As the space economy race heats up, Blue Origin and SpaceX seem to be exploring ways to outdo each other in order to grab a larger share of the emerging market.

Blue Origin and Sierra Space announced on Tuesday plans for Orbital Reef, a “commercially developed, owned, and operated space station” to be built in low Earth orbit. The station will start operating in the second half of this decade.

The companies said the Orbital Reef will be operated as a “mixed use business park” in space. With shared infrastructure that efficiently supports the proprietary needs of diverse tenants and visitors, and will feature a human-centered space architecture with world-class services and amenities that is inspiring, practical, and safe.

“The station will open the next chapter of human space exploration and development by facilitating the growth of a vibrant ecosystem and business model for the future,” the companies said.

Following the successful commercial space outing of SpaceX last year, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have both recorded suborbital trips, increasing the frenzy as a horde of millionaires embrace luxury space trips as new hobby. With Space tourism expected to yield $1.1 trillion economy in 2040, rivalry has erupted between the companies, especially Blue Origin and SpaceX, who are also fighting to control space satellite internet.

Blue Origin was founded by Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos, while SpaceX was founded by world’s richest person, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The billionaire duo has been competing to dominate the luxury trip industry. While Musk’s SpaceX currently leads the pack with orbital services, the Orbital Reef idea may be the game changer for Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Blue Origin said the idea is backed by space industry leaders and teammates including Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University, and will open multiple new markets in space.

“Orbital Reef will provide anyone with the opportunity to establish their own address on orbit. This unique destination will offer research, industrial, international, and commercial customers the cost competitive end-to-end services they need including space transportation and logistics, space habitation, equipment accommodation, and operations including onboard crew,” the companies said.

This is a significant shift from Blue Origin’s original focus, which is to carry out suborbital commercial flights. The company successfully conducted its second commercial flight, onboarding 90-year old Start Trek actor, William Shatner, on October 13. Away from the well-established commercial flights, Blue Origin is embarking on a project that will provide alternative to the retiring International Space Station (ISS), and the Chinese Tiangong Space Station that is currently under construction.

“Seasoned space agencies, high-tech consortia, sovereign nations without space programs, media and travel companies, funded entrepreneurs and sponsored inventors, and future-minded investors all have a place on Orbital Reef,” the company said.

It explains that as the premier commercial destination in low Earth orbit, Orbital Reef will provide the essential infrastructure needed to scale economic activity and open new markets in space.

“Reusable space transportation and smart design, accompanied by advanced automation and logistics, will minimize cost and complexity for both traditional space operators and new arrivals, allowing the widest range of users to pursue their goals,” Blue Origin said. “The open system architecture allows any customer or nation to link up and scale to support demand. Module berths, vehicle ports, utilities, and amenities all increase as the market grows.”

The companies said the idea is being developed in collaboration with space agencies and research institutes, who bring proven capabilities and new visions to provide key elements and services, including unique experience from building and operating the International Space Station.

Mike Gold, Executive Vice President for Civil Space and External Affairs at Redwire, said among other things, the Orbital Reef will help life on Earth while enabling humanity’s journey to the stars.

“The Orbital Reef represents the next evolution of the commercial space paradigm by creating the first ever crewed private sector platform in low Earth orbit. The Orbital Reef will carry forward the singular legacy of the ISS, supporting innovative microgravity research, development, and manufacturing activities which will advance fields as diverse as communications and biotechnology,” he said.

One of the advantages of the collaborations with other space agencies, researchers and experts, is to lower the cost of maintaining and using the station services.

“This is exciting for us because this project does not duplicate the immensely successful and enduring ISS, but rather goes a step further to fulfill a unique position in low Earth orbit where it can serve a diverse array of companies and host non-specialist crews,” said John Mulholland, Boeing VP and program manager for the International Space Station. “It calls for the same kind of expertise we used to first design and then build the International Space Station and the same skills we employ every day to operate, maintain and sustain the ISS.”

On Thursday, 21st of October, 2021 news filled the air that an American actor; Alec Baldwin shot and killed a cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins  and a director of the movie, Joel Souza on a movie set while they were shooting a movie scene. The cinematographer died before she was airlifted to the nearest hospital while the director who was standing close to the cinematographer survived but sustained injuries.

The actor, Mr Alec Baldwin who is an A list Hollywood actor is loved by many for his movies and topnotch acting skills mostly as a crime boss, he may likely go scot free for this incident (unlike people expected especially the lovers of the victims) because according to police investigations, he was handed over a prop gun for the scene without knowing that the prop gun contained some life ammunition’s, so this is clearly a case of a honest mistake on his part. 

When an honest mistake is made and it results to death of another then it will be a case of manslaughter as distinguished from murder. Manslaughter can said to have taken place when there’s is no intent to kill or a premeditated plan to kill but death happened anyway,  intent in law is called (mensrea) while the action is called ; actus res. When there’s both an intent to kill (mensrea) added with the actual action of killing (actus res), then murder is said to have been committed because it was premeditated.

In the charge for murder or manslaughter, what the court looks at is if there’s an premeditated plan or thought which is called (mensrea) to carry out the killing. When the jury or the judge determines that there’s was no mensrea, then the charge for murder will be dropped (which in most cases carries a capital punishment) for the charge of manslaughter which carries a lesser punishment.

Going back to the case Alec Baldwin, according to the police investigation, the killing of the cinematographer is not premeditated, neither was it planned, so legally he cannot be charged for murder since there was no mensrea to commit the crime. So the actor may soon be a free man and will likely not be heavily punished for the honest mistake.