# ULA Releases Photo of Blue Origin BE-4 Flight Engine #1 for Vulcan Rocket **URL:** \ **Category:** The Happening World\ **Tags:** blue-origin, raptor-2, united-launch-alliance, be-4-engine, spacex\ **Created:** [30 July 2022 14:06 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/ula-releases-photo-of-blue-origin-be-4-flight-engine-1-for-vulcan-rocket/1773 "2022-07-30T14:06:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 15
**Author:** ![jabowery](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/user_avatar/scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/jabowery/32/5478_2.png) [@jabowery](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/jabowery)\ **Post date:** [26 March 2023 13:55 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/ula-releases-photo-of-blue-origin-be-4-flight-engine-1-for-vulcan-rocket/1773/15 "2023-03-26T13:55:33Z")
> [@Gavin](#): > > It has to be noted – this vehicle looks rather similar to the DCX Delta Clipper resuable rocket that was successfully tested in the early 1990s. Thirty years ago! An engineer starting his career when the DCX first flew will by now be thinking very seriously about his retirement. > > How do we spell “Lost Opportunities”? The real lost opportunity involving the DCX is one of the more perverse events in the history of aerospace to which I was a witness – and victim: During our effort to force NASA out of competition with the private sector, libertarian-leaning Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was an important supporter and his space activist staffer, Tim Kyger, was our primary liaison. Tim told me that [my testimony on the the issue](https://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2018/04/necessity-and-incentives-opening-space.html) was among the most powerful of any testimony before Congress he’d seen – which at the very least indicates how enthusiastically supportive Rohrabacher’s comitatus was. After I gave that testimony, my experience with the various privately capitalized launch service companies brought me into contact with E’Prime Aerospace of Titusville, FL. They had, somehow, managed to get control of the MX missile production line, and had a stripped down version to make it easier to manufacture. Since operational expenses had been minimized in the MX design, and operational expenses were dominating launch service costs, and risk had been mitigated by the military, I got really interested. They needed a customer. The customer they had lined up was Norris Satellite – a company out of Lancaster PA that had made its money with satellite broadcast of TV preachers among other things – and they wanted to orbit a Ka-band satellite that would provide digital service. There were no Ka-band satellites back then. So then I became interested in the licensing process for opening up new bands. That’s when E’Prime, noting my past political success hired me as VP for Public Affairs – in part to help facilitate the Ka-band license through. This was all late 1991 to early 1992. We did manage to make good progress on that front. We needed additional capital so we had a meeting with potential venture financiers in the LA area (broadcast TV). I was in attendance. The meeting seemed to be going well, but then something happened… At noon break the VCs broke off the meeting. The reason? A company in Rohrabacher’s Long Beach district had just been awarded capital by the DoD to construct a single stage to orbit launch vehicle which came to be known as DCX. --- _[View the full topic](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/ula-releases-photo-of-blue-origin-be-4-flight-engine-1-for-vulcan-rocket/1773)._