Blue Origin has a much bigger problem than the rocket that exploded last night. Let's discuss.

Via the Associated Press, a familiar (if dispiriting) incident in space exploration:

A rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin exploded during a test at the launch pad Thursday night, shaking nearby homes and briefly painting the sky orange.

Blue Origin said its New Glenn rocket exploded during an engine-firing test being conducted ahead of a satellite launch planned for next week. No one was hurt, according to officials at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Watching this footage, it's kind of incredible that "no one was hurt!"

The blowup from other angles is just as unbelievable:

[S-word in the next one]

(I love how nonchalant Floridians are when a rocket blows up on the horizon.)

The explosion was catastrophic enough that its debris could be tracked on Doppler radar:

As the AP reports, Blue Origin "had been on track to launch a prototype lunar lander to the moon on a flight test this fall," though I think we can safely say that's probably been pushed back a bit.

Rocket explosions are part of the learning process with any new launch vehicle. You expect them to happen.

But in this case, not only was it a complete surprise given how far along the New Glenn program is in development, but it also took Blue Origin's only launch pad out of commission.

From Eric Berger at ARS Technica:

No one was injured during the failure, which sources said caused extensive damage to the company's large and complex launch site. During a pad failure in 2016, with the smaller Falcon 9 rocket, it took SpaceX more than a year to rebuild its seriously damaged Space Launch Complex-40 pad.

...

This is the worst disaster in the history of Blue Origin, founded in 2000.

The issue is that Blue Origin had already been selected as an integral part of NASA's moon base plan. Now their only launch pad was shredded by the largest rocket explosion since a Soviet explosion half a century ago.

It takes time to rebuild such things.

Early reports from sources suggest that the launch infrastructure at LC-36A is severely damaged. A source indicated that one of the lightning towers may not be salvageable, and that the transporter-erector may also be damaged beyond repair.

Another launch pad was already under construction nearby, but the company will be unlikely to launch another New Glenn rocket until late 2027.

The failure of New Glenn also has major implications for NASA and its surging efforts to return humans to the Moon before the end of this decade, and to establish a lunar base on the surface.

On Tuesday NASA announced that it had selected the New Glenn rocket to deliver the first two rovers, built by Lunar Outpost and Astrolab, to the lunar surface in 2028. Blue Origin has developed its own cargo lunar lander, Blue Moon Mark 1, designed to fly on top of New Glenn. It was due to launch this fall to the Moon for the first time, and again next year carrying the VIPER rover to the Moon for NASA.

Yes, two days after NASA announced it had selected New Glenn to deliver its lunar rovers, a New Glenn rocket blew the company's launchpad to smithereens.

Because of the success of New Glenn, Blue Origin was set to "break into a monthly launch cadence." Not anymore.

The company may pivot now, abandoning the smaller version of the rocket that exploded on the launch pad in favor of its larger one.

One thing is for sure: If this had been a SpaceX rocket that exploded, the media would have been mocking the company and its owner, Elon Musk, for days!

The unfortunate incident got a nod of sympathy from the Mars Man himself:

The final frontier is a risky business!