Blue Origin Launches and Lands the Same New Shepard That Few In November (blueorigin.com) 132
MarkWhittington writes: The commercial space race between Blue Origin and SpaceX got more interesting on Friday. In November, Blue Origin launched its New Shepard booster on a suborbital flight, and then successfully landed it afterward. On Friday, Blue Origin relaunched the same New Shepard spacecraft to a height of 101.7 kilometers, and then landed it a second time. Blue Origin has therefore accomplished a first by flying a vertical takeoff and landing rocket into space twice in a row. The company has taken another step toward its goal of taking the rich and adventurous on suborbital jaunts for fun and profit.
Ummmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
'Few in November'? lol
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Not being familiar with the subject, that threw me completely off when I read it.
Are you sure it didn't "trew" you off?
Re:Ummmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot has turned from a labor of love (when we had good, topical stories that even had some background research now and then) to a cash cow and ad mouthpiece (when it was turned over to dice and we started playing the "spot the astroturf ad article du jour" game) to the current "we don't even give half a shit anymore" situation.
Seriously. Be honest. Does anyone read the stories anymore before they get frontpaged? I get that suspicious feeling that if I could get a few /. trolls together we could easily get a Lorem Ipsum on the frontpage.
Re: Ummmm.... (Score:1)
The people that used to come here in droves are still around. Someone should start a new /. with better quality control etc. That's what wrecked it for me and caused me come here rarely when before it was multiple times a day.
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What do you think of soylent news? When they started they billed themselves as continuing the ideal of what Slashdot used to be. Personally I don't find the stories and comments to be all that great on soylent. Slashdot still wins by a very small amount in my opinion.
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And Slashdot looks nicer [ducks].
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And Slashdot looks nicer [ducks].
Soylent News looks like slashdot from the early 2000s, which I suppose some people think is cool.
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I started reading slashdot in '99. I can't recall a time when the editors ever appeared to read summaries before posting them. And before Dice and startswithabang, it was ohnoitsroland. All along people have been insisting that slashdot used to be great back in the day but the standards are gone. I don't believe there ever were standards. Take it or leave it. I still enjoy it.
holy crap (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:holy crap (Score:5, Funny)
In his defense, he's very drunk.
Re:holy crap (Score:4, Funny)
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In his defense, he's very drunk.
In my experience this line of defense only works if everyone involved is as drunk as you are or otherwise sufficiently medicated.
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He is calm. Look, there's a certain honesty in showing that you really, truly, just don't give a shit. I almost admire Timothy for that. He's sitting there for every story and weighing up whether to spend the time reading the text before posting, or whether to just post it and have another donut instead, and the donut wins *every single time*. You can't buy consistency like that.
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I noticed quite a flew of those spelling errors.
Re:holy crap (Score:4)
>Spelling isn't that hard. It reflects really poorly on this site when the editors can't spell.
You must be new around here . . .
hawk
That Few In November? (Score:2)
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Few? (Score:2)
Blu Origins lunches and landz teh sam new chepard that phew in novemberer.
FTFY
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I could believe it if it was a SpaceX press release: I get so many emails from PayPal saying "Dear Mr spamtrap49 your accounting was using for suspicious transaction, and has be suspended. Please clicking here to conform your detail" that its clear Elon Musk can't spell. Yet the emails from Amazon telling me that I might be interested in books similar to the one I bought for my mum's birthday 5 years ago all seemed to be written in perfect English...
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Blue Origin had therefore accomplished a space first by flying a "vertical takeoff and landing" rocket into space twice in a row.
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Or even: "Blue Origin had therefore accomplished a space first by flying a vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket into space twice in a row."
No comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
How can anyone compare Blue Origin and SpaceX in the same paragraph while still mentioning that Blue Origin flights are sub-orbital? There's really little basis for comparison at that point between Blue Origin and SpaceX and more comparison between Blue Origin and Scaled Composites. Of course Scaled Composites *already* flew multiple sub-orbital flights with SpaceShipOne - who cares that it wasn't a vertical take-off and landing - it's *still* more comparable.
Re:No comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
That depends on what you consider to be the hard bit.
I think you'll find that the "hard bit" is putting a payload into orbit and, for extra points, not needing twice as much fuel as a disposable rocket (which is why SpaceX are trying to land on a barge in the middle of the sea rather than flying all the way back to the launchpad).
Otherwise you're just complaining that this was a feat performed with a blue rocket rather than a green one.
Actually more like comparing a silver, red and blue rocket [wikia.com] with an orange one [wikia.com].
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Let's give this a rest. It sounds as immature as the "playstation vs. Xbox" flamefest-conundrums.
As far as *the 1st stage* goes, both are sub-orbital. Yes, SpaceX' one gets further and faster and has a bigger one than Blue Origin. Fine, they win the d*ck-contest.
The real point however, is that both are working on reusable vehicles, where none did before. (No, I'm not counting the spaceshuttle). There is nothing wrong with some good competitive tong(s)-in-cheek(s). I don't get why fanboys of either side are
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? ;-)
Even when taking your example: one would be hard pressed, even when saying " the one feels far better and can get a woman pregnant while the other can't" to say one or the other *does not* involve ejaculation.
But anyhow, a rather incorrect remark. I didn't refuse to acknowledge anything of the sort. Blue Origin had a payload, just like SpaceX. SpaceX had a far bigger payload, and put it far further, thanks to a second, non-recoverable stage.
So?
What I'm contesting here, is the fact that people act as i
Re:No comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not, technically. And SpaceX has already done *lots* of rocket landing with the Grasshopper test vehicle.
The hard part is scaling the technology up enough to be useful - there's lots of non-linearities in the real world that confound such endeavors. Just a couple:
Getting up to speed while carrying a second stage requires a LOT more fuel, meaning the difference between launch weight and landing weight are MUCH greater. To the point where the Falcon uses only one of its nine engines when landing, throttles it down as far as it can go, and still is producing too much thrust to be able to hover. And being able to hover makes a *huge* difference in ease of landing - just stop a few feet above ground and then ease yourself down, rather than having to time things perfectly so that you hit zero vertical speed just as you touch down. Stop a foot too high and you can't get down short of cutting the engines and falling, stop a foot too low and you get serious impact damage.
Wind shear - thanks to the much taller profile, torques from ambient breezes are going to be much greater on the bigger rocket, increasing with roughly the square of height.
Re:No comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
If the rocket doesn't do any actual work then it's not a lot different than my shooting-off model rockets. It's interesting, it's fun, but it's not accomplishing a goal other than shooting-off rockets.
SpaceX has launched a payload for a customer and landed the rocket. Hopefully in their next few launches they'll land more rockets and be able to turn around and fly them again with more payloads. That would actually be a noteworthy accomplishment.
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Ermm... Everyone makes mistakes, but if you're going to base your whole reasoning and conclusion on an argument, you'd better be sure it's true.
Alas, it ain't. It was not payload-less, and thus, following your own reasoning; it did do actual work. Ergo, it *IS* a lot different than your shooting-off model. Hence, it *IS* accomplishing a goal other than shooting-off rockets.
The whole thing you said broke down, thus.
Re:No comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
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But it wasn't payload-less. Let's agree to that, at least. Making the argument into a 'sounding rocket' is another argument.
In that case: the problem is, how you make the comparison. If you only take the part that actually returns - which makes sense, since it's that which all the fuzz is about - then one has to acknowledge the first stage of SpaceX ALSO only reaches a suborbital plane, and thus, is also nothing more than a 'sounding rocket'. The fact that the rocket in its totality wasn't, doesn't mean the
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Blue Origin will eventually have a two-stage rocket that can reach orbit (although they are planning on a much smaller payload than SpaceX for their first iteration). When the booster of that rocket lands without damage, they will duplicate what SpaceX has recently done, although in smaller scale.
Blue Origin to SpaceX at present is a sort of bicycle-to-automobile comparison if you account for the tremendous difference in energy and the application. So, I think there really is an intrinsic difference between
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I respectfully disagree, at least to some extent. The reason why we compare both things (the first stage of spaceX, and Blue Origin Shepard, is because they are similar. In both cases, the same principles apply, and the same mode of operandi is used. So the analogy would be rather be two cars. One could say one is a Polo Volkswagen (Blue Origin), and the other a Porche (SpaceX first stage), but no-one would claim they aren't both cars. EVEN when then saying "Ah, but the Porche is much faster, goes a longer
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ermm... errata: speed of sound. But I think you got that ;-)
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I think Blue Origin is more like an electric city-car like the one Ford has based on the Focus, or the electric version of the Fiat 500. Very short range, no significant cargo capacity, can move a few people around a short distance and is severely range-limited. By contrast the SpaceX rocket is more like a small box-truck or large high-roof van. Certainly not the carrying capacity of a tra
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Well, it's a point of contestation I suppose, but certainly we seem to agree that they *are* both cars, then.
Also... if one looks at the reusable part(s), the difference is mainly in weight-carrying capacity. More akin to an analogy where spaceX is a SUV which is carrying another small car, while the other is a normal city car. Now, the combination of the SUV + small car will far outweigh the city car and be able to go much further, but if one only compares the SUV with the city car, the discrepancy won't b
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Not payload-less, but BO's capsule is estimated at around 10 tons while SpaceX's second stage + payload is 125 tons and separates at Mach 4.8.
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Maybe you should direct your question a rocket scientist. I think SpaceX has some.
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I'm not even sure the parent poster is correct. As far as I have been able to research it, they say they needed to make the engine throttable, just because at full power it was too powerful. But they *did* make it throttable. No-where did I see that SpaceX still had the same problem with their engine being throttled to the lowest power.
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It's just exaggerated nonsense and hyperbole. I'm getting a bit fed up with all this fanboism on both sides.
Yes, SpaceX has it harder, but not THAT much harder. The main systems and mode of operandi is largely the same for both rockets. There is nothing drastically and qualitative different between it, only quantitative. Blue Origin also has to compensate for winds, also has to make sure the avionics work perfectly, also has to see that the propulsion negates the downwards (falling) speed, etc. SpaceX has i
Re:No comparison (Score:4, Informative)
It's hard to overstate the difference between 100km freefall tourism (without the tourists yet but let's presume they'll be easy to add) and putting payloads into orbit. The delta-v to orbit is about six times more.
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Yes, but one has to be honest, here. The thing which is comparable, is the part that gets returned (aka, is recuperable). That's what all the fuzz is about. So, taken that it handles bout that part, it means comparing Shepard to the first stage of SpaceX. Not shepard compared to the whole rocket.
In the end, it's not the first stage that puts up the satellite into orbit, but the second and third stage. The first stage, on itself, only manages to get into a suborbital plane too.
Granted, it has to put more eff
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Well said. I'd mod you up if I could.
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Well, agreed, but only if you take the goal to be an orbital flight. If - as it is with Blue Origin - the goal is to get rich tourists go up into space at a reasonable price, then clearly *they* are much closer.
For that goal, they just have to demonstrate 1)they can go into space (which is defined at reaching a height of 100km, NOT reaching low earth orbit), and 2)have a reusable rocket, so they can drastically lower the price. They have now shown to have reached those sub-goals, so they can now reach their
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SpaceShipOne isn't single stage, it needs a lift. In that arena, the X-15 takes priority. (Several X-15 flights earned their pilots astronaut wings.)
Re: No comparison (Score:2)
Same thing with the first American in space. Also just a sub-orbital flight.
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The key thing is mass budget. If it helps Blue Origin land more reliably to add a ton of structural bracing or whatever, it's no big deal. For SpaceX its a huge deal.
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And when one can hold ones' balance and don't need the training wheels, it wouldn't matter, even if the extra wheels were still on it. It would still mean you could ride a bicycle.
What you and your ilk are claiming, would be more akin to this: because one person carries another with him on his bicycle, that is considered 'riding a bicycle' (since he takes another person (aka payload), and even goes faster and further... while the other does not, because he doesn't carry a passenger and doesn't go as fast an
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It just gets better... "The company has taken another step toward its goal of taking the well off and adventurous on suborbital jaunts for fun and profit."
Huh? I keep trying to interpret that.
I think all companies should "take the well off" and "adventurous on suborbital jaunts'
That's not so bad. You need to read it as The company has taken another step toward its goal of taking the well off and adventurous on suborbital jaunts for fun and profit.
"the well off" and "adventurous" refer to people. "suborbital jaunts" is what they'd be taking part in.
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or 'rich'
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True. That said, most with a grain of of intelligence and being able to read comprehensively, would have gotten that.
Re: Read on (Score:2)
Grue Orange Haunches? (Score:2)
Grue Orange Haunches and Hands the lame few leopard that true in lavender?
Altitude only first (Score:5, Informative)
The "first" here is that New Shepard made it to the altitude arbitrarily defined as "space". The first launch and landing of a VTOL rocket that had previously flown was back in September of 1993 with DC-X's second flight (first was 8/18/93). Sure, it only went up a few hundred feet ... then stopped dead, hovered, translated sideways another couple of hundred feet, then landed. (I was present for that one. Frickin' awesome!) It flew yet again less than three weeks later.
On June 7 and 8 of 1996, it flew twice within 26 hours. That second flight reached an altitude of 10,300 feet (its record). Nowhere near space, but the DC-X program was more about the control software and reusability than going for altitude (it was a one-third scale prototype of the proposed Delta Clipper). And they were doing it with what is now over twenty year old technology. (Actually older, the thrusters were modified RL-10s from the 60s, much of the flight control avionics was off-the-shelf units that McDonnell-Douglas used in its jet aircraft.)
So, kudos to Blue Origin for reaching the edge of space with a previously-used rocket (something nobody else has done with the arguable exception of Shuttle, which was really never the same twice). But let's put the "first" emphasis where it belongs. (And it is significant -- it doesn't really matter how many times you can re-use a rocket if it won't get you to space in the first place.)
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So, kudos to Blue Origin for reaching the edge of space with a previously-used rocket (something nobody else has done with the arguable exception of Shuttle, which was really never the same twice).
Actually Scaled Composites performed the same feat over 10 years ago, don't you remember the X-Prize [wikipedia.org]? They use different launch and landing methods, but right now Blue Origin is at the same point that Scaled Composites were back in 2004.
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As I mentioned in another post, the Scaled Composites achievement was first accomplished by the X-15 back when. SpaceShipOne didn't make it to space entirely under its own power, it had a lift from a carrier aircraft, just like X-15.
Cool yes, but not what Blue Origin did.
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That's like comparing the wright flyer to a paper airplane.
Which is a pretty excellent comparison actually.
Space Race! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, to be fair, SpaceX is a LONG LONG ways ahead of everybody. They already have an orbital craft. They are able to land their first stage. They will likely re-use it in production sometime next year.
FH will launch in April.
Dragon v2 for human launches, will be end of year.
Raptor is supposed to be finished and fully tested around early 2017.
And that is on-top of MCT being developed.
OTOH, ULA, Airbus, O-ATK, Russia, etc will feel the heat shortly.
Re:Space Race! (Score:5, Insightful)
They already comply with NASA and DOD standards and still their prices remain a fraction of ULA, Airbus, etc.
And as to extracting money from the feds, ULA is nearly 100% dependent on the feds, while less than 1/3 of SpaceX are from govs.
And when it comes to getting 'subsidies' from the feds, they take in a FRACTION of what ULA, Boeing, L-Mart, Airbus, BAE, etc take in. Hell, in all of these other companies, they require the feds to pay costs+, which is ALWAYS outrageous profits, while with SpaceX, the feds have paid only a fraction of the price. SpaceX continues to pour their profits into R&D.
Finally, if they are so far behind that they are only 50's tech, then what companies are ahead of them and how much lower costs are they?
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"if they are so far behind that they are only 50's tech, then what companies are ahead of them"
You already mentioned them: Boing, Airbus, BAE, Lockheed Martin...
"and how much lower costs are they?"
As long as what they do is looked after and they have no competitors they have no need to lower their costs a dime, so they don't. Maybe in the future SpaceX will change this, maybe not. Time will say.
Re: Space Race! (Score:3)
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Isn't H2, even liquefied, a lot less dense than RP-1 or even (liquid) methane? Lower density means more volume for the same mass. Sufficiently lower density that even with H2's increased efficiency (i.e. you need less mass of it) you need more volume.
While that's irrelevant in space, it's very relevant for getting *to* space. More volume means you need a bigger rocket, with more air resistance, more metal (increasing both materials and manufacturing labor costs), more windage if you try to land it, and so o
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spaceX is way ahead of the real players ... in the 1950's. SpaceX is 100% focused on extracting money from the government with gimmicks. Once required to say, actually comply with aerospace engineering practices and government contractor business processes (you know, that oversight thing) their prices will be just the same or higher (much more musk ego to pay for than boeing exec ego).
Says the butthurt ULA employee.
Don't worry, the welfare for mediocre engineers will continue. It's not like they were paying you for what you could do to begin with. They'll just stop having you pretend to make rockets.
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The real problem is that they are loaded with overhead management and almost all of them are MBAs. Even now, bruno has NOT done a decent job. He simply replaced one group of fat cats with another.
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spaceX is way ahead of the real players ... in the 1950's.
Given how the vision of launching, landing, and re-launching a rocket became widely popular in the fifties, and only now are we on the cusp of seeing it really work as described, that kind of makes all other expendable launch systems look like something even more retrograde than SpaceX's...
Cut the blog spam (Score:4, Informative)
Actual source at Blue Origin's site [blueorigin.com].
Vertical Landing Rocket Economics 101 (Score:2)
I'm assuming that any rocket which lands vertically must carry twice the fuel to achieve a given altitude: one dose to accelerate to the altitude and a second dose to decelerate back to zero. This is in contrast to a space plane design like the Space Shuttle which dissipated the deceleration energy as heat and radiation. So, a vertically landing rocket would have to be much larger than its space-plane equivalent to carry the same payload to the same altitude.
Presumably, this would counteract some of the e
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Honestly, you got it almost completely wrong - you don't need to scale the engine at all (you rather lose some payload to orbit) - and the fuel you need to lift the rocket (full, heavy) is magnitudes higher than you need to land it back again - SpaceX uses 9 engines on the Falcon 9, and has "engine-out" capability, where one (or even two, if the right ones fail) engine can get inoperative and the rocket will compensate with a slightly longer burn to still achieve orbit. For doing so, you have to take the fu
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Mostly true, but every kg that is needed to land, needs about many times as much for it to get lifted off in the first place. This is why it gets increasingly difficult to do the same for the second and third stage. (And a 'completely reusable rocket' is what Musk said he wants).
This is not about the cost of the fuel, which is only a minor part of the costs, but, as you correctly point out, a loss of capacity for the maximum payload. To propel 1 pound of mass would require 9.39 pounds of propellant. This me
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Please take a few minutes and think about how it doesn't make sense to talk about something having *less* of some property (cost, temperature, speed) as being some positive multiple of said property with regards to whatever it's being compared to.
"A is 10 times slower than B" No. Speed is a measurable phenomenon. "Slowness" is not.
"A is 10 times thinner than B" No. Thickness is what is measured. "Thinness" was invented by marketers.
"A is 10 times colder than B" No. A's temperature is 1/10th B's temperature.
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Please take a few minutes to learn about English. Details such as the fact that it's a living language which contains phrasings that are not mathematically correct, but are never-the-less comprehensible to those that aren't pedantic bags of shit.
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FOR FUCK SAKE! Do you even read what was written?!
You say now:
"However, the main thing that you're not taking into account is that the fuel costs are a tiny part of the total launch costs (just a few percent) "
While I said in my original post:
"This is not about the cost of the fuel, which is only a minor part of the costs, but, as you correctly point out, a loss of capacity for the maximum payload."
WHAT did you not understand? It's NOT about the cost of the fuel. I've EXPLICITLY said that, and yet you glan
Re:Vertical Landing Rocket Economics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not twice the fuel. It takes most of the fuel to get to speed. At that point the booster is SIGNIFICANTLY lighter, so it takes (again with that word) SIGNIFICANTLY LESS fuel to slow down, and then to land.
True.
However, you still have to remember that most of the fuel is used to lift the weight of the fuel.
Take the weight of the fuel required for the landing (plus the weight of the part of the rocket that contains that fuel that had to be added).
Now figure out how much additional fuel will be required to lift that. How much will the additional fuel (and additional rocket weight to contain the additional fuel) weigh? How much additional fuel will be required for that? And so on? And so on? It adds up.
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My response, which is also relevant to what you say: http://science.slashdot.org/co... [slashdot.org]
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Sigh. No, it's not.
I don't know why so few people grasp this.
It's NOT about the cost of the fuel itself; that's only a minor part. What IS of importance, is, that any additional fuel for landing means additional weight, which cuts back on the maximum amount of payload you can get up in a given orbit.
The spaceshuttle was extremely complex and needed far more maintenance than expected, and THAT was the reason it wasn't economically viable. If your refurbishing costs are about as much as building a new one, th
reusability: economic case? (Score:2)
I said this before with the SpaceX story not long ago (and got some pretty nasty responses by fanboys), but the question remains whether IN THE SHORT RUN and *only comparing the current whole-1ste-booster stage return versus partial systems* like Adeline ( http://www.space.com/29620-air... [space.com] ) or that of the ULA don't make more *economic* sense.
Do note the domain where I'm talking about (capital letters/ asterix). I'm NOT comparing a "rocket that is like an airplane" (costwise) with a one-time usable rocket.
N
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Falcon 9 is actually just a two stage rocket, so the second stage ends up in orbit. Recovering it would mean using fuel to deorbit and having a heat shield capable of withstanding reentry. Even just recovering the engine would be a pretty major operation.
If you wanted to avoid wasting this element then lifting it a little higher into a stable orbit (perhaps via an ion drive tug) and then making use of it for something there would make more sense.
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Mayhaps. But after a while, when 10, 20, 100 stages are up there, what would you use it for? I'm not certain there is such a big market for booster parts. Not on themselves. And if you put a payload them, it just gets more expensive and heavy.
Anyway, I don't think you can keep the current method (burning of fuel by engines) and still be economical viable in the long run, compared to alternative systems.
Even if - in fact, especially when- we're talking about the second stage, there is need for such an altern
slashot vs blue origin vs space x (Score:3)
Blue origin landed a suborbital rocket twice!
Slashdot thinks Flew and Few are one and the same.
Well, go on then! (Score:2)
Fix the fucking glaring typo, you barrel of twats. And while you're at it, fix the mobile bug where I get told I have 5 moderator points which expire 5 days ago. And why am I never logged in automatically like on other sites? To look at it, you'd think this was someone's first site circa 1995.
Back and forth (Score:2)
December 2015: Elon to Jeff: "Mine is bigger than yours"
January 2016: Jeff to Elon: "I can get mine up again, can you?"
Re: Obvious (Score:3)
That's because BO had the luxury of being able to hover as desired, pick the landing spot and descend. The first landing had it skating all over the place.
The Falcon 9's single merlin engine produces too much thrust to hover, so it has to burn to hit 0m/s at 0ft. This is due to it needing the engines to lift an actual payload into orbit, as opposed to simply going up and down.
BO also had the luxury of choosing their launch time and location without commercial constraints. The F9 launch had a 30 second windo
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I wonder what the service and Q&A was like on Blue Origin after the first flight? How many components needed repair or replacement? That is why Space X is taking care with it's first reflight after successful return landing. I'm sure they learned much from their first success.
According to the Blue Origin site, "Data from the November mission matched our preflight predictions closely, which made preparations for today’s re-flight relatively straightforward. The team replaced the crew capsule parachutes, replaced the pyro igniters, conducted functional and avionics checkouts, and made several software improvements, including a noteworthy one."