight industry." Rich Smith, in The Motley Fool writes [fool.com]:

[...] In fact, Blue Origin's really big win is something barely mentioned in the Heinlein Prize's press release: "Blue Origin reached a commercial agreement with a private launch company to develop the BE-4 engine which could be used to power the next generation of U.S. launch vehicles."

      Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) tapped Blue Origin to "expand production capabilities for the American-made BE-4 engine that will power the Vulcan." Vulcan, as you will recall, is the new rocket that Lockheed and Boeing are building to replace United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V line of space rockets -- and compete with SpaceX's cheaper Falcon line of rockets.

      Because Boeing and Lockheed Martin focus their space efforts on building rocket ships, they generally outsource engine work to subcontractors. On Vulcan, Aerojet Rocketdyne is building one possible engine variant, while Blue Origin is building another -- and by all indications, Blue Origin's BE-4 is the engine Boeing and Lockheed would prefer to use in ULA's new rocket.

      [...]

      Through its BE-4 contract with ULA, Blue Origin is killing two birds with one rock(et). It's developing an engine powerful enough to give its own rocket ships true orbital velocity that will permit spaceflight. At the same time, it's generating revenue from sales of this engine to ULA -- revenue that it can then reinvest in its own business to further its own spaceflight efforts.

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