Blue Origin Lands Rocket During Launch Escape Test (gizmodo.com) 89
SpaceX isn't the only private company interested in reusable rockets. Blue Origin, an American privately-funded aerospace manufacturer established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, surprised everyone, including itself, by successfully landing its New Shepard rocket in today's in-flight launch escape test. Gizmodo reports: Moments ago, Blue Origin conducted an in flight test of its launch escape system, separating a crew capsule from its New Shepard booster at an altitude of 16,000 feet. This test was critical to ensure that the rocket will be safe for human passengers, whom Blue Origin hopes to start flying into sub-orbital space as early as next year. Not only did the crew capsule make a clean separation, deploy its parachutes, and land softly in a small cloud of dust back on Earth, but the booster -- which everybody expected to go splat -- continued on its merry way into suborbital space, after which it succeeded in landing smoothly back on Earth for a fifth time. Although Blue Origin has tested its launch escape system on the launchpad before, this is the first time such a system has been tested, by anyone, in flight since the 1960s. It was almost too perfect. You can watch the test here.
Re:So Space X is really just a bunch of idiots? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not.
But those who don't know the difference between what Blue Origin is trying to do and what SpaceX is already capable of are idiots.
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No, they're not. But those who don't know the difference between what Blue Origin is trying to do and what SpaceX is already capable of are idiots.
Ya, Blue Origin is just trying to supply the new engine to the ULA along with man rated personnel module, while SpaceX is doing everything on their own and already has an engine.
Re:What do you think of *that*, MUSK? (Score:5, Insightful)
He probably thinks that getting a rocket in to a stable orbit, delivering long term useful cargo, and then landing on a moving barge in the ocean is a LOT harder than shooting a rocket practically straight up and coming right back down to land.
I think I agree with him.
Competition.... (Score:2)
...seems to show one of its many upsides. This may spur SpaceX to do at least as well, or better. Forget about Boeing et al.. These are small, agile (in the dictionary sense, not in the software engineering sense) companies that can move, react and even pivot in a way Boeing et al. could not even begin to dream of. Great job, Blue Origin! Now it's SpaceX's move.
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Given that Blue Origin are still yet to actually reach space, i'd say it's still their move...
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Blue Origin reached space multiple times. What they didn't reach yet is an orbital trajectory for their payload.
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Blue Origin reached space multiple times. What they didn't reach yet is an orbital trajectory for their payload
which is the hard part.
Re:Competition.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Blue Origin reached space multiple times. What they didn't reach yet is an orbital trajectory for their payload
which is the hard part.
I'm not so sure about that. Only two rocket systems land their boosters: SpaceX and Blue Origin. On the other hand, there is a multitude of rocket systems that can put payloads in orbit. Considering that once you have the booster slowed down to terminal velocity, it doesn't matter how fast it was originally going; the landing process is going to be the same. So maybe Blue Origin is focussing on the really hard part (the landing) and leaving the easier part (scaling up to orbital speeds) for later.
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No, it's not the hard part. That's just guidance and a bigger rocket. Keeping the rockets from exploding during development is the hard part. Also doing everything cheaply and efficiently is the most difficult part.
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No, this is wrong. The reason rocket science is hard is because getting to orbit is hard. Going suborbital requires much less velocity, which means much less energy, which means less fuel, and you have tons more margin to work with. You can use cheaper, more reliable materials, you can afford to over-engineer structures and systems for safety. A suborbital rocket can also ignore many technical challenges entirely - there's no staging, for instance, there's no need for thermal protection for re-entry, there'
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The thing about rocket science? Every part is the hard part.
Re: Competition.... (Score:1)
Not the padding on the acceleration couches. Not unless you want a nasty bump.
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Well SpaceX has done the Dragon 2 pad abort test successfully and has the in-flight abort test scheduled for mid-2017. And has landed several first stages, so I guess they're about the same distance along in the development. Unlike Boeing.
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If you weren't aiming for sarcasm, then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bhW2h08zhY [youtube.com] video of their test.
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Re:Competition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not a competition for SpaceX since SpaceX does not do suborbital flights.
Blue Origin's actual competition is Virgin Galactic, which is also trying to get paying passengers on 15-minute suborbital flights.
The difference between a suborbital and an orbital flight is like the difference between a Schwinn bicycle and a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
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Funny thing that USA didn't point out this difference when Alan Shepard had his flight.
But yes, they are not a competition for SpaceX since SpaceX does not do manned flights.
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Re:Competition.... (Score:4, Informative)
The order is: Shepard, Grissom, Glenn, Carpenter, Cooper, Shirra, Borman, Lovell.... (source: "The Parliament of Poets", by Frederick Glaysher)
Re:Competition.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to be in orbit to be in space. That was never part of the definition. The standard definition is passing the Karman line - which is between 90 and 100km above earth (depending on where you launch from and the air pressures - but generally by convention assumed to be 100km or above). That's being in space. The next definition is leaving the atmosphere - again the boundary is not perfectly clearly defined but generally taken as being above 150km.
Those are "in space" the difference between orbital and suborbital is how long you can *stay* in space. Suborbital comes right back - but it's a *lot* cheaper to do (you need a lot less horizontal velocity). It has it's uses too - it's a very fast way to get very long distances. ICBMs are frequently designed for suborbital trajectories for example.
But orbit is another beast altogether - that's not just going to space but staying there for an extended period, it takes a lot more fuel - which means a much heavier rocket, meaning more powerful boosters and more complicated stages. That's what SpaceX is doing. They are working on the harder of the two. B.O. is working on the easier one - both are making great strides in their games, but they are not playing the same sport. They are merely similar sports - it's like asking who was better Babe Ruth or Peter Pollock. Both are absolute legends in games that involve hitting a hard ball thrown at you away with a stick -but it's not the same game, it isn't scored the same and you can't compare them directly.
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ICBMs are ALWAYS designed for suborbital trajectories. Otherwise, they wouldn't hit anything.
Even a FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) is suborbital.
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I stand corrected.
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They are not a competition for SpaceX since SpaceX does not do suborbital flights.
I think if you search on "blue origin ula", you'll find that the United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin are working on a new orbital engine, the BE-4. They are in competition now as the ULA was so far behind SpaceX that they needed to bring in Blue Origin. It's just that SpaceX is still at least three years ahead of everybody else, although Blue Origin seems to be front loading a lot of their man rating early and are possibly ahead in that regard.
Nope, no compitieron at all... (Score:2)
And if you believe that United Launch Alliance (Lockheed. Martin and Boeing) are looking forward to farm and honest competition - well, right. Sure, that is certainly the hallmark of the military industrial complex.
Big money likes to win and can afford to buy the privilege. SpaceX and Blue Origin had better hurry and hope UAL doesn't decided to swat the annoying startups.
Our country runs on money - we are a country dedicated to making the uber rich richer.
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Big money likes to win and can afford to buy the privilege. SpaceX and Blue Origin had better hurry and hope UAL doesn't decided to swat the annoying startups.
The big money actually works the other way. Boeing has a market cap of $83B, but $9B in cash and $11B in debt. LM is of similar size, but has mostly debt.
On the other side, Bezos has a personal net worth of over $45B, and Musk of over $13B. That's a lot more weight to throw around, if they want to.
Bezos could technically buy a controlling interest in either BA or LM with his personal fortune.
The threat is that BA and LM are much better at feeding money into the "militarized regulatory complex", and might
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You mean the MD DC-X which never went above 10300 ft? Not exactly space...
And why would it not be cost-effective? Sure, you lose some capacity because you have to take extra fuel to bring the booster back (and you have to use more fuel to send that fuel up), but if you just make the rocket big enough, it won't double the price. If you can reuse the booster once, it's paid for itself. And certainly if it's a booster the size of the proposed BFR. You don't just want to throw that away.
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Boeing is doing quite well, thankyouverymuch. The XB-37 is a nice bit of tech and YoYoDyne could ramp up all sorts of other ideas if they wanted.
What Boeing is doing is milking the cow as much as is possible. You want a complicated, expensive spacecraft that can be sourced from sub assemblies built all over the congressional map? Boeing can do that for you.
They just don't have any sort of 'mission' to do anything else besides make money for themselves and their shareholders.
Horses for courses.
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Then they would have nobody to compete with. Which could, in fact, slow them down. This way, they are trying to trump each other... Competition is important - without the fierce competition between USA and SSSR, it is likely that we would be still waiting for the first man on Moon.
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I think it's hard to say when competition helps and when it hinders. I don't think we'd have done more with the ISS if there had been two competing ones, for instance.
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Yes they did.
Considering the alternative was a lifetime of research in the "Worker's Paradise" or staying in the country where their handiwork was dropping daily on people's heads.
Tom Lehrer has a great song [youtube.com] about that...
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Hmm I'm not so sure. Sometimes a bit of competition, meaning pressure, can do more to inspire than having more brainpower and money on hand.
I'm just happy that there actually are people pushing the boundaries of human capability at all.
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it's a tough one to call. Competition *can* leader to greater efficiency - but sometimes it causes very inefficient outcomes. Richard Dawkin's uses the following example: a meadow is a giant solar energy collector. A forrest is a meadow on stilts. The first plants to get stilts had an advantage over the other plants - they got more of the sunlight. Competition forced other plants to follow suit. By now you have a seriously inefficient outcome - all the plants are spending almost all the sunlight they get j
Is it just me... (Score:2)
...or does it look like Jeff Bezos is compensating for something?
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Go ahead: try to launch a rocket into space that is shaped like a vagina. I dare you.
Don't be silly. Space isn't shaped like a vagina.
parachute (Score:5, Interesting)
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Just looked up "abort mode IA" in the Saturn V Flight Manual (I am pretty proud to possess a paper copy of that one, it has a prominent place in my library). Time between drogue opening and parachute opening was 12 to 16 seconds, dependent upon altitude on abort. The manual is not very explicit on aborting on the pad or close to the pad, but something can be gleaned from the conditions under which the mission could be aborted; all of these presuppose ignition of all five engines of Stage I to have succeeded
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This guy thinks people born between date x and date y are all the same as each other.
Bright guy.
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who are going to first search the Internet as soon as they encounter a problem
Are you somehow suggesting that looking on the internet to see if someone else has encountered and solved the same problem is somehow inferior than spending hours (or days, or months, or years, depending on the problem) trying to solve the problem yourself? Or are you suggesting that every time someone needs a wheel for something they "re-invent" it?
In an academic environment I would condone such behavior, in the real world a company that operated that way wouldn't last a year.
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Are you somehow suggesting that looking on the internet to see if someone else has encountered and solved the same problem is somehow inferior than spending hours (or days, or months, or years, depending on the problem) trying to solve the problem yourself? Or are you suggesting that every time someone needs a wheel for something they "re-invent" it?
Depends on the problem. I'm an engineer, and I've seen colleagues turn to Google when they need perform basic unit conversions that really should be second nature. The Internet is a fabulous resource, but tends to promote laziness and loss of problem-solving skills when relied upon too much. It also seems to dilute common sense, as when information is assumed to be correct because the source appears to be authoritative, even though cursory inspection shows the information to be wrong.
The launch commentary sounded, um... (Score:1)
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It sounded like they lifted some over-zealous marketing wonks out of the conference room and stuck them on the air. The video was cool, but I just about threw up every time they spoke.
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I've grown to dislike Bezos (Score:2)
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Wow (Score:2)
Just, wow.
Seriously? Could it be any more phallic? (Score:2)
I had to call my wife to watch this one! Wow, she said, a huge penis is blasting off! Yeah, I told her, watch as the crew capsule will separate... Crew capsule? Oh! yes, there goes the head!
Was the design on purpose, to troll radar operators with a penis cross-section?
It being funny of course didn't take much away from the important parts of the mission, nice landing for both booster and capsule. Good to see these guys progressing.
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That's interesting. My wife had the pretty much the same comment. "Why are you looking at a picture of a giant dildo with a feather on it?"
Quite impressive! (Score:2)
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Dunno if I would call a complete rotation of the capsule as 'smooth'. Lots of fun perhaps. Vertigo inducing perhaps. But not smooth.
Looks like they need to tweak the thruster controls a bit. But it's nice that the conical capsule shape is aerodynamically stable (mostly).
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The most predictable thing about this test... (Score:1)
Blue Origin Doesn't Go Into Orbit (Score:2)
Just note that Blue Origin is a sub-orbital rocket. SpaceX has put stuff into orbit and recovered the first stage, which is much more complicated.
Capsule (Score:1)
Back to your respective corners, fanboys! (Score:1)
These guys (Musk and Bezos) are different men with different business models, different technical approaches, different goals, etc and they are BOTH doing great stuff
Yeah, Musk has sent stuff into LEO to and from the ISS and also out to GEO. This is all excellent work and very promising BUT it's also been massively subsidized by NASA who saved SpaceX from bankruptcy by signing a contract to launch payloads on Falcons before Musk had ever proven he could fulfill that contract, and then signing up for a bunc