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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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3 hours ago, DarthVader said:

Absurd, coming from a man who has consistently overhyped and under produced

Using the term under produced is rather brave, considering the achievements of SpaceX so far. We are not even mentioning the other companies.

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29 minutes ago, sojourner said:

Maybe he meant to refer to Richard Branson?

Well, the link obviously refers to a message from Musk. Whatever the case, few of us could ever dream to achieve what either Branson or Musk have. Both men have achieved remarkable things in their lives, far beyond any reasonable expectation.

I never quite understand the need some keyboard warriors have to put highly achieving people down. Besides, if you do not shoot for the stars, you will never end up there.

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I suppose that if Dragon flights land at sea instead of boosting back to land, that may leave enough margin to recover the second stage. Similarly, if F9 payloads that allow the booster to be recovered are moved to F9H, that should certainly leave enough margin to recover the second stage, likely with all boosters returning to dry land.

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Next launch seems to be NROL-76, NET April 16th. I asked around on Reddit, and interestingly enough, this will be horizontally integrated (despite the air force's requirement of vertical integration capability for certification). It will also be a return to land flight. So people are thinking that this is a small test payload, rather than a fully fledged mission. But as with all NRO launches, no information is provided, so it could be anything.

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12 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I suppose that if Dragon flights land at sea instead of boosting back to land, that may leave enough margin to recover the second stage. Similarly, if F9 payloads that allow the booster to be recovered are moved to F9H, that should certainly leave enough margin to recover the second stage, likely with all boosters returning to dry land.

Second stage recovery will hit payload capacity a lot. With falcon heavy should will work however. 
And it will require an new upper stage, lots of changes is needed to be able to deorbit and land upper stage. 
 

 

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It is probably some military cheese... :sticktongue:

SpaceX has done a lot, and recovering a first stage is incredibly difficult. I don't know about the cost savings, but if they are enough that it is cheaper to refurbish than to build a new one, I think they've found a pretty good gold mine to do that with every launch.

The second stage would need a lot more fuel, and there would have to be something like the grid fins added for steering. It would have to survive the blistering reentry for longer because it is technically in orbit, just not a stable one. 

Thought: have a heat shield on the front of the stage where the payload sits, so it reenters forward...

Edited by Benjamin Kerman
More ideas
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11 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

Thought: have a heat shield on the front of the stage where the payload sits, so it reenters forward...


You still need thermal protection on the rest of the stage to protect from radiant heat.

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30 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

-snip-

Thought: have a heat shield on the front of the stage where the payload sits, so it reenters forward...

Hmm... where have I seen this before?

Second stage recovery was part of the original plan afaik.

Musk on the upper stage: https://youtu.be/PULkWGHeIQQ?t=6m59s

 

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Can we spam SpaceX with requests for telemetry of the first stage on the return and landing? I would find that info interesting, and I assume the necessary hardware is there, it's just a matter of displaying it on the webcast.

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2 hours ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

Thought: have a heat shield on the front of the stage where the payload sits, so it reenters forward...

They need a standard PAF on the front to count for USAF cert.

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35 minutes ago, Kryten said:

They need a standard PAF on the front to count for USAF cert.

They need the Pakistani air force on the front to count for the US air force?

Edited by Camacha
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1 hour ago, Josh IN SPACE said:

What an exciting period of spaceflight we get to witness.

Another achievement for private spaceflight and spaceflight as a whole! 

Forget the private part - I never thought I would be typing that sentence in earnest - this is all about space flight and mankind as a whole. People are pretty blasé when it comes to space, but everyone forgets that we are just, just getting started. The space race was not even the birth of our endeavours; that birth is still going on. We are still figuring out how to do even the most basic things and how to keep ourselves aloft and alive. One tiny collection of even tinier tin cans that float by every few days constitutes our entire carnal presence in everything beyond our atmosphere. Lest we forget: that is a lot of everything. Even that can be contended, as dem cans could be considered to be skimming our atmosphere. Though it is understandable, people systematically forget how alien and hostile this environment of nothingness besides intense radiation is to the Nude Plain Ape. Death and disaster are everywhere and our smartest and brightest fight hard to keep them both away. Just away enough not to die horrible deaths, even though astronauts are invariably worse for wear upon return to the safety of the barely solidified crust we call our home.

Just yesterday I was thinking how I, someday, would have to explain to young people that landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies. It was a ridiculous science fiction fantasy, until someone who made his fortune during the tumultuous beginnings of our internet put down his foot and actually did it. They will take it for granted, while it will probably forever be a miracle to us.

Edited by Camacha
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1 hour ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

PAF is probobly payload attached fairing?

Payload attach fitting. Can be part of the fairing system (and is on F9), but not always.

Edited by Kryten
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3 hours ago, Camacha said:

Forget the private part - I never thought I would be typing that sentence in earnest - this is all about space flight and mankind as a whole. People are pretty blasé when it comes to space, but everyone forgets that we are just, just getting started. The space race was not even the birth of our endeavours; that birth is still going on. We are still figuring out how to do even the most basic things and how to keep ourselves aloft and alive. One tiny collection of even tinier tin cans that float by every few days constitutes our entire carnal presence in everything beyond our atmosphere. Lest we forget: that is a lot of everything. Even that can be contended, as dem cans could be considered to be skimming our atmosphere. Though it is understandable, people systematically forget how alien and hostile this environment of nothingness besides intense radiation is to the Nude Plain Ape. Death and disaster are everywhere and our smartest and brightest fight hard to keep them both away. Just away enough not to die horrible deaths, even though astronauts are invariably worse for wear upon return to the safety of the barely solidified crust we call our home.

Just yesterday I was thinking how I, someday, would have to explain to young people that landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies. It was a ridiculous science fiction fantasy, until someone who made his fortune during the tumultuous beginnings of our internet put down his foot and actually did it. They will take it for granted, while it will probably forever be a miracle to us.

One of the things I love about The Expanse is that, despite being set in a future where we have figured out most of that stuff, space itself is still arguably a bigger villain than the actual villians. It conveys a real sense of danger that just permeates every single scene. :)

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4 hours ago, Camacha said:

Just yesterday I was thinking how I, someday, would have to explain to young people that landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies. It was a ridiculous science fiction fantasy, until someone who made his fortune during the tumultuous beginnings of our internet put down his foot and actually did it. They will take it for granted, while it will probably forever be a miracle to us.

I'm sure that it will be surprising to Neil Armstrong and everyone else who landed on the moon to find out that "landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies" before Elon Musk came along.

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5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I'm sure that it will be surprising to Neil Armstrong and everyone else who landed on the moon to find out that "landing rockets upright was stuff that only happened in comics and movies" before Elon Musk came along.

Okay, I will bite. They landed rocket powered craft, moon landers specifically. None of them landed a rocket upright. The difference is not even close to trivial.

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