Blue Origin thread.

[magnemoe]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

They are already working on the B3-3U, which is the vacuum optimized version, as this will be the upper stage engine for NG.

Yes, add that the hydrolox will have an excellent isp. 
One thing I wonder hard about New Glen is upper stage recovery, with its estimated 40 ton to LEO you will have lots of margin for an upper stage recovery on most launches. 
And this is obviously the next step.

[Racescort666]

On 7/28/2018 at 5:35 PM, monophonic said:

But was that dV calculated with an atmospheric nozzle? If so would a vacuum nozzle bring enough extra to allow a LOR profile mission? I am intrigued as the idea of using NS as a LEM has occurred to me too.

Yes, the dV was calculated with an atmospheric nozzle. In the link that @Ultimate Steve posted, the author estimates dV to be in the 4100 m/s range with a vacuum optimized nozzle. There was another blog that did most of the estimation on the engine performance. I'll have to read back up on my rocket engine design to give a good estimate on what I think the BE-3U performance will be. It sounds like 440 s is the best ballpark. 

[tater]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-blueorigin/bezos-throws-cash-engineers-at-rocket-program-as-space-race-accelerates-idUSKBN1KO0HN

 

[Xd the great]

Yeah, Bo is screwed, might as well work woth spaceX or sabotage the bfr.

Still, neew glenn, new rocket, explosions, EXCITEMENT!

[tater]

15 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Yeah, Bo is screwed, might as well work woth spaceX or sabotage the bfr.

Still, neew glenn, new rocket, explosions, EXCITEMENT!

No, Bezos is serious, and will pour in more money to hit timelines. (cause, you know, he has some of that stuff lying around)

If Jeff Bezos tells people he's coming to eat their lunch, he's coming to eat their lunch.

[Canopus]

18 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Yeah, Bo is screwed, might as well work woth spaceX or sabotage the bfr.

Still, neew glenn, new rocket, explosions, EXCITEMENT!

The Musk Meme Machine seems to work wonders 

[sevenperforce]

The BE-3 can't match the cycle efficiency of the RL-10 but it has a better thrust-to-weight ratio and it's a lot cheaper.

[tater]

26 minutes ago, Canopus said:

The Musk Meme Machine seems to work wonders 

Hey, I'm a huge SpaceX fan as well. It's OK to root for both sides

 

[Canopus]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Hey, I'm a huge SpaceX fan as well. It's OK to root for both sides

 

Yeah but thinking BO is going nowhere while SpaceX is going to have Mars commuter flights in 5 years? 

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, tater said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-blueorigin/bezos-throws-cash-engineers-at-rocket-program-as-space-race-accelerates-idUSKBN1KO0HN

Throws cash?  Even more than his (annual?) billion dollar checks?  I guess if your competition is pulling away from a field that is fueled by defense budgets you can expect to spend a lot of money.

[MaverickSawyer]

2 hours ago, Canopus said:

Yeah but thinking BO is going nowhere while SpaceX is going to have Mars commuter flights in 5 years? 

SpaceX won't be flying BFR in five years, let alone going to Mars.

 

People seem to keep underestimating just how many issues still need to be worked out for BFR, especially the engines. Just because they've run subscale engines doesn't mean that scaling up to full size is going to be simple. There's a lot of things that will change in unexpected and unpleasant ways.

[tater]

29 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

SpaceX won't be flying BFR in five years,

I'm optimistic about BFR. I think it will be flying in some fashion, though if you mean fully operational to orbit, then I think the end of that window of 5 years is more likely. Starlink requires 2218 sat deployments in less than 6 years from now, or they are stuck with whatever number they have.

 

29 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

let alone going to Mars.

This I agree with, 100%.

 

29 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

People seem to keep underestimating just how many issues still need to be worked out for BFR, especially the engines. Just because they've run subscale engines doesn't mean that scaling up to full size is going to be simple. There's a lot of things that will change in unexpected and unpleasant ways.

I think the engines are not the big issue, honestly. That part of SpaceX has been really, really capable. They've continuously improved Merlin---an engine with thousands of firings, and no bad failures (10 per F9, 9 of which are certainly fired what, 3 times, and 1-3 are fire at least 1 more time (McGreggor, static fire, launch)).

I think the much larger concern is the 100% composite nature of the craft, including tanks. That's terra incognito compared to engines.

 

[Bill Phil]

Well... SpaceX's engine department may not deserve that much credit. Merlin is based on Fastrac, with help from NASA. They've done good work, but some of my conversations with NASA employees at Marshall have turned towards SpaceX's engine development, and they're pushing their designs too far. Problems crop up, and the solutions to them cause more problems. This cycle is pretty vicious.

Still, I wish them the best.

I wonder how NG's engine dev is going.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Bill Phil

[MaverickSawyer]

5 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Well... SpaceX's engine department may not deserve that much credit. Merlin is based on Fastrac, with help from NASA. They've done good work, but some of my conversations with NASA employees at Marshall have turned towards SpaceX's engine development, and they're pushing their designs too far. Problems crop up, and the solutions to them cause more problems. This cycle is pretty vicious.

Still, I wish them the best.

I wonder how NG's engine dev is going.

Agreed. Besides, the engines are also going into uncharted territory. I don't think anyone's ever done a full-flow staged combustion engine of any sort, even in the laboratory, let alone at this scale and at these pressures.

 

Re: BE-4: I find it interesting that they've not hit full power yet during their test runs... 

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, MaverickSawyer said:

SpaceX won't be flying BFR in five years, let alone going to Mars.

 

People seem to keep underestimating just how many issues still need to be worked out for BFR, especially the engines. Just because they've run subscale engines doesn't mean that scaling up to full size is going to be simple. There's a lot of things that will change in unexpected and unpleasant ways.

BFR seems to be going along quite well.  That should be able to lift whatever you want to send to Mars to Mars.  I don't see any work on the habitat you need to get to Mars, nor the habitat you will live in on Mars for something like a minimum of 2.5 years.  Not only that, but there have been plenty of attempts to make this type of thing: Skylab, MIR, ISS, all the other Soviet space stations, and they all fall apart roughly as fast as the Astronauts can repair them (MIR was worse).

Building BFR is just one piece of the puzzle, but even cheapish heavy lift to orbit should change plenty of space calculations.  I'd be curious if anybody thinks ITS will be able to fire its engines when the window opens from Mars to Earth, or if any work has started on that issue (sounds like they plan on leaving the first batch there.  Not quite as bad as Mars One, but close (well, actually your odds are much better with Mars One, as they just took your money and left you on Earth.  ITS still sounds like a quick way to die).

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

11 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Agreed. Besides, the engines are also going into uncharted territory. I don't think anyone's ever done a full-flow staged combustion engine of any sort, even in the laboratory, let alone at this scale and at these pressures.

 

Re: BE-4: I find it interesting that they've not hit full power yet during their test runs... 

There was one cancelled 60's Soviet engine, the RD-270, and one partial tech demo (the Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator) from the USAF in the 90's.

11 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Well... SpaceX's engine department may not deserve that much credit. Merlin is based on Fastrac, with help from NASA. They've done good work, but some of my conversations with NASA employees at Marshall have turned towards SpaceX's engine development, and they're pushing their designs too far. Problems crop up, and the solutions to them cause more problems. This cycle is pretty vicious.

[...]

I had not heard about Fastrac, thanks for that. It looks like there are some differences, its TWR was nowhere near as good as the Merlin, and the Merlin is regeneratively cooled, but it's interesting that the pintle injector design came from that and not directly from the LM decent engine.

[tater]

Everyone stands on the shoulders of other people, that doesn't make their new contributions less. I think the SpaceX engine team seems pretty capable.

I'm interested in what Blue is doing in this regard as well, it's just so much harder to know given their frankly Soviet PR style, lol.

[mikegarrison]

On 8/3/2018 at 10:34 AM, Bill Phil said:

Well... SpaceX's engine department may not deserve that much credit. Merlin is based on Fastrac, with help from NASA.

It's a huge step going from a development engine program that never flew to one that flies regularly with no issues. I would say the Merlin team certainly deserves a lot of credit.

12 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

I had not heard about Fastrac, thanks for that. It looks like there are some differences, its TWR was nowhere near as good as the Merlin, and the Merlin is regeneratively cooled, but it's interesting that the pintle injector design came from that and not directly from the LM decent engine.

The original Merlin was ablatively cooled.

Edited August 4, 2018 by mikegarrison

[hms_warrior]

Not sure what i should think of that "throw lots of money to reduce delay" tactic. At least in IT, it is a proven (albeit often ignored) fact that this won't work. Introducing new teammembers actualy reduce the work a team can do in the first ~6 months.

[Xd the great]

4 minutes ago, hms_warrior said:

Not sure what i should think of that "throw lots of money to reduce delay" tactic. At least in IT, it is a proven (albeit often ignored) fact that this won't work. Introducing new teammembers actualy reduce the work a team can do in the first ~6 months.

But you can build more facilities and stuff at the same time.

[hms_warrior]

true. But in that article it was stated that he is massivly trying to increase (double) his workforce. To keep his 2020 timetable. That's what makes me wondering.

[tater]

Part of it relates to the factory to build NG.

[Xd the great]

Its good to see competition in the reuseable rocket market.

But, its hard to catch up with spaceX

[Nightside]

They may be scaling up to increase production. They've only been making prototypes so far. The first few New Glenns may not be reflown (assuming they are even successfully recovered). Production is a different skill set than building experimental rockets, so it makes sense that they would need to hire a lot more people.

I wonder where all these new rocket scientists are coming from, with the space industry opening up so quickly.

[StrandedonEarth]

41 minutes ago, Nightside said:

I wonder where all these new rocket scientists are coming from, with the space industry opening up so quickly.

Some are former SpaceX employees, just as SpaceX has (or had) a lot of former NASA (or NASA contractor) employees.

The rest are fresh engineering grads, along with the aforementioned former NASA personnel.