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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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12 hours ago, KerBlammo said:

Corporate PR ranges from mildly informative to outright deceptive in my experience. Yes there is no obvious external damage to the booster but that does not mean it is capable of launching again.

... 

Won't someone think of the Space Nerds? Please?

They said "fire" not "launch".  Normal PR wouldn't care, but space nerd PR probably made sure the correct words were used for this copy.  After all these launches, I wonder how close the damage is to expected models and what they will change with Falcon 1.3 (now that they know at least one datum of real measurement).

Of course my real reason for posting is wondering where that Falcon will end up.  My first choice would be the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum "Hall of Milestones".  Best guess is that this won't happen: it is a hall of "firsts" (the Falcon was a milestone, just not a "first") and the Shuttle claimed most of the firsts in that regard*.  It also probably won't fit.  I'd even wonder if it would fit in the hall next door (with the V-2 and Skylab mockup), that has the bottom carved out for more room, but still is finite.  I suppose that Udvar-Hazy has plenty of room (it is less than a quarter filled), but the thing would probably have to be sideways (and I suspect if would fit sideways downtown).

* The recent Musk/Bezos hissy fit doesn't help things.  Bezos owns the Washington Post and has a certain PR advantage in DC.

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I dunno. The HD closeups of the landing burn igniting at 02:33+ were pretty spiffy. You can even see the green flash! And they did show a peek of the first stage's onboard cams continuing to record during reentry... though they're probably still holding most of that back.

Edited by Streetwind
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yeah slick video with some pretty cool new views, but only a couple of seconds of new on-board video.  Maybe there really isn't much to see.  If they make this routine presumably at some point we'll see a rocket 's eye view of a daylight landing.

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2 hours ago, KerBlammo said:

Maybe there really isn't much to see.

Yeah, I've been thinking that they haven't shown it because it was either iced over at some point or smoked up during descent and you just can't see anything during landing. The way the side of the booster looked, I can't imagine any downward facing camera would be able to get good video.

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4 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

It'd be more appropriate if a museum got a booster that put something more significant into orbit. The first manned launch perhaps. They don't necessarily need to get the first one. Same with the Space Shuttle.

There have been something like 300 manned space flights (135 shuttle, 128 Soyuz, and a bunch of others according to wiki).  The space shuttle is a bad comparison, considering that the first two were the ones that were lost*.  As far as "not the first one" goes, it might be awhile before a booster goes 10 for 10 and is retired.  I'm guessing that most of the rest will either not stick the landing or possibly be sold as "expendable" (of course, last I heard that might only be an option on falcon heavy).  This first one is being retired, so I'd guess that it would be most likely the only "returned falcon" for awhile.

* after writing this I remembered I saw the Enterprise in the Smithsonian, and haven't been down to see its replacement.  Also not a fair comparison: the Enterprise never went into space, while the "first landed Falcon**" did the full Falcon mission.

** All the planes and spacecraft in the "Hall of Milestones" have proper names (had to look up that the Apollo 11 capsule was "Columbia", the "Eagle" was the more famous name of that flight).  Not sure how they would deal with "first Falcon 9 that landed".

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I really liked the vid.

BTW what's the backstory of that Dragon capsule hanged under the ceiling near where the control room is? It looked like it's all smoked and used. Was it the first Dragon to orbit and they decided to keep it just like they want to keep that F9 first stage?

Edited by Veeltch
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2 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

BTW what's the backstory of that Dragon capsule hanged under the ceiling near where the control room is? It looked like it's all smoked and used. Was it the first Dragon to orbit and they decided to keep it just like they want to keep that F9 first stage?

That's it exactly. :)

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57 minutes ago, Motokid600 said:

Well the Chris B tweet used the word "amazing" so... We'll see. 

It also said he hadn't actually seen it, and that that was second hand info, so maybe some wires got crossed and someone misunderstood someone. I think if they were going to show it, it would have been in that video so I'm guessing the soot got the camera.

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Don't get me wrong, the newer video was absolutely fantastic and brought back all the emotions, but I didn't see the "incredible" footage that had been hinted at. A few new angles and some slo mo, but again, nothing huge.  

Edited by Wingman703
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On 1/6/2016 at 1:16 PM, Mazon Del said:

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I am admittedly uncertain. From what we know does the Falcon 9, assuming you throw everything at the task (so no fuel leftover for landing and such), have enough dV to hurl anything (from a cubesat on up) into Lunar Orbit?

If the F9 can get to LTO, CubeSats with onboard propulsion can probably deploy and get to the moon from there.  Vermont Technical College has a design for a lunar orbiter and lander in a 3U CubeSat package.  They have presented the design at a CubeSat Workshop in 2010:

http://cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2010/3_1520_carl-brandon-developersworkshop-2010-revised.pdf

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3 hours ago, ChrisDayVACCO said:

If the F9 can get to LTO, CubeSats with onboard propulsion can probably deploy and get to the moon from there.  Vermont Technical College has a design for a lunar orbiter and lander in a 3U CubeSat package.  They have presented the design at a CubeSat Workshop in 2010:

http://cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2010/3_1520_carl-brandon-developersworkshop-2010-revised.pdf

I would just skip the complexity from doing that, and simply go for a Firefly Alpha or a Minotaur rocket to do that kind of job for me. Also, a propulasion system would be too big for a cubesat dispenser.

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1 hour ago, fredinno said:

I would just skip the complexity from doing that, and simply go for a Firefly Alpha or a Minotaur rocket to do that kind of job for me. Also, a propulasion system would be too big for a cubesat dispenser.

There are several propulsion modules for CubeSats.

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Considering one of the Google Lunar X-Prize teams has booked flights on the Rocket Labs Electron launcher, which can lift maybe one tenth of a fully expendable Falcon 9... yes, the Falcon 9 can definitely boost things to Lunar orbit and landing.

Which is further reinforced by the fact that a different Google Lunar X-Prize team has purchased rideshare space on a (presumably non-expendable) Falcon 9 launch in order to go to the Moon. Not even a fully dedicated launch, just rideshare space (admittedly, probably as the majority share).

And a third team decided to build an extra-big lander and join forces with at least two other teams which don't have the means to build the full architecture themselves (and possibly more, as there's still lander space avialbale), with the aim of purchasing an entire Falcon 9 launch as a group at a later date.

Does that answer all questions about the F9's cislunar capabilities? :P

Edited by Streetwind
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