S8 Ep380: preview for later. Guest: Bob Zimmerman, Space Historian (BehindtheBlack.com) Summary: Zimmerman discusses Blue Origin’s plans to upgrade the New Glenn rocket to match the power of SpaceX's Starship. He explains that Jeff Bezos is focused on moving heavy
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 1 minutes
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Summary
preview for later. Guest: Bob Zimmerman, Space Historian (BehindtheBlack.com) Summary: Zimmerman discusses Blue Origin’s plans to upgrade the New Glenn rocket to match the power of SpaceX's Starship. He explains that Jeff Bezos is focused on moving heavy industry into orbit to preserve Earth’s environment, rather than prioritizing the exploration of Mars.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel. Bob Zimmerman calling balls and strikes on Blue Origin. What use the |
| 0:06.0 | tardiness of Blue Origin for reusable boosters for low Earth orbit? Well, there's plenty of use because |
| 0:13.0 | New Glenn, as Bob explains, has a future. And we welcome all powerful rockets for the future. |
| 0:20.7 | Is Bob to explain? |
| 0:22.4 | And also, there are advantages to being number two. |
| 0:25.8 | Lots of advantages. |
| 0:29.0 | All this tonight. |
| 0:31.1 | Talk like that. |
| 0:31.9 | The big promise the Blue Origen made shortly after they started to fly New Glenn last year, |
| 0:38.9 | is there, this is something they, was always in the cards, but they finally announced that |
| 0:43.8 | they're planning to do it, is upgrading New Glenn to make it a much more powerful rocket |
| 0:49.5 | comparable in power to Starship super heavy. And so they, I have plans to be that sophisticated. |
| 0:57.2 | But the company doesn't announce its dream plans in the same way as SpaceX. |
| 1:03.3 | What we do know is Jeff Bezos wants to be, wants to shift heavy industries and manufacturing into orbit, into space, to help preserve the Earth. |
| 1:14.9 | He's very environmentally minded. |
| 1:17.3 | And so that's his focus. |
| 1:18.4 | He's not so much interested in exploring Mars or the other planets. |
| 1:22.0 | He wants to move industry off into space. |
| 1:24.4 | And that's New Glen is his way to do that, I think. |
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