Blue Origin Release Flight Videos 180
Reality Master 101 writes "Space start-up Blue Origin (financed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) had a secret test flight on November 13, 2006. They've now released video and pictures of the very successful flight. Looks like they're making good progress." From the page: "We're working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. Accomplishing this mission will take a long time, and we're working on it methodically."
Re:Defrosters (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Restricted video format? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:As god intended (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Scaling Up? (Score:5, Informative)
The Environmental Impact Statement they were required to publish last year [hobbyspace.com] describing their suborbital vehicle says that the "stacked vehicle would have a roughly conical shape with a base diameter of approximately 7 meters (22 feet) and a height of approximately 15 meters (50 feet)."
Judging from the photograph with the guy standing next to the rocket, the current test article seems to be maybe 6-7 meters tall, so I guess the final thing will be more than twice as tall.
Re:Defrosters (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is much bigger than I expected. I would guess with a 2m radius and 4m height. It is quite fat, so I guess they are using spherical or ellipsoidal propellant tanks. The shape reminds me of the Kankoh Maru [astronautix.com] and the shell seems to be made of composites or plastic. I guess the blunt nose makes sense because the thing is suborbital and they do not have a wide cross range requirement like the Delta Clipper [astronautix.com] had.
I am not an expert, but the burn looked too clean, I guess it is a pressure fed mono propellant. Perhaps H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) like someone else said. Much like what Carmack tried to do with Armadillo. I counted 3 x 3 = 9 thrust chambers in that setup.
The man requested someone with experience in cryogenic turbopumps. Even mentioned the RS-68 explicitly. So it seems to me he is going for a pump fed LOX/LH2 engine. It makes much more sense to me than the H2O2/Kerosene rumours I heard before. Why risk it all by going for an engine no one has built before? I mean the only rocket engine with that combo I remember is the one [astronautix.com] in the British Black Arrow [astronautix.com] rocket from the 70s. Beal [bealaerospace.com] killed himself by going with a risky H2O2/Kerosene combo and a filament wound shell.
A LOX/LH2 engine with a variable mixture ratio would do the trick. H2O2 is IMO overrated and finicky. LOX is cheaper than high purity H2O2 and has pretty good density. You have to go for LH2 if you wanna go orbital anyway for the ISP AFAIK (unless you use a lot of stages, which I guess is what they do not want).
Re:A question about energy (Score:2, Informative)
The idea is, if you can make the launch vehicle completely, or almost completely, reuseable (and no, the shuttle is not reuseable, the shuttle is remanufacturable, there's an expensive difference), then the cost of the launch is almost completely the cost of fuel.
If you can use cheap fuels like kerosene and hydrogen peroxide or lox, then you may be able to drive the launch costs down to a point where it's economical to carry extra fuel for landing. Remember, vertical landing means you can land almost anywhere. You wouldn't need special, extra long runways like the shuttle.
Another point is that a real vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing, single-stage-to-orbit would be huge and on landing it's going to be mostly empty. So on landing it's going to be relatively light for it's size. Which means it's terminal velocity is going to be much lower than the shuttle, which means you're going to need much, much less fuel to land than to take-off.
The problem is nobody can tell whether it's going to be economical until somebody builds a full-scale model. NASA isn't going to do it because they "know" it isn't economical, but they started with different assumptions and requirements than Blue Origins, so while I generally have high regards for NASA engineers, in this case I wouldn't trust their conclusion.
Re:A question about energy (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that the extra weight needed to carry the wings for the two spacecraft you mention (the shuttle and SS1) will add more weight to the craft, and thus need extra fuel anyway. The space shuttle's wings were only designed how they were so that the shuttle could carry satellites back to earth - so it is possible to make a much lighter configuration, but I imagine it would still only be on par with a VTOVL vehicle at best, and in reality probably still worse in terms of fuel.
Collective nouns and subject-verb agreement. (Score:2, Informative)
I hate to be a grammar cop, but unless you are regarding the members of a group individually, then the collective is singular, not plural. What the headline implies is that Blue Origin is a group of independently acting people, some of whom have released their own flight videos. I doubt that's the case.
Re:A question about energy (Score:3, Informative)
Keep in mind that fuel (especially something like the hydrogen peroxide they're using) is absurdly cheap compared to everything else. Most of the money on launch ventures goes to paying employees, so you want to do everything possible to reduce how many support personnel you have. Fuel is probably on the order of 1% of your total costs.
Re:Gradatim Ferociter? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Defrosters (Score:3, Informative)