Rocket Report: Turbulent pricing era ahead, SLS concerns, SpaceX plays catch

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson/SpaceX)

Welcome to Edition 1.21 of the Rocket Report! This week, one space tourism company says it is coming to space "within weeks" while another company says it won't fly humans there until early 2019. Meanwhile, there's no shortage of big rocket news, including a report critical of Boeing's management of the Space Launch System rocket.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Blue Origin delays first New Shepard flights. The space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is now planning to send its first crew on a suborbital space trip during the first half of 2019, GeekWire reports. Blue Origin's plan calls for its own employees to get aboard for the first crewed flights. The company already has former space shuttle astronauts on its payroll, including Nicholas Patrick and Jeff Ashby. When the publication asked Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith whether the first crew has been selected, he replied, "I'm not going to comment on that."

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