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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


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7 minutes ago, kunok said:

but I think that Blue origin will be far better than SpaceX in this

Why? SpaceX seems way ahead in most fields, while Blue Origin only has their New Shepard, which about equals the old grasshopper.

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3 hours ago, Steel said:

Yes, but those engine were not used at launch, they were glorified (and highly complicated) RCS thrusters. My point was that to launch the shuttle again you have to build a new fuel tank, to launch a F9 again you do not. 

Grasshopper never got above a kilometre altitude.

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6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

it's a very strange reinterpretation of history to claim that this will be the first reused orbital rocket stage

It's a series relaunch. This happened to Batman dozen times.

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1 hour ago, kunok said:

The spaceshuttle was also planned that way, that doesn't mean that will be achievable.

Time will say, but I think that Blue origin will be far better than SpaceX in this, and that we wouldn't be discussing any of this if the DC-X were funded in the 90's.

Reusing first stage is way easier than reusing the upper. First you don't have to do reentry, second is that one ton extra weight on first stage probably only reduce cargo with 200 kg, perhaps less.

Second issue is that the shuttle was so over optimized it became an hangar queen, resulting in fewer launches and driving up cost. 

SpaceX has an launcher with an launch date, Blue origin has not build their orbital rocket yet. 
No this does not imply that Blue origin will fail just that they will not be first.

DC-X was an SSTO, it would fail no matter how well funded. You can not build an practical ssto with rocket engines. Skylon might work, same with beamed power, not rockets. 
Fully reusable two stage rockets should also work, 
 

 

Edited by magnemoe
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3 hours ago, Elthy said:

We dont know the current procedure, but Elon Musk wants a rocket that can be reused like a plane. I would bet they are way close to that goal for the first stage than the spaceshuttle ever was...

The designers of the Space Shuttle *wanted* that too.

Orville and Wilbur didn't make a 787 the first time they flew. But that doesn't mean they didn't actually fly. It's crazy to be such a fanboy that you can't accept that the Space Shuttle was a reused orbital launcher. Of course the first one ever designed, built, and used had some problems. It was using technology from 40 years ago, it didn't have its own lessons learned to work with, it was forced to be designed to try to do everything, etc. SpaceX's next design will probably be better than Falcon, but that isn't a dig against Falcon. It's just progress.

But it's simply a fact that they were launched to orbit, landed, launched again, landed again, lather, rinse, repeat.

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2 hours ago, insert_name said:

F9 is the first fully reused first stage, STS is the first partially reusable launch system. There really doesn't need to be a page long argument.

Fully? Not a single bolt or linkage replaced?

Look guys, I'll be as impressed as anyone when SpaceX relaunches one of their Falcons. But in this thread people continually seem to pile on the hyperbole about them as if everything they do is completely unprecedented. It's not. Like every other engineering outfit, they are standing on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of other people who stood on some shoulders of their own. That's how this stuff works.

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4 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Fully? Not a single bolt or linkage replaced?

Look guys, I'll be as impressed as anyone when SpaceX relaunches one of their Falcons. But in this thread people continually seem to pile on the hyperbole about them as if everything they do is completely unprecedented. It's not. Like every other engineering outfit, they are standing on the shoulders of people who are standing on the shoulders of other people who stood on some shoulders of their own. That's how this stuff works.

Pretty much, yeah... Propulsive landings were done in the 90s, but not into space. Then BO did it from space first (even reused a rocket before SpaceX). And now SpaceX has done it. But it's likely that they would both be nowhere near where they are without DC-X.

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7 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Pretty much, yeah... Propulsive landings were done in the 90s, but not into space. Then BO did it from space first (even reused a rocket before SpaceX). And now SpaceX has done it. But it's likely that they would both be nowhere near where they are without DC-X.

Remember that the LEM did propulsive landings (actually *in* space), and many other unmanned probes have also. DC-X wasn't the first either. But every gain in experience helps the next folks to do better.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/03/18/ses-10-telecom-satellite-fueled-and-readied-for-launch-on-reused-rocket/

Interesting bits in here. Apparently the boosters for the FH demo might be USED cores. :o Good way to save a couple bucks but sounds kinda daring, too. Also, booster for SES-10 was refurbished in 4 months. GS says their short-term goal for refurbishment is to cut that down to two months, with less than a day turnaround on a longer timeframe. 

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4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Propulsive landings were done in the 90s, but not into space. Then BO did it from space first (even reused a rocket before SpaceX).

Be very, very careful when comparing the achievements of SpaceX and BO. Theoretically, BO landed and reused a used booster before SpaceX. However, you have to look at the booster and mission. New Shepard is a much smaller rocket than the Falcon 9. Also, it only went onto a suborbital trajectory. Not to hate on BO, but a suborbital return is like a bounce pass in basketball when compared to  returning after delivering a payload into orbit. Also, one of the key factors in BO's ability to reuse New Shepard five times was that the heating from reentry was much less intense than what the Falcon 9 has to endure.

With all the delays to Falcon Heavy, what are the odds that New Glenn launches first? (I know, close to zero. It's a joke)

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5 hours ago, CoreI said:

Be very, very careful when comparing the achievements of SpaceX and BO. Theoretically, BO landed and reused a used booster before SpaceX. However, you have to look at the booster and mission. New Shepard is a much smaller rocket than the Falcon 9. Also, it only went onto a suborbital trajectory. Not to hate on BO, but a suborbital return is like a bounce pass in basketball when compared to  returning after delivering a payload into orbit. Also, one of the key factors in BO's ability to reuse New Shepard five times was that the heating from reentry was much less intense than what the Falcon 9 has to endure.

With all the delays to Falcon Heavy, what are the odds that New Glenn launches first? (I know, close to zero. It's a joke)

BO did land a booster and reuse it before SpaceX. That's simply a fact. But that doesn't diminish SpaceX's accomplishments, rather it's a sign of the differing approaches the two businesses use. BO is much more gradual in their pursuit, starting with landing and reusability while SpaceX started with orbital launch and then moved to landing and reusability. BO is also using a lot less money. But they're also trying to fly passengers on sub-orbital hops using New Shepard, which SpaceX isn't attempting. The business models are different, albeit BO does wish to develop a heavy lifter. SpaceX is farther ahead in terms of putting stuff into orbit and then landing the first stage, but BO beat them to a successful demonstration of a rocket going into space and landing under its engine's power.

10 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Remember that the LEM did propulsive landings (actually *in* space), and many other unmanned probes have also. DC-X wasn't the first either. But every gain in experience helps the next folks to do better.

We're generally referring to propulsive landings in the atmosphere after having gone to space.

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9 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/03/18/ses-10-telecom-satellite-fueled-and-readied-for-launch-on-reused-rocket/

Interesting bits in here. Apparently the boosters for the FH demo might be USED cores. :o Good way to save a couple bucks but sounds kinda daring, too. Also, booster for SES-10 was refurbished in 4 months. GS says their short-term goal for refurbishment is to cut that down to two months, with less than a day turnaround on a longer timeframe. 

Interesting read, but I think it would be better to use new cores for the first FH flight. Seems safer :/ 

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9 hours ago, CoreI said:

Also, one of the key factors in BO's ability to reuse New Shepard five times was that the heating from reentry was much less intense than what the Falcon 9 has to endure.

A returning falcon 9 won't receive much more heating in practice than what NS receives, because of the entry burn. Otherwise falcon would need a complete TPS covering, rather than a coating in a few areas like NS has.

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19 hours ago, Elthy said:

Why? SpaceX seems way ahead in most fields, while Blue Origin only has their New Shepard, which about equals the old grasshopper.

The grasshopper doesn't equal the New Shepard at all, the grasshopper only developed the control landing, the other is a full human grade suborbital rocket.

Blue Origin has a reusable from the start design, SpaceX has a cheap and easy to manufacture rocket design upgraded to be reusable.

In the mid-long term I think Blue origin will be cheaper, because the lower operations cost. Blue origin has already a proven reused suborbital rocket, they know the caveats, all the logistics needed and what to improve in the next design (it's also said that they hired engineers from the dc-x program, and remember that the dc-x was very focused in reduced maintenance and ground support) and they will probably design the New Glenn with this in mind.

The joke is that I don't like neither of them.

18 hours ago, magnemoe said:

DC-X was an SSTO, it would fail no matter how well funded. You can not build an practical ssto with rocket engines. Skylon might work, same with beamed power, not rockets. 

I didn't claimed that it would have been a successful SSTO, but it would have developed the technologies required to have a better rocket tech, and probably would have ended in a good reusable first stage in the 90's or the 00's. DC-X was more a tech and logistics demonstrator, than a real scale model.

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On 3/19/2017 at 3:32 AM, CoreI said:

Be very, very careful when comparing the achievements of SpaceX and BO. Theoretically, BO landed and reused a used booster before SpaceX. However, you have to look at the booster and mission. New Shepard is a much smaller rocket than the Falcon 9. Also, it only went onto a suborbital trajectory. Not to hate on BO, but a suborbital return is like a bounce pass in basketball when compared to  returning after delivering a payload into orbit. Also, one of the key factors in BO's ability to reuse New Shepard five times was that the heating from reentry was much less intense than what the Falcon 9 has to endure.

F9 first stage does not deliver payload to orbit, it's the second stage that is responsible for almost 80% of the total speed. At the moment of staging, the first stage is traveling at 1660 m/s (in the specific case of CRS-10), which is not a whole lot faster than New Shepard (aprox. 1300 m/s).

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46 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

F9 first stage does not deliver payload to orbit, it's the second stage that is responsible for almost 80% of the total speed. At the moment of staging, the first stage is traveling at 1660 m/s (in the specific case of CRS-10), which is not a whole lot faster than New Shepard (aprox. 1300 m/s).

In the specific case of CRS-8, which is the booster which will be launching SES-10 next Monday, staging took place at a velocity of 1,850 m/s at an altitude of 68 km. 1850 m/s is twice the kinetic energy per unit mass and experiences nearly three times as much peak heating.

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16 minutes ago, Yobobhi said:

Spacex is way too ambitious. They can choose reusable or a mars mission, not both.

My friend, SpaceX's plans to go to Mars are entirely dependent upon reusability, specifically with their BFR.  Each begets the other. 

45 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

So, this is not the Lunar XPrize team? Are they still on the manifest for "this year" then?

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7 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

So, this is not the Lunar XPrize team? Are they still on the manifest for "this year" then?

Not the XPrize team, as far as I can tell. There hasn't been any news on the XPrize team, SpaceIL, for a while now. :/ 

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12 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Which is still a lot less than energies involving orbital speeds.

Yes, this is true; there are no first stages which reach orbit because nobody flies SSTOs. But this fact does not negate the difference between a glorified sounding rocket like New Shepard and an orbital-class first stage.

Also, CRS-8 was LEO. GTO missions like JCSAT-14 staged at 2.32 km/s.

You can also look at it in terms of payload. On escape, the Aerojet Rocketdyne CCE-SRM develops 70,000 lbs of thrust, accelerating the BO crew capsule at a peak of 7 gees. Thus, the crew capsule masses around 10,000 lbs or 4.5 tonnes. So the New Shepard propulsion module delivers 1.3 km/s to a 4.5 tonne payload. In contrast, the Falcon 9 first stage on GTO missions delivers nearly twice that velocity to a 120+ tonne payload.

This isn't apples and oranges; it's grapes and watermelons.

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