Blue Origin Successfully Launches and Lands Its New Shepard Rocket During 11th Test Flight (theverge.com) 114
Blue Origin successfully performed another test launch of its New Shepard system today. Both the New Shepard rocket and capsule touched down safely back at the company's West Texas facility around 10 minutes after liftoff. The capsule reached about 346,000 feet, or more than 65 miles, eclipsing the recognized boundary of space. Some context: Before today, New Shepard has landed nine out of the 10 times it's flown, and the vehicle has proven that it can keep people safe even in emergency scenarios. However, there still isn't a solid timeline for when the first test passengers will fly on the vehicle, and the company has not started selling tickets to customers yet. The rocket flying this week is the third iteration of the New Shepard vehicle, and the company has built a fourth version that will take the first crews to space. That rocket is supposed to fly sometime this year, according to Blue Origin, but exactly when is still unclear.
I pick things up and put them down (Score:2)
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Don't forget landing and re-using.
New Shepard isn't anywhere near the same class of rocket as the Falcon 9, but it's succeeding in most of the real challenging parts, which none of the other big players have managed. It would probably make a quite decent reusable first stage if they built a tiny-payload second stage as an alternative to the tourism module.
It remains to be seen if they can translate those accomplishments to the much larger BFR-comparable New Glenn as their first orbital rocket. If they can
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How is jumping from a small sub-orbital rocket to a big New Glenn a cautious approach ? There's going to be very little overlap.
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All the technology that makes a rocket reusable is new. The technology of rockets in general is 75 years old. They're getting good at the "economically reusable" part first, because that's the unsolved problem (unsolved when they began). Solving "landing on your tail flame" is a big deal, and a problem that's (mostly) not rocket-specific.
That being said, the BE-4 engine for New Glenn is new and high tech, very much like the Raptor engine for Starship. Both companies thought it appropriate to wait until
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Solving "landing on your tail flame" is a big deal, and a problem that's (mostly) not rocket-specific.
It's a lot easier on a small, slow rocket, where you can hover in the air before gently dropping down on a non-moving pad on land.
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For a human pilot, sure, it's all the difference in the world, but for software it's all just math. Computing the landing trajectory and thrust profile in real time isn't really the hard part, and I think that's what you're talking about (I'm sure you'll correct me if I've misunderstood). Building a rocket that can act on that computation is quite hard, from reliable multiple ignition to fast throttle changes to fast and accurate gimballing. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX rely on using aerodynamic control s
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For a human pilot, sure, it's all the difference in the world, but for software it's all just math.
The math is harder for the hoverslam, because there are much fewer opportunities for making corrections, and you need to zero out all the variables at the same time (while still correcting for unpredictable inputs). The New Shepard was hovering in one point, so it can zero out most of the variables (rotation, velocity, position) before making the final descent, making the math a lot easier. For slow hovering you can use a relatively simple feedback control and take time as you need, but for a suicide burn y
Re:I pick things up and put them down (Score:4, Interesting)
The math is harder for the hoverslam,
Pedantic nitpick, but this is Slashdot. "Hoverslam" is marketroid-speak. The maneuver has been a "suicide burn" since the first engineer looked at it.
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The math is harder for the hoverslam, because there are much fewer opportunities for making corrections, and you need to zero out all the variables at the same time (while still correcting for unpredictable inputs). The New Shepard was hovering in one point, so it can zero out most of the variables (rotation, velocity, position) before making the final descent, making the math a lot easier. For slow hovering you can use a relatively simple feedback control and take time as you need, but for a suicide burn you need to look ahead to plan an optimal route through the n-dimensional state space.
A similar argument could be made *against* your suggested approach: because you're wasting your time trying to hover, you're more sensitive to weather conditions. For any given weather, the faster descent is better since you spend less time drifting under the influence of wind gusts.
Math we can do. The computer weighs several kilograms. The propellants saved by better math weigh tonnes. It's a complete no-brainer.
They were also running out of fuel or hydraulic fluid.
And your suggestions would have made their demonstrated problems even worse. So your suggestion
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It's a lot easier on a small, slow rocket, where you can hover in the air before gently dropping down on a non-moving pad on land.
Except that even if you could, you *still* wouldn't be doing that, because it's criminal waste of propellant that could be put to better use.
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Perhaps - but even a 1/2 second of hovering before setting down might give you a whole lot of additional opportunity to recover for very little fuel. After all, when landing you're almost out of fuel anyway, so the rocket weighs almost nothing (compared to launch), and fuel consumption is extremely low.
Re: I pick things up and put them down (Score:2)
Fuel consumption may be very low, but the cost of putting that extra fuel up into space is pretty damn high.
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Depends on how you count it. Fuel is a tiny portion of the cost of launching a rocket, so the real price is paid in reduced maximum payload. And if that's far more than needed for a typical mission (as will be the case for the BFR and New Glenn), all you're really paying for is the fuel.
Still not free, but if it lets you reduce the chance of your rocket being destroyed during landing by 10% it probably pays for itself in spades. Heck, given the cost of building a rocket that size, even a 1% increase in s
Re: I pick things up and put them down (Score:2)
Yes, you're right, when I said "costs" I was really talking about payload capacity. But that is a big concern. Sure, on some flights you may have the ability to carry extra fuel for a safer landing, but until you figure out how to minimize the amount of fuel required you are inherently going to have a significantly lower payload capacity for EVERY launch. Even in the case of SpaceX this was very much a trial-and-error approach; part of the reason that the Falcon 9 max capacity has gone up over time is be
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Yes, the rocket weighs about nothing and the fuel consumption is low, but that's a problem not a feature. The engine has got the power to send that thing into orbit fully loaded. One of SpaceX's big challenges is throttling down ENOUGH to land, and not go shooting back into the sky. To do that they land on something like 3 out of the 9 engines. Blue Origin does not have that luxury.
I'm honestly really curious if their scaled-up design will work for this reason. Can they reliably throttle it down far enough
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One possibility for the throttling problem would be to include a lower-power landing engine, though that's extra complexity and cost.
It should also be aided greatly by the larger number of engines. The New Glenn booster is targeting 7x as many engines as the Shepard, with each engine being ~5x as powerful. If the empty weight of the booster is more than 5x that of the Shepard, which seems not unlikely, then they should be able to land on a single engine that won't even need to throttle down as far as the
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It gives you a whole lot of additional opportunity for wind gusts/waves to disrupt your landing. You've still got to actually go from airborne to on solid ground at some point, hovering mostly just means you take longer to do it. And actually performing the hover consumes propellant margins and increases the risk of running out during the landing burn.
Velocity and position errors can be corrected while descending, there's nothing gained by coming to a stop in mid air before or after correcting them. A syste
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Perhaps, but it also means that you don't have to land in the middle of a particularly bad gust or wave, you can wait for a few seconds for a lull. Heck, depending on your fuel capacity you may even be able to wait several minutes. You can risk landing in much more adverse conditions when you can wait a little while for acceptable touchdown conditions to appear, rather than needing needing them to be acceptable at a pre-determined moment, as SpaceX does.
It's also worth noting that New Shepard has a 91% la
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New Shepard is not a launch vehicle booster and will never be part of an orbital launch system, it's absurdly overbuilt and underperforming for the task, and what it does is nothing compared to the Falcon 9 booster. New Glenn is going to have to do something much closer to what Falcon 9 does, and Blue Origin's success rate with New Shepard is not an indicator of how successful they will be at recovering New Glenn.
On top of that, you are ignoring the fact that the Falcon 9 landing success rate went up sharpl
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Quite so. At present we're comparing apples to oranges. SpaceX has a commanding lead in doing useful things, no question. But Blue Origin's strategy seems to be working pretty well too - they're selling engines, have a test vehicle that's demonstrating the reliability of that engine, and have had a frankly rather incredible 100% success rate since their first failure.
It's really going to be the New Glenn that will show how effective their route to orbit is. Until that starts to fly (or not) nobody will
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They have hopes of selling the BE-4, but do not have that engine fully functional and are now redesigning its powerpack so they can actually reach their desired thrust levels. They have no vehicle using it, it's only been fired on test stands. The BE-3 used on New Shepard is the only operational engine they have, and it appears to be a technological dead end that will never be used on another vehicle. Nobody wants to buy it, Blue Origin themselves only plan to use hydrogen on upper stages in the future and
Re:I pick things up and put them down (Score:4, Insightful)
You're a moron. They've reused many different types of rocket boosters over the years. They had to be remanufactured anyway to be recertified. SpaceX actually does this also. You know nothing about this.
Not sure why I bother responding to ACs, but as I said, "economically reusable" was unsolved when they began. The Shuttle was a shining example of "re-use that's more expensive", which was only the goal of a congress wanting taxpayer dollars spent in their districts.
To be fair to NASA, the shuttle's design was chosen by Nixon's budget office and forced on them. It's kind of like giving your boss three options, two of which are obviously stupid and wrong, and then your boss picks one of the stupid options and you're stuck with it.
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Splashing a solid rocket booster down into the sea and reusing the shell is a very low standard for "reusable."
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The difference in focus between the current players is interesting, too.
* SpaceX: let's focus on getting to orbit, and we can work on optimizing for reusability iteratively as we go. They've proven this approach works.
* Blue Origin: let's focus on reusability, and we can work on getting to orbit once that's nailed. Unproven, but there's little reason to doubt them.
* Rocket Labs: most payloads are small, let's actually commoditize small launches, including the "rocket science" part of a satellite with the
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SpaceX has shown that Agile can be applied to rocket development successfully. The new challenge for them in the long run is switching from the move fast and break things approach to doing steady and reliable business. The F9 was supposed to be set in stone with block 5 but there have been revisions after that. So far all have been necessary such as more redundancy in the hydraulics for controlling the grid fins. But I wonder how well they can resist tweaking it over and over before we have a truly "done" F
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SpaceX has shown that Agile can be applied to rocket development successfully.
Well, for unmanned rocketry. I think that's a big reason for the difference in mindset between them and Blue Origin, who wants passengers as they primary commercial payload. SpaceX has certainly proven that it's better to test your rockets by flying them than on test stands, at least once the basics are working.
But I wonder how well they can resist tweaking it over and over before we have a truly "done" F9?
They've said the Falcon is end of life once Starship works, so it will eventually be "done".
At least as far as commercial crew goes NASA will probably force them to do so,
Indeed, they'll be using a "frozen" design going forward for anything manned, or at least going through N
Re: I pick things up and put them down (Score:2)
Despite it losing 2 payloads, one was lost due to a process error that they've since corrected. Whilst the booster was lost during the static fire (not the launch), they now don't put the payload in place until after the test. Their mistake was doing the static fire with the payload, and losing both.
Mission failure, yes. Symantics, yes. Avoidable loss of payload, yes.
They've had 65/66 successful launches. Plus one on-pad failure during testing.
Doesn't affect the percentage, though. A loss is a loss.
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ULA is very expensive, but they are also very reliable. The Atlas V has 75 launches under its belt, with 75 payloads successfully delivered to orbit, and only 2 flights with anomalous behavior which was made up for by the subsequent stage or the payload's on-board booster. This is a 100% mission success rate.
79 launches, with 78 successes (the customer accepting the failure and finding a way to make it work is not a success). Still better than Falcon 9, to your point, but not 100%.
The key difference though is: the damn thing uses a Russian rocket engine. Some people care about that, especially the US military. They're going to switch to the Blue Origin BE-4 for the next-generation.
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Contrast: the Falcon 9 has 67 launches with 65 successes and two loss-of-mission events, for a success rate of 97%.
Falcon 9 had one loss-of-mission event within those launches. One other launch was forced to ditch secondary payload earlier.
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... * ULA: perfectly optimized to milk the government cow. Can't really blame them: who doesn't like money? But they do a solid job, and set the bar for the other players to rise above.
To be fair, in context with the previous quotes, the ULA objective would be:
*ULA: let's focus on reliability regardless of cost, because that is what our customer demands. We may try to lower cost some day, maybe, as long as we can do that with zero risk.
* The Russians: we're the only ones who can launch Americans into orbit. How's that for irony? Let's charge them an astonishing amount of money while it lasts.
* The Russians: we will focus on getting down the learning curve by continuing to use a version of the same thing we've been flying since 1957.
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New Shepard isn't anywhere near the same class of rocket as the Falcon 9, but it's succeeding in most of the real challenging parts, which none of the other big players have managed.
The other big players haven't managed it, because they've been focused on orbit, rather than landing. While New Shepard is impressive for what it is, it's about 16 thousand miles per hour too slow. I'd consider that one of the real challenging parts.
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It would probably make a quite decent reusable first stage if they built a tiny-payload second stage as an alternative to the tourism module.
I suspect the mass fraction is terrible for that. So that's not likely to fly (pun not intended).
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I am wondering how many lessons learned that NASA and Russian Space Agency learned 50 years ago?
Being that the world seemed to have a 40 year gap between new rocket designs. Much of the experience in this has either retired or passed away.
Space Travel advancements is vital to the humans long term survival plan, If in a million years we need to travel off of earth to save our decedents lives, we would like our technology to be a million years more advanced. Not an Oh Crap, a moon sized object is about to co
Test flight? (Score:3)
Are they still calling these missions "test flights"?
They had 28 payloads on board from paying customers. These are commercial flights...
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Probably still calling them tests because it's easier to CYA when you call it a "test" and it fails.
It's also how aggressively the market wants it. I mean if Musk was willing to sell that first Falcon Heavy launch instead of sending off his Tesla as a PR exercise, would someone pay for it? Sure. Quite a bit probably, even if you made them sign a whole stack of disclaimers that this is the first ever launch of an experimental rocket and if it ends in a fireball we owe you nothing. So while it can be abused I don't think it's a direct contradiction to have paying customers on a test flight. Because well you
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I mean if Musk was willing to sell that first Falcon Heavy launch instead of sending off his Tesla as a PR exercise, would someone pay for it? Sure.
They asked for payloads and nobody responded. So apparently not.
Even though it looks like a (Score:1)
...penis, but it's one of the more impressive aerospace companies to me. I think Blue Origin is the most sustainable of them all.
Re: Even though it looks like a (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure I would agree. They've no orbital rocket yet, and that's a major step above a "makes it to space" rocket. And they are really slow in making stuff. Blue Origin is older than SpaceX, and SpaceX have done a lot more in less time, with less money. I'm not enthused by Blue Origin at all.
I'll revaluate when Blue Glenn is operational, but that's many years away yet. I'd nearly take the bet that SpaceX will have Superheavy and Starship flying by then, and maybe even flying commercially.
Blue Origin don't inspire me.
Measured approach (Score:4, Informative)
They've no orbital rocket yet, and that's a major step above a "makes it to space" rocket. And they are really slow in making stuff.
You seem to think that is by accident. Their motto is "Gradatim Ferociter" which means "step by step ferociously". They are going at a certain pace because they can and because they think it makes sense. Plus they have the backing of the richest man in the world. That means unlike Elon Musk companies they can afford to take a little more gradual approach which in the long run might work out well for them. Just because Elon Musk is a master of bombastic public relations doesn't mean that companies that take a more measured and quiet approach are doing it wrong.
They have been spending a lot of their effort on rocket engine development [wikipedia.org] with positive results. They are going to supply engines to ULA for the Atlas to replace the Russian engines currently used. Blue Origin isn't trying to be another SpaceX. They are taking a different path and that is ok.
I'm not enthused by Blue Origin at all.
I'm sure Jeff Bezos cares deeply about that too...
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I think they are going slow because they are planning to do crewed sub-orbital launches for entertainment purposes. That's why they need a bunch of sub-orbital test flights.
The part I don't understand is why they want to send people on sub-orbital flights if not for money ?
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Because magnets?
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What's a sure way to become a millionaire? Take a billion dollars and start an aerospace company.
Even orbital launches won't amount to much in absolute terms, even if the market grows substantially. SpaceX plans to fund their larger ambitions with Starlink, not launches. Despite that, a couple orbital launches will likely make more money than New Shepard is likely to make in its entire operational lifetime. Bezos is pretty good at making money, he knows better than to attempt to get richer with suborbital t
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Okay, who told Jeff's ex-wife about Slashdot?
Different approaches and maybe different problems (Score:3)
The "slow and steady" method might have worked well a few decades ago against the established defense contractor launch providers, but against SpaceX and their rapid prototyping method it seems doomed to fail (or at least get stuck in a distant second place).
Only if they are competing for the same prize and it's not clear they are at this point. SpaceX and Blue Origin aren't quite as similar as they might appear at first glance. Blue Origin is selling their rocket engines to other companies including ULA. SpaceX is not. Blue Origin can learn from SpaceX's successes and failures without the expense of making the errors themselves. Furthermore, SpaceX has to work at a frantic pace because Elon Musk does not have pockets nearly as deep as Jeff Bezos. To some
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You seem to think that is by accident. Their motto is "Gradatim Ferociter" which means "step by step ferociously". They are going at a certain pace because they can and because they think it makes sense.
I'm sure that's why they want the USAF to wait for them [spacenews.com]. Because that "makes sense".
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SpaceX has been doing a thing or two with rocket engine development as well. They've not only run the Raptor (the first full-flow staged combustion engine to be developed to the point of being flight-ready) at full throttle (Blue Origin's BE-4 hasn't been able to get above 73%), they've started serial production of it and test fired one on a vehicle. It's likely to fly (and hopefully land) quite soon.
SpaceX has been doing a much better job of following Blue Origin's motto than Blue Origin themselves have. T
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I'd have to nickname that the Space Dildo. I'm just glad it doesn't have some kind of multi-sphere base.
But good to see others in the game among SpaceX, BO looks to be planning for the long haul.
Blue what? (Score:1)
They are missing a pair of spherical tanks side-by-side at the base of the launch stack...
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"I'm Jeff 'Dick Pics' Bezos and my ex-wife got my balls in the divorce. I'll send you some dick pics to prove it." -- Jeff 'Dick Pics' Bezos
Imperial? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are they still using Imperial measurements during their broadcast? The worst is the altitude in feet. At least use miles above a certain point, if you're not going to use km.
I had to ask Google was 346,000 feet was (105.5km) as I had no concept of how high that went compared to launches from every other launch provider.
Honestly, is Voyager1 ever reported as 71,194,225,721,785 feet from earth?
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I prefer AU myself. I had to look it up. So 0.0000007 AU altitude. 0.0000239 AUh. Ah, now it all makes sense.
Re: Imperial? (Score:2)
Absolutely!
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Re: Imperial? (Score:2)
Get for plane altitude, fine. But not for rockets. Switch to miles once you get past a few tens of thousands feet.
Every other rocket company uses either miles or kilometres. SpaceX, an American company, uses kilometres.
Play to your audience (Score:5, Informative)
Why are they still using Imperial measurements during their broadcast?
A) They are using US customary units [wikipedia.org]
B) The audience for the broadcast is Americans and Americans are expecting US customary units. Most of them aren't comfortable with metric or SI units. Yes that says something about the audience but there is no value in pretending otherwise.
I had to ask Google was 346,000 feet was (105.5km) as I had no concept of how high that went compared to launches from every other launch provider.
That says more about you than it does about the broadcasters. You're like the guy who speaks one language and complains that other people speak more than one. I'm perfectly comfortable with both SI and US customary units and there is nothing preventing you from learning them too. I'd prefer we went all metric but wishing isn't going to make it so. It's a US company so you should expect them to present information in some cases in a manner that US audiences will be familiar with. The engineers almost certainly are working in metric but that's not important to US tv audiences for the most part.
Car companies and metric (Score:2)
American car companies have gone metric for the most part.
I work in the industry. There is a HUGE amount of content in vehicles that is made using US customary units and that isn't in danger of changing any time soon. I know because I see the drawings. They're trying to go metric (with some success) but it definitely isn't all there and probably won't be any time soon.
They still spec torque in ft-lbs instead of newton-meters though.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. I make products every day for car companies that use American Wire Gauge [wikipedia.org] instead of metric for example. Drawings using US customary units are absurdly common
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Well, :P
when I'm in Thailand, my bottles of beer are pints. But they write conveniently for me 620ml on them
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Even for typical American viewers, 65 miles is a lot easier to handle than 346,000 feet.
Big numbers sound impressive (Score:2)
Even for typical American viewers, 65 miles is a lot easier to handle than 346,000 feet.
346,000 is a larger number and therefore more impressive to the ignorant and credulous. That's marketing 101 stuff. Seriously, you didn't get that? It doesn't really matter what the number was. The important detail was that it was a big number and that it crossed the arbitrary boundary for space.
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If that was the point, then why didn't you say that ?
Re: Big numbers sound impressive (Score:2)
Then why not go for inches -- that's a much bigger number. And centimetres is bigger again. Or just cut to the chase and go with Planck lengths (6,591,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Planck Lengths, approx). That's a really big and impressive number...!
My point is that EVERY OTHER COMPANY uses units and numbers that are more easily understood by humans. 346,000 is pretty meaningless to most Americans who don't measure anything beyond the width of a room in feet. But Americans understand
You aren't the target demographic. Let it go. (Score:2)
Then why not go for inches -- that's a much bigger number.
Because they aren't trying to win a pointless argument on the internet by making reductio ad absurdem arguments. Seriously, let it go. They used the feet number because it is a large and impressive sounding number and because the audience they aimed it at is kind of dumb that way and will kinda-sorta understand it. Don't over think it. You're not wrong but you are arguing a point you cannot "win" because they aren't targeting people like you or me with that number.
346,000 is pretty meaningless to most Americans who don't measure anything beyond the width of a room in feet. But Americans understand miles.
I'd suggest that more Americans have mo
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Airplane altitudes are generally measured in feet (or meters, for those on the other side of the pond). Giving the altitude in feet allowed the average non-space-nutter to compare the number with something he was more likely to be familiar with - how high it was compared to a jet in flight....
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Because we're more talking about airtravel than space travel, and airtravel still uses feet and nautical miles
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In aeronautics the world standard measurement for height is feet, not meters.
Honestly when you don't know meanwhile that a foot is roughy 33cm, I can forgive that. Aka 3 feet per meter.
But needing google to divide 346,000 by 3, and then scratch the last 3 digits to come to km, that is fail.
Honestly, is Voyager1 ever reported as 71,194,225,721,785 feet from earth? :P
No, because that is not a height, but a distance. And the distance varies by +/- 2 AU during the course of a year
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In aeronautics the world standard measurement for height is feet, not meters.
Who cares ? The video is not targeted to experts in the field of aeronautics, but to the general public.
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I thought it was aimed at future potential customers ...
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That's what I thought... even the /. summary mentions miles & feet. Would it have been that hard to swap out or add m or km?
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Although NASA has traditionally used the old system in some cases, the agency has almost always leaned towards metric wherever possible. Way back in 2007 they announced that all future Moon missions will use metric exclusively. https://science.nasa.gov/scien... [nasa.gov]
But it does matter..... (Score:1)
RIP Mars Climate Orbiter 9/30/1999
"NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched, space agency officials said Thursday."
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9 out of 10 times? (Score:1)
Before today, New Shepard has landed nine out of the 10 times it's flown
Unless they reached escape velocity, I’m certain that New Shepard landed every time it has flown.
OK, but sub orbital (Score:2)
Various nice bits of technology and the use of a high energy upper stage is interesting. Still, they are a long way in delat-v from orbit.
Its really a cost game - we've known how to get cargo into orbit for >50 years now. Its all about launch costs compared to Space-X and other competitors.
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"Blew a corgi"