Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[tater]

2 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Quite. Some of the very same folks salivating over this announcement have been giving SpaceX nothing but grief when they're actually doing. I hope BO does pull it off, but deadlines and the space industry are not often good bedfellows. 

Oh, well, subbed anyway to see where this goes. 

I have no irrational attachment to either company, I like both, and I give flak to either when deserved. "Nothing but grief" seems to apply to holding virtually any opinion that is not religiously devoted to SpaceX.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

24 minutes ago, tater said:

I have no irrational attachment to either company, I like both, and I give flak to either when deserved. "Nothing but grief" seems to apply to holding virtually any opinion that is not religiously devoted to SpaceX.

 

I didn't mention any names, did I?  I just think if one is going to be a negative nelly, one should at least be consistent. 

[tater]

If SpaceX can get back to flight in some reasonable period of time, FH will be a thing well before NG2 flies. If it's made available as a commercial LV, then NG2 is certainly a threat in a pretty full market of LVs.

It's actually interesting that they have this jump in mass to LEO, since NG2 is clearly too large for delivering people to LEO efficiently... at least in small numbers.

 

7 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, Glenn is a BA-330 launcher as I see it.

When the Chinese land on the moon in however many years, Bezos will have dim sum and tee shirts to sell them... "My dad/mom went to the Moon, and all I got was this lousy BO t-shirt."

I misspoke above... The goal is to loft a BA-2100, or perhaps 2 of them docked (65-70 tons each). They have a crew of 16 for each BA-2100.

Then you make a capsule for the NG2 that can deliver 16 at once. CST-100 is ~13 mt with the SM, and holds 6. D2 is more like 1 ton per crew. Assume 1 ton per crew nominal, and perhaps some cargo capacity. A BO capsule for delivering customers to a BA-2100 hotel (Bigelow's model is as a leased facility, after all), and we're in the realms for a NG launch. Dunno what they would call cost on that, but if it were 100M, that's still over 3M a seat... cheap for NASA, but rather a lot for tourists other than a handful. I suppose if you have 1M to blow on a week in space, you likely have 3M or more.

If SpaceX can get back to flight in some reasonable period of time, FH will be a thing well before NG2 flies. If it's made available as a memorial LV, then NG2 is certainly a threat in a pretty full market of LVs.

It's actually interesting that they have this jump in mass to LEO, since NG2 is clearly too large for delivering people to LEO efficiently... at least in small numbers.

 

3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I didn't mention any names, did I?  I just think if one is going to be a negative nelly, one should at least be consistent. 

I'm entirely consistent. I consider myself to be a SpaceX fan, frankly, but I happen to find their recent press regarding the test failure to be a really bad idea, and I worry about it because I actually want them to succeed. If I didn't like them, I'd be happy about asking for random help, because such a request makes them look substantially less competent, IMO.

On Topic, BO has an entirely different style in terms of hype. They tend to do stuff, then report it as fait accompli. I have said that I prefer the SpaceX model, or something closer to it, to what I have described (possibly in this very thread) as a "Soviet" style for Bezos. Once they try to go orbital this will not be an option, we'll all know when a launch is happening at the Cape.

Exciting times.

Edited September 12, 2016 by tater

[KSK]

7 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

The EDS was required to get Altair into LEO, and the total mass sitting in LEO was around 180 metric tons.

Yeah, good point. I hadn't realised quite what a beast the EDS was, or Altair for that matter. Getting Altair (46 tons) into orbit would be possible with either Falcon Heavy or apparently New Glenn. Getting the EDS into orbit would need an Ares V / SLS.

Conceded.

[tater]

33 minutes ago, KSK said:

Yeah, good point. I hadn't realised quite what a beast the EDS was, or Altair for that matter. Getting Altair (46 tons) into orbit would be possible with either Falcon Heavy or apparently New Glenn. Getting the EDS into orbit would need an Ares V / SLS.

Conceded.

Or, you know, the New Armstrong.  Clearly that name is reserved for a rocket capable of landing something large on the Moon, and returning it.

Bezos is focused on his personal goal, which is to go to the Moon, himself. He's spending his "%$@# you! money" to do so. It's a very different business model than having to actually make it pay for itself first.

[Lukaszenko]

Could also be that indeed this is some 1-in-a-million-thing that everybody's been overlooking since the 50s and eventually it had to happen, and SpaceX simply drew a short straw. Happened many times in the airline industry, where nobody could foresee it until it actually happened.

The fact that they're having trouble figuring this out could very well indicate what I just said. Such a case would certainly be less damaging to SpaceX's reputation than "oh we forgot to plug in the ground cable".

[Spaceception]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Or, you know, the New Armstrong.  Clearly that name is reserved for a rocket capable of landing something large on the Moon, and returning it.

Bezos is focused on his personal goal, which is to go to the Moon, himself. He's spending his "%$@# you! money" to do so. It's a very different business model than having to actually make it pay for itself first.

He has motivation.

[DerekL1963]

An interesting look at the accident from the POV of the emergency management team - and a fun tidbit, the accident placed OSIRIS-REx in jeopardy.

http://www.patrick.af.mil/News/Commentaries/Display/Article/938481/emergency-management-a-behind-the-scenes-look-on-the-eastern-range

[Mitchz95]

2 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

An interesting look at the accident from the POV of the emergency management team - and a fun tidbit, the accident placed OSIRIS-REx in jeopardy.

http://www.patrick.af.mil/News/Commentaries/Display/Article/938481/emergency-management-a-behind-the-scenes-look-on-the-eastern-range

Oh my god, could you imagine?

[kerbiloid]

New Watney. is reserved.

[Nibb31]

I think it's a hell of a leap to go from an up-and-down landing demonstrator to the third largest rocket in History. I would have felt more comfortable if he had gone for a Soyuz-class orbital launcher before going full-scale. It's in total contradiction with "Gradatim Ferociter".

But I wish them luck.

[Streetwind]

Yeah, I'm also surprised by this sudden step.

But then again, Jeff Bezos did say in an interview somewhere that they've been working on this since 2013 already...

[mikegarrison]

1 minute ago, Streetwind said:

But then again, Jeff Bezos did say in an interview somewhere that they've been working on this since 2013 already...

They are super-secretive. I live near their main plant, and not only do they not give tours and such, but you would never even know it is there. No sign out front, nothing like that.

[Streetwind]

Thankfully the pads were originally built spaced apart with accidents in mind... when the Cape was new, rockets blew up a lot more often

"Placed in jeopardy" here largely means "was adjacent to it, needs to be investigated". A rocket the size of a Saturn V blowing up might have actually caused serious concern, but for the size of the F9 there was enough safety distance. Also, keep in mind that the Vertical Integration Facility of the Atlas V fully encloses launcher and payload.

The primary danger for OSIRIS-REx here was missing the launch window due to their pad area being contaminated with hydrazine and requiring chemical cleanup. Thankfully that didn't happen.

[mikegarrison]

Just now, Streetwind said:

Thankfully the pads were originally built spaced apart with accidents in mind... when the Cape was new, rockets blew up a lot more often

"Placed in jeopardy" here largely means "was adjacent to it, needs to be investigated". A rocket the size of a Saturn V blowing up might have actually caused serious concern, but for the size of the F9 there was enough safety distance. Also, keep in mind that the Vertical Integration Facility of the Atlas V fully encloses launcher and payload.

The primary danger for OSIRIS-REx here was missing the launch window due to their pad area being contaminated with hydrazine and requiring chemical cleanup. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Did you read the story? It sounded like there were other, much more pressing dangers. It wasn't quite clear, but it seemed like the accident caused a major water shortage to the whole site, which in turn caused a bunch of other things to fail.

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

I think it's a hell of a leap to go from an up-and-down landing demonstrator to the third largest rocket in History. I would have felt more comfortable if he had gone for a Soyuz-class orbital launcher before going full-scale. It's in total contradiction with "Gradatim Ferociter".

One of the downsides of having billionaires run space programs is that their egos drive the process as much as engineering or the market.

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

"Placed in jeopardy" here largely means "was adjacent to it, needs to be investigated".

Huh?  No.  Did you read the story?  "Placed in jeopardy" means "the launch complex suffered a complete loss of cooling water, threatening the loss of the payload and requiring emergency corrective action".

[Streetwind]

I was not aware of that, apologies.

[monophonic]

18 hours ago, Kryten said:

Did a quick-and-dirty add of NS to that comparison image;

Really puts into perspective how much of a leap this is. 

Pity that image is still missing the N-1 and SLS... 

But now that you added the New Shepard there I realise just how close it is to the size of the fairings on the New Glenns. A devious thought develops... how much vacuum dV would the NS have with a decent vacuum nozzle added? How much does a moon landing and return ask for?

Okay okay, I am jumping the gun here.

Edit: Did some googling. The Apollo LM had about 4700m/s, and apparently a vacuum-optimized New Shepard might get somewhere around 4800m/s. Do you believe in coincidences?

Edited September 13, 2016 by monophonic
Did my own searching

[magnemoe]

17 hours ago, Kryten said:

Did a quick-and-dirty add of NS to that comparison image;

Really puts into perspective how much of a leap this is. 

An huge rocket, also an huge jump, however other has said this before. As I understand the 3 stage version uses an hydrogen upper stage something who is nice for going to GEO and outward. 
Downside is another type of fuel. 
First I reacted on is the fairing, why have it smaller than the diameter on the 2 stage one? Yes you save a bit of weight but not much and its less flexibility on such an heavy rocket.
Yes the 3rd stage might be inside the fairing like on ariane and atlas.
I wonder if they plan second stage recovery? makes some sense with such an heavy rocket. SpaceX dropped it as it would reduce payload so much. However with such an huge rocket it makes sense, it would be overkill for most uses if not. 
 

[Kryten]

1 hour ago, monophonic said:

Pity that image is still missing the N-1 and SLS... 

Your snarky half-wish is my command;

(also I was bored).

[Nefrums]

Why would they put fixed fins on the top of the first stage like that. That would cause the rocket to very unstable during ascent.  

Deployable fins like spaceX uses makes alot more sense.

[Spaceception]

I'm just going to leave this here...

[monophonic]

Thanks @Kryten! 

Looks like a moon rocket is a moon rocket is a moon rocket. The NG3 approaches the height, but it is still a bit skinny for one. Of course there was a mention of a New Armstrong a few posts (pages?) back.

Hey, I just realized that the NG2 looks a lot like a ball-point pen! That'd make a great business give-away for Blue Origin. 

30 minutes ago, Nefrums said:

Why would they put fixed fins on the top of the first stage like that. That would cause the rocket to very unstable during ascent.  

Deployable fins like spaceX uses makes alot more sense.

They are pretty much where the center of pressure would end up on the three stage variant anyway, so they are pretty much neutral there. But I can see how they could give some trouble for the two stage version, although I can also appreciate the desire to avoid extra mechanical complexity. Methane being from the less dense end of fuels probably helps getting the center of mass upwards some, and the fact that the fins are not really effective at slow speeds. As the rocket picks up speed, it also burns off mass from the first stage which moves the center of mass upwards. Active control will have to handle the rest. I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a minimum payload mass though, just to keep it stable (enough).

Edited September 13, 2016 by monophonic
You know those obvious typos that you only see after submitting?

[softweir]

Something to note from the news story is that it appears that critical systems are not sufficiently isolated across launch pads. If an explosion on one pad can cause knock-on effects to systems on other pads then they need to be able to isolate things better. This incident might be a good opportunity to review these systems and - while the pad is being rebuilt - improve things.

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

I'm just going to leave this here...

LOL!

So... Were Mr and/or Mrs Musk fans of von Braun's writings?