Blue Origin To Launch Big Rockets From Canaveral's Rechristened Complex 36 71
As reported by The Verge, Jeff Bezos's space venture Blue Origin today unveiled its new facility at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36. Complex 36 was once the launching point for NASA and USAF Atlas rockets, as well as for NASA's Mariner missions. "Now," says the article, "after a decade of inactivity, the complex will be revamped and renamed Exploration Park. ... Bezos said the company hopes to launch people from Exploration Park later this decade. He also announced plans to build a new orbital rocket at the facility, which he noted will use the company's upcoming BE-4 engine." (More coverage of the Blue Origin opening at the L.A. Times and Wired.)
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And he's taking it all with him.
Re:How long to a real revolution in engine tech ? (Score:5, Insightful)
We won't have a real advance in rocket motors until we get over our collective fear of "OMG the nuclears!".
Chemical reactions do not provide nearly enough power to weight thrust to move in space at reasonable speeds.
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It's not like you can pretend that "OMG teh nuculars" isn't actually founded in real concerns.
There's a little place in Ukraine which will be inhabitable in another 10,000 years or so, and Japan is still dealing with the fallout.
Or are you just going to stupidly insist we just say "fuck it" and keep trying until we figure it out? Because that would be moronic.
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I assume you're referring to the Semipalatinsk Test Site? If that's the case its in Kazakhstan, not Ukraine. And it took over 450 nuclear detonations, done with little regard to the consequences, to turn it into what it is today. Even so it is a relatively small contaminated area compared to the continent/former USSR. With what we know now about radiation, newer materials, newer manufacturing techniques, etc, as long as we don't do monumentally stupid things (like placing emergency backup generators in
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Yep, you're right... Except directly around the reactor itself, most of that area is now at fairly safe levels.
The area that is "unsafe" continues to shrink every year. While the reactor core itself will remain unsafe for a long time, the actual amount of land lost is pretty minor.
And of course they broke every safety rule in the book when they blew up the reactor.
First, we shouldn't be building such unsafe designs in the first place and we should be taking the existing ones out of service.
Second, we shou
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I think he's referencing Chernobyl, which is so inhabitable, there are people living there right now and Belarus is already reclaiming land that was originally in the exclusion zone. Sure you don't want to go partying up in the Red Forest, but most of the zone is very much habitable
Except for people who have, or want to have, children.
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I'm referring to radionuclide contamination as a result of these releases that are difficult to detect in the food chain or as inhalants, as opposed to localized emitted radiation.
There is no such thing as a radionuclide that's difficult to detect. Or rather, there's no such thing as an active radionuclide that's difficult to detect. We can accurately measure every single decay, and from a distance to boot. The ones that are more difficult to detect are the ones which very long half-lives, and in that case their danger comes from their chemical properties anyway, not their radiological properties.
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I'm referring to radionuclide contamination as a result of these releases that are difficult to detect in the food chain or as inhalants, as opposed to localized emitted radiation.
There is no such thing as a radionuclide that's difficult to detect.
In a lab certainly, it's a whole lot different for a vegetable packer or a water bottling plant or a consumer with a meal in front of them. It would look kind of silly waving a geiger counter over a plate of spaghetti - is that what you are proposing?
Or rather, there's no such thing as an active radionuclide that's difficult to detect. We can accurately measure every single decay, and from a distance to boot. The ones that are more difficult to detect are the ones which very long half-lives, and in that case their danger comes from their chemical properties anyway, not their radiological properties.
That's great however I don't think that it is practical for farmers to do this.
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You're suggesting it's difficult for a vegetable packer or a water bottling plant? These are industrial processes, where it's trivial to measure radioactivity as and when the products are processed and packaged. Especially in the case of the water bottling plant. Do you seriously think they don't measure the chemical properties of the water they're bottling as it is? Adding a step in that process, a step that is simpler and easier to measure than other properties they are already measuring is cheap and easy
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Do you seriously think they don't measure the chemical properties of the water they're bottling as it is?
I think they take a sample at some interval and base everything on that. Do you think they examine every bottle and print a custom label for every one of the hundreds of millions of units they ship?
Adding a step in that process, a step that is simpler and easier to measure than other properties they are already measuring is cheap and easy.
Unless every unit is examined, as opposed to a sample quantity, then it is useless. Specifically we are talking about how detecting a radionuclide, like 239pu, in the microgram range, in a moderator of radioactivity at industrial packaging rates would be close to impossible. I also think the machine that could do
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There are people living in landfills. Doesn't mean the landfills are habitable, only that people are desperate.
The roads in the zone are generally safe, but outside roads it is fair game. There are very dangerous invisible radiation hotspots and if you find an animal carcass you can bet it is pretty radioactive as well.
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I think you are vastly underestimating the radiation levels in the exclusion zone. Maybe you should try to go there once, with a dosimeter. A day tour from Kiev is easily doable, but if you go offroad, prepare to discard your clothes afterwards.
Why? Because what you fail do understand is that the background radiation is the least of your worries. Radionuclides in the dust, in the soil and generally in the environment are. You will contaminate your clothes, that is for sure. You can easily contaminate your f
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Why? Because what you fail do understand is that the background radiation is the least of your worries. Radionuclides in the dust, in the soil and generally in the environment are. You will contaminate your clothes, that is for sure. You can easily contaminate your food if you are not very careful and there is a good chance to breathe in radioactive dust.
Uhh, "Radioniclides in the dust, in the soil and generally in the environment" is the definition of background radiation [wikipedia.org]. It doesn't matter where it comes from. Radiation is radiation when we're talking population risks.
And background radiation is what we're talking about. You'd do well to read up on the places where the background radiation is high [wikipedia.org] and the population studies that have been done on those places and the large accidental irradiations (the Taiwan one is illustrating). Furthermore, while it's m
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There's a little place in Ukraine which will be inhabitable in another 10,000 years or so, and Japan is still dealing with the fallout.
I can only assume you mean Chernobyl.
First, that was an example of extreme human stupidity, and while we can't promise humans won't be stupid again, it is worth noting that a few bad events compared to the huge number of good ones shouldn't cause us to all give up.
It is also worth noting that the bulk of the area around Chernobyl is now safe to move back to. This idea that the whole area is unsafe for 10,000 years is just silly.
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And the small fact no one has built a nuclear rocket.
The Russians did, or at least the motor. It used the moderator as the thrust mass, IIRC, so once it was out of fuel the reactor would shut down. Not sure how well it would work - dense power is great, but once you're out of Earth orbit only ISP (i.e., exhaust velocity) really matters, and you wouldn't want to use this close to Earth.
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Nuclear, or even anti-matter/matter, engines are still propellant based, and Orion from the 50s was and is a viable system. Only issue is an Orion craft would realistically have to be built in orbit, preferably around the moon, and fired off so it's not pointing at earth. It's also more suited to much longer voyages, rather than intra-solar system.
That said, physics needs to give us a new means of traveling from one point in space to another before a true advance in space travel technology can happen.
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Nuclear, or even anti-matter/matter, engines are still propellant based, and Orion from the 50s was and is a viable system.
Perhaps, or perhaps not... NASA's Ion Drive was a nice step forward. Not useful for leaving Earth's Gravity Well, but a nice advance for moving between planets using less mass for a given unit of acceleration...
The reality is that not enough work has been done to develop them.
Imagine for a min if the best jet engines we had were the ones used in the Gloster Meteor and the ME-262, and someone suggested building a 747 using jet power. You'd think they were nuts. And you'd be right, if that was the limit o
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So you have to be willing to imagine a future when they are far, far better than today. Because chemical rockets aren't it.
Exactly my point. The Ion drive was a nice step forward although it too is a reaction drive and is limited by physics we all know and understand today. Solar sails have their uses and possibilities, but still offer no leap forward. We'd need to understand some new physics before a leap can occur.
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The study of nuclear rocket engines has a history dating back to the early 1950s. There was a Space Nuclear Propulsion Office until 1972. A NERVA is on exhibit at the US Space and Rocket Center. I also noticed that UAHuntsville and NASA Marshall appear to have been investigating this technology for at least the past few years based on news announcements and published papers. If you want to know what challenges are still ahead and how ready the technology is, checkout some of the recent published material.
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Launching stuff into space isn't a "hacking problem", it is a physics problem.
The amount of energy that has to be imparted on 1lb of "stuff" to put it 400 miles up and traveling at 17,500 mph cannot be ignored.
It takes a huge volume and weight of fuel to make that happen. Chemical reactions are the problem, they just don't make enough energy per pound to make space travel all that useful.
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except energy is one of the reasons for the huge labor costs.
If you didn't require an expendable vehicle the size of Saturn V just to put 2 people on the moon for a day, then that cost could be much lower.
Materials, labor, energy, all cost something. A small, efficient, reusable spacecraft that could lift objects for a fraction of the effort currently expended is what is needed.
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No, it isn't cheap, because at some point you're just hauling fuel to lift the fuel which you need to lift more fuel.
If the fuel wasn't so big and heavy, you wouldn't need so much of it.
Chemical reactions don't provide enough impulse per pound of weight to be useful for space travel.
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I know, man. If it wasn't for all the NIMBYs, we'd have put men on the moon by now!
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We put 12 people on the moon by brute forcing it with a huge sum of money and a massive rocket that was never really safe to begin with, all to have a few hours to walk around up there.
It worked, and it is just amazing how it all happened, but it wasn't a sustainable future which is why the last three missions were canceled.
It is simply not reasonable to launch Saturn V rockets to put 2 people on the moon for a day. The cost/return ratio is, pardon the pun, out of this world. :)
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So, exactly the same as nuclear, only with less fetish-stroking.
Nuclear fantasies are a staple of Slashdot forums, but I personally think fission technology is both quaint and unsuited to observable human behavioral patterns. Thank god I live in a country with some pitiful semblance of democracy, so that the majority will occasionally prevails, despite insanities like the Cheney energy policy [nbcnews.com].
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So my question then becomes... if you really want to be nuclear free, what then?
How are we going to provide a stable, reliable power grid so that people can have dependable 24/7 power?
Solar and wind alone? I've given this some through and honestly I just don't see that as a viable option. Oh, in a few places it might be... but to be completely free of coal, oil, and natural gas, you'd need it to be viable everywhere.
That isn't likely to happen in our lifetimes.
So a vote against nuclear is really a vote
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Ah, the fallacy of the excluded middle. I'm afraid that's complete bullshit.
If you look at any reputable analysis (that is, ignore the fake nuke shill ones put out by Fred Singer and pals) you'll find that solar and wind would be quite possible - as long as you are OK with the same kind of massive public funding and international co-operation that nukes also require. And while tens of thousands of windmills
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Ah, the fallacy of the excluded middle. I'm afraid that's complete bullshit.
You calling it bullshit doesn't make it so...
I'm dealing with what is, not what is technically possible if I were King and could dictate solutions.
Is a massive solar/wind system technically possible? Yes, of course it is.
It is politically possible? No, not even close. There are too many actors in that game with too many different interests and conflicting points of view.
If you look at any reputable analysis (that is, ignore the fake nuke shill ones put out by Fred Singer and pals) you'll find that solar and wind would be quite possible - as long as you are OK with the same kind of massive public funding and international co-operation that nukes also require.
You can fund solar and wind all you like, you run into issues of distribution and storage. While it is true that the sun is always shin
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You should do some math on the energy required to move six people, all the stuff they need to live for a year, from Earth to Mars in 3 months.
Then you should figure out the size of the chemical rocket you'll need to do that. Just for fun, I'll let you cut the final number in half.
It will still be a stupidly massive huge number that isn't reasonable.
Then you should do the same math for a trip to Jupiter's moons, this time taking 6 months. This time I'll be really nice and let you cut the number down to 25%
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Yea, even metamods punish upmodding of liberal posts. I get less mod points less often if I promote ideas that are conservative bogeymen.
Worse, even if a post gets to a +5, if it's got ideas or statements that conservative trolls want to suppress, then they'll send in their moderator accounts the following day, after the story falls off the front page, to mod the post down to 0 or -1 so that when the thread gets archived, that score is locked in.
Amazing how they're able to do that. They must have an army
ReChristening? (Score:2)
NASA is now just a landlord (Score:1)
The era of manned space exploration has closed, for now. The Republicans and Democrats in Congress have so slashed the NASA budget, that NASA
is reduced to being just the landlord at Cape Canaveral. The next US-sponsored manned flight is more than five years away to test the next gen systems (if the Tea Party doesn't kill it altogether). Most of the integration and launch facilities have now been leased to Boeing, Lockheed, Bezos, etc.
This straight from the horse's mouth: I was at a lecture by the Adminis
Heh. (Score:2)
So they're planning to build a rocket based on the same engines they're going to sell to ULA, which I'm sure comes as no surprise to anyone who's been following this stuff.
I guess it just speaks to ULA's desperation, to design their new rocket based on engines supplied by their future competitor.
Interesting times in the launch market (Score:4, Interesting)
Aerojet-Rocketdyne just offered to buy ULA. ULA was planning on using Blue Origin's BE-4 engine for their upcoming Vulcan rocket, but if the AR purchase goes through there's no way the Vulcan will use anything but AR engines. Or maybe they'll just re-engine Atlas V with an AR replacement for the Russian RD-180 engine.
So I'm reading this as Bezos deciding that if ULA goes to AR, he's going to build his own BE-4 based rocket, with blackjack and hookers. If that pans out, we could have a pretty competitive landscape - BO vs SpaceX vs ULA/AR.
The question is if the launch market can support that many competitors, or if new customers will start to emerge. Historically we've only seen a market for a dozen or so yearly launches for this class of rocket, and if prices stay the same I don't imagine that will change much. We can root for a pricewar between Musk and Bezos which would expand the market, but that's a pretty rough prospect for ULA which does things the old, expensive way, and actually needs to turn a profit since there isn't a billionaire waiting in the wings to write them checks as needed.
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he's going to build his own BE-4 based rocket, with blackjack and hookers.
That sounds like an awesome rocket. Where do I sign up?
And do I need to bring my own single malt and cocaine?
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Aerojet-Rocketdyne just offered to buy ULA. ULA was planning on using Blue Origin's BE-4 engine for their upcoming Vulcan rocket, but if the AR purchase goes through there's no way the Vulcan will use anything but AR engines. Or maybe they'll just re-engine Atlas V with an AR replacement for the Russian RD-180 engine.
If AR actually buys ULA, the future competitiveness of ULA's vehicle will go down the drain. This would be very good news to SpaceX and BO!
Skipping drones right to rockets. (Score:2)
Amazon is obviously getting pretty serious about their Guaranteed Delivery Dates.
Tactfully said but (Score:4, Funny)
Bezos said the company hopes to launch people from Exploration Park later this decade.
Someone needs to remind Jeff that launching people is the easy part. In fact when you sit people on top of that much rocket fuel, it's pretty hard NOT to launch them. Getting them to where they need to in one piece, however. Well that's tricky.
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Bezos said the company hopes to launch people from Exploration Park later this decade.
Someone needs to remind Jeff that launching people is the easy part. In fact when you sit people on top of that much rocket fuel, it's pretty hard NOT to launch them. Getting them to where they need to in one piece, however. Well that's tricky.
Well it's debatable whether it would matter to Bezos if they lost a crew from the way Amazon works.