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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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14 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Oh hey, looks like SES-10 it is, and the date appears to be holding too! :)

 

Well, crap. I'm either going to be driving to school or stuck in class when it launches. :(

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6 hours ago, StupidAndy said:

RE-launch? does that mean they are reusing the stage (as in using it again, not trying to land it(successfully))?

have they done this before? I should really look this stuff up!

Yes, they are actually reflying a previously-flown first stage.

No, they have not done this before. Nobody has done this before on an orbital launch (Blue Origin has done it repeatedly with a smaller suborbital vehicle). Everyone's pretty excited for this. :)

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26 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Yes, they are actually reflying a previously-flown first stage.

No, they have not done this before. Nobody has done this before on an orbital launch (Blue Origin has done it repeatedly with a smaller suborbital vehicle). Everyone's pretty excited for this. :)

Um ... except for some Space Shuttles that were relaunched dozens of times.

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20 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Oh hey, looks like SES-10 it is, and the date appears to be holding too! :)

 

Oh cmon its in the middel of the night MIDDEL and i am going to school the next day

Anybody know the backup launch window? 

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Just now, mikegarrison said:

Um ... except for some Space Shuttles that were relaunched dozens of times.

That was a completely different vehicle, fulfilling a completely different purpose, IMHO.

Not to lessen the achievements of the shuttle program, of course. :)

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1 minute ago, Streetwind said:

That was a completely different vehicle, fulfilling a completely different purpose, IMHO.

Not to lessen the achievements of the shuttle program, of course. :)

Yeah. But what is a first-stage rocket if not a rocket engine (or three) that ignites on the pad? I think it's nifty what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing, but it's a very strange reinterpretation of history to claim that this will be the first reused orbital rocket stage....

The shuttle was the first reused orbital launch system. And no, they didn't reuse all of it, but neither does SpaceX.

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14 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Yeah. But what is a first-stage rocket if not a rocket engine (or three) that ignites on the pad? I think it's nifty what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing, but it's a very strange reinterpretation of history to claim that this will be the first reused orbital rocket stage....

The shuttle was the first reused orbital launch system. And no, they didn't reuse all of it, but neither does SpaceX.

I disagree. The way I (and I would imagine SpaceX) would argue it is as follows:

 

SpaceX 1st stage: launch, land, inspection, refuel, relaunch. One fully self contained stage that can be (in theory) relaunched many times.

Space Shuttle: launch, land, inspection, build a brand new external fuel tank, refuel, relaunch. "Stage" is not self contained, requires a new fuel tank to be built for every launch.

 

By that logic you can see why SpaceX are claiming it's the first reusable stage. The shuttle orbiter being reused is a bit like that plan for the Vulcan to reuse the engines of the first stage, and ESA would definitely not claim that just saving the engines was reusing the whole first stage.

Edited by Steel
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Falcon 9 is a fully reusable first stage. The launch system as a whole isn't fully reusable.

Space shuttle was neither fully reusable nor a first stage.

They are two different things. They both are/were reusable in one way or another. I don't think they should be compared. For me the most important part is how much each of these cost/costed. F9 is much simpler. Space Shuttle was much more complicated than F9.

Edited by Veeltch
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29 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Shuttle contained the fuel tanks and engines for orbital insertion, so even by your definition it was a reused stage.

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. 

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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Yeah. But what is a first-stage rocket if not a rocket engine (or three) that ignites on the pad? I think it's nifty what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing, but it's a very strange reinterpretation of history to claim that this will be the first reused orbital rocket stage....

It's also claimed that Falcon1 was the first privately funded rocket rocket to reach orbit, apparently Pegasus never existed.

Welcome to the posmodernism :/

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10 minutes ago, kunok said:

It's also claimed that Falcon1 was the first privately funded rocket rocket to reach orbit, apparently Pegasus never existed.

Welcome to the posmodernism :/

Privately-developed, not privately funded.

 

EDIT: no I'm still wrong. I think most people just misquote "first privately-developed liquid-fuel launch vehicle" as "first privately-developed launch vehicle"

Edited by Steel
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12 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Isnt the biggest difference in reusability, that the shuttle was more or less reassembled each time they reused it?

AFAIK later on yes. Especially after the accidents. This and the fact that parts were made by different companies made it so expensive to fly.

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2 hours ago, Steel said:

Privately-developed, not privately funded.

EDIT: no I'm still wrong. I think most people just misquote "first privately-developed liquid-fuel launch vehicle" as "first privately-developed launch vehicle"

That's what I was trying to say.

And I think that is very easy to misquote that wording, and I think is very naive to think that easy to misquote wording wasn't done in purpose. Nowadays most people believe that SpaceX had developed the first private orbital rocket ever.

Edited by kunok
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2 minutes ago, kunok said:

That's what I was trying to say.

And I think that is very easy to misquote that wording, and I think is very naive to think that easy to misquote wording wasn't done in purpose. Nowadays most people believe that SpaceX had developed the first orbital rocket ever.

I believe you're right. Interesting and completely off topic (hence in spoiler box) musing below:

Spoiler

SpaceX is rightly entitled to call their rocket the "first privately-developed liquid-fuel launch vehicle", so surely the misquoting is the fault of the lack of effort people put into fact-checking these days. SpaceX have never deliberately tried to mislead people, they (or whoever else it might be) are just using the fact that very few people actually read things properly these days.

 

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We are derailing but

Spoiler

"SpaceX have never deliberately tried to mislead people, they (or whoever else it might be) are just using the fact that very few people actually read things properly these days. " @Steel

This is a contradiction, if you are using the fact that most people don't really read things, you are actually deliberately trying to mislead people.

PD: I don't know how to properly quote inside a spoiler

Anyway in the actual topic

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

Isnt the biggest difference in reusability, that the shuttle was more or less reassembled each time they reused it?

Do we really know what is done to a future reused stage in SpaceX? How much is reassembled?

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3 minutes ago, kunok said:

Do we really know what is done to a future reused stage in SpaceX? How much is reassembled?

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...

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Just now, 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 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.

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