Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[StarStreak2109]

6 hours ago, tater said:

A story with no real information written by someone who doesn't have a clue what they are talking about (99% of reporting).

Note that I didn't comment on the article. I just pointed out that the article was there. BTW, I am of the same opinion as yours. However, and maybe that's just me, but I find it astonishing, that a newspaper such as Washington Post types up such speculative stories with so little information.

Other sources I found indicate that this whole "sabotage" business is just one of the many avenues SpaceX is investigating. The only real story in there IMHO is that ULA officials allegedly denied SpaceX reps access to their premises. That you can interpret in whatever way you want and if you want to sell newspapers, stories like this come out...

On another note, you don't want to know what kind of BS some European newspapers made out of the presentation held by Elon Musk...

[Spaceception]

1 hour ago, Kryten said:

 

 

I hope they launch on Wednesday.

[Temeter]

Btw, does anyone else feel the Raptor is going a great length towards retroactively proving KSP right?

Throttable to 20%, infinite restarts via spark system, self-pressurising tanks via heat exchanger...

 

Those are gonna be fun when someone makes a raptor mod for RO.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Temeter

[tater]

I'd actually be curious for giggles to know what EU papers think. I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else does with their own money, however  .

[RedKraken]

5 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Someone in the NSF forum omented that the "scale model" is just the right size to fill that Airforce Contract for a raptor powered upper stage for FH.

Also just the right size for the first stage.

282 -> 334 is a big jump in sea-level performance. 311 to 361 is a big jump in vac performance.

And the engine mass is supposed to be much less.

I wonder how much a full metholox falcon9 will lift?

Thrust up 17%. ISP up 17%. Engine mass down. Dry mass down.

Maybe 36% better performance.

23t to LEO?

In RO ... might be closer to 25t on a 700t rocket

27t ? holy cow this engine is a frikin beast.

using all sl 1MN raptors for simplicity.

Edited October 3, 2016 by RedKraken

[Temeter]

Washington post is often writing this kind of klickbaiting nonsense in their online variant. Apparently their only clue is that a SpaceX employee has asked for access to the ULA roof. Or maybe hasn't.

Currently everyone is jumping on the train, tho. Countless articles reciting the little stuff you found in the WP article.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Temeter

[Montieth]

On October 1, 2016 at 3:03 AM, Nibb31 said:

And what this gives you is a sterile substrate. It's not dirt. It's not soil. You might as well just import polysterene foam or sand. You are still going to need to add massive amounts of fertilizer and nutrients imported from Earth.

 

100 people, over 4-6 months produce how much fertilizer? 

[mikegarrison]

It's not every day you get to see a company deliberately blow their own rocket apart.

[Wjolcz]

7 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It's not every day you get to see a company deliberately blow their own rocket apart.

Won't it be landed back on the pad though?

[Nibb31]

15 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Won't it be landed back on the pad though?

They don't expect it to survive the blast from the LES.

The LES is in the center of the New Shepard capsule. To separate, it fires against the top of the booster.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Nibb31

[Spaceception]

2 hours ago, Veeltch said:

Won't it be landed back on the pad though?

What Nibb said, however, if it somehow does survive, they'll try to land it, (But even then, it could've been severely damaged, and too risky to land again) but on the off chance it survives, and it's not damaged too badly, they'll land it and put it into a museum.

[mikegarrison]

They wouldn't normally expect to use the LES unless there was something severely wrong with the rocket, so designing it to protect the rocket wouldn't make a lot of sense.

[StarStreak2109]

18 hours ago, tater said:

I'd actually be curious for giggles to know what EU papers think. I'm not sure why anyone would care what someone else does with their own money, however  .

Well, they don't think. They (poorly) quote what others wrote. For instance: FOCUS Online (in its print version a major German weekly news magazine) states

Quote

Die unbemannte Falcon-9-Rakete der SpaceX war am 1. September in Cape Canaveral im Bundesstaat Florida während der Vorbereitungen auf den Flug ins All explodiert. Nun verdächtigt SpaceX den Rivalen United Launch Alliance (ULA). Die "Washington Post" berichtet, dass auf dem ULA-Bürodach in der Nähe des Startplatzes verdächtige Aktivitäten registriert wurden.

Translation: The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX exploded on 1st September in Cape Canaveral, Florida, during the preparations for the flight into space. Now SpaceX is implicating its rival ULA. Washington Post reported that suspicious activities were registered on the ULA office roof in the vicinity of the launch area.

My favorite is this article about the ITS (Excerpt quote describing from Elon's presentation):

Quote

• Es handelt sich um ein System aus vier Teilen: Rakete, Raumschiff, Tankschiff und Treibstoffdepot.
• Die Rakete hat einen Durchmesser von zwölf Metern, das Raumschiff 17 Meter, bei einer gemeinsamen Länge von 122 Metern. Damit sind sie rund 50 Meter größer als die bisherigen Prototypen des Unternehmens.
• Das System soll auf wiederverwendbaren Trägerraketen basieren. Damit die Reise in weite Ferne gelingt, soll Treibstoff dabei teilweise auf dem Mars hergestellt werden.
• Über kurze Strecken könnte das Raumschiff mithilfe von Solarzellen-Flügeln gleiten. 200 Kilowatt sollen sie etwa beim Anflug auf den Roten Planeten generieren können.
• Auf die ersten Raumschiffe passen, so SpaceX, hundert Passagiere, später bis zu tausend Menschen. Für einen Preis von 100.000 US-Dollar pro Person sei eine Reise zum Mars dann möglich. Umgerechnet sind das rund 89.000 Euro.

Translation:

• It (the system) is comprised of four parts: Rocket, spaceship, tanker ship and propellant depot.
• The rocket has a diameter of twelve meters, the space ship 17 meters with a combined length of 122 meters. Thus it is roughly 50 m longer than the previous prototyps of the company.
• The system shall be based on reusable booster rockets. In order to make that trip successfull, propellant shall be made partially on Mars.
• On short distances, the spaceship could glide by means of its solar cell wings. They shall generate 200 kw during the approach to the red planet.
• The first space ships shall carry 100 passengers according to Space X, later up to 1000 people. Then the voyage shall be possible for roughly 100,000 USD per passenger.

It reads like they put a first year voluntary reporter, who has zero idea of what he's writing about, on the job of translating Elon's presentation. I like how the spaceship shall glide on solar wings...

Edited October 4, 2016 by StarStreak2109
Completion

[monophonic]

42 minutes ago, StarStreak2109 said:

It reads like they put a first year voluntary reporter, who has zero idea of what he's writing about, on the job...

Perfectly sums the state of professional journalism this side of the pond.

[Frybert]

53 minutes ago, StarStreak2109 said:

I like how the spaceship shall glide on solar wings...

....................................uuuuuuhhhhhhhg..........

[Elthy]

Wow, that hurts. All ive read about that outside of tech media was just a few lines, where they didnt have much chance to mess up that bad.

Well, when this thing realy flies to Mars people knowing about spaceflight will be wanted. It will the the biggest media event in history, i doubt they will let such uninformed people write about it.

I know there are some older folks here, how was the technical coverage back in the Apollo days? How much did the average person know e.g. about orbits, rocket engines or reeentry?

[wumpus]

On 10/3/2016 at 0:36 AM, Northstar1989 said:

I just want to recap here.  A trend is starting to emerge that ideas that I initially thought were great, like cargo-only MCT's or Cycler Ships will, individually, only yield very small cost-savings (between 8 and 11%) and require, substantial additional R&D investment...

This assumes that the "cargo only" ships are chemical (probably methane&oxygen) and use hohmann transfers with similar delta-v requirements.  From your numbers above ["6.4 and 8 km/s",vs. "3-4 km/s on a slower trajectory"], cutting the delta-v in half should cut the fuel needed by an order of magnitude (not so much if the McargoT is coming back without being refueled at Mars).  While the cost of the fuel (on Earth) might be trivial, getting it to LEO is over $1000/lb (so far).

Going the "slow way" via gravity tricks should work with Mars (although it and Venus have the least benefit of such tricks).  Also using ion propulsion would reduce the fuel mass by at least 80%.  The only reason that costs should be anywhere near 90% of a crewed MCT is impatience and cost of designing a completely different McargoT.  Beyond that, consider the benefits of using such a McargoT to transport fuel to an eccentric orbit (heading toward Mars) around Earth with ~2000m/s delta-v difference between it and LEO.  The crew docks with the fuel tanker (likely a fueled up stage, until "we" are that confident in in-space refueling) and then proceeds to burn at Perigee.  This bypasses the tyranny of the rocket equation by breaking the burns into two 2km/s burns instead of one 4km/s.  And while you can't really break natural laws, you *can* pay for the extra 2km/s in cheap ion propulsion delta-v instead of expensive methane/oxygen delta-v.

Less sure about cycler ships: typically the delta-v needed to dock/capture/etc plus the cost to get it started should end up a wash.  Presumably any justification would be due to life support benefits and/or the benefits of maneuvering an asteroid to serve as the base of a cycler (even then the delta-v to dock/undock isn't free).  These are so far in the future to not worry about (and hopefully propulsion systems will have changed by then).

[tater]

The Gell-Mann effect. Everything you read in the media has a good chance of being just as accurate as those stories. Unless you are reading a story about a subject where you have some expertise yourself, you almost might as well not bother reading watching it. If you do have expertise, you'll immediately see how dumb most reporters are about anything other than reporting. The problem is that "reporting" has no content in that sense. It is the ability to write certain kinds of stories, not the ability to understand what is actually going on.

I know a few reporters, including one many have read in a very prominent US paper, or even seen (he goes on the some the weekend news shows). His reporting is fine when it's about the political machinations (which is the sort go "gossip" all humans can do), but once he's doing background on technical issues behind the political fights... deer in headlights.

 

[magnemoe]

32 minutes ago, tater said:

The Gell-Mann effect. Everything you read in the media has a good chance of being just as accurate as those stories. Unless you are reading a story about a subject where you have some expertise yourself, you almost might as well not bother reading watching it. If you do have expertise, you'll immediately see how dumb most reporters are about anything other than reporting. The problem is that "reporting" has no content in that sense. It is the ability to write certain kinds of stories, not the ability to understand what is actually going on.

I know a few reporters, including one many have read in a very prominent US paper, or even seen (he goes on the some the weekend news shows). His reporting is fine when it's about the political machinations (which is the sort go "gossip" all humans can do), but once he's doing background on technical issues behind the political fights... deer in headlights.

Yes reporting tend to be very inaccurate unless the reporter know something about the subject. This is visible if you know an subject. Remember IT news before they got dedicated tech reporters it was mostly nonsense but worth reading for the laugh. 

This might have been improved as more and more news are bought from other sources You might notice how the same articles is published in multiple media. 

[tater]

Even the space media writes boneheaded stuff sometimes (I'm looking at you, space.com).

 

Edited October 5, 2016 by tater
Boo boo

[Technical Ben]

IMO a cycler ship is a quality of life addition. Or a "guarantee" of performance (done previously to landing a crew less version, otherwise go straight to that). If they can fit everything on one craft by all means. But it seems they will cut things out to save on size/cost. But if they are going to go for number of launches = efficiency, than launching one extra craft should not cut into that much, but would provide twice the living space while in transit. Actually, this could be addressed by launching (and keeping in orbit) such facilities instead.

If this is a "one in a lifetime, today only" rocket launch, then yes... doing it once is the only option.

Even some ships have "landing" craft. I just don't see many people wanting to spend 3 months in their seat.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Technical Ben

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

I know there are some older folks here, how was the technical coverage back in the Apollo days? How much did the average person know e.g. about orbits, rocket engines or reeentry?

While I wasn't old enough to know the technical coverage of the Apollo days, I can certainly say that none of the science fiction of the day assumed *any* knowledge past the high school physics class (Have Spacesuit Will Travel may have included the most surprising information.  Which was probably obsolete after serious satellite design was possible).

Reentry was probably not all that well known even by NASA (no wind tunnels capable of such speeds, simulations were pretty limited).  I've *always* heard the "skip off the atmosphere" danger, typically followed by "into space forever" and not "for another orbit out as far as the Moon, which life support can't handle" (which I've *only* heard in KSP-based tutorials).  The general (and even space-enthusiast) population simply wasn't expected to understand orbits.  I think even Scott Manley mentioned hitting "infinite distance" with escape velocity (something KSP players quickly learns means a distance varying between 0-2AU) in an *extremely* early video (possibly technically correct, since KSP didn't have a solar system for that version).

People *might* have understood rocket engines, but I'm only aware of detailed explanations of turbine engines in thermodynamics classes (and physics classes teaching thermo).  The whole concept of the turbopump  isn't something you can dumb down to "average" levels.

Consider the modern example: how many people can explain the working of transitors/gates/CPU instructions/compilers/programming languages/OSs/TCP-IP stacks/Cell phone workings/RF coding tricks (especially past [DSBCP*]-AM).  The magic happens and the internet works.  Pretty much how things go from the corn on the field (don't ask what's involved in generating the seeds and fertilizer) to the dinner table.  Something I am as ignorant (and less justifiably as my life depends on it) as most people are about orbits and the TCP-IP stack.

* AM as we know it really means "[Dual Sideband Carrier Present] Amplitude Modulation.  Old school TVs used an AM system without both sidebands (well one was highly attenuated) nor the carrier.  One of the reasons [classic] AM took off/still exists is that it is so extremely simple to decode, you really only need a cat's whisker [wire], a crystal,  and some headphones.   The downsides are amazing inefficiencies to broadcast (both in power and in spectrum).

[Technical Ben]

If you cannot explain something, you do not understand it yourself.

The limit was not in the audiences ability to understand, it was in the teachers knowing what tools to use, or having full understanding themselves. As you say, a lot of this was entirely new to those being involved. I read that the Luna Lander legs were made too long, because they literally did not know how they would interact with the dust/rocks on the Moon and feared it may sink in.

 Ok, found the reference it was this: "The "one small step for man" wasn't actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn't compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle's ladder to the surface."

So turns out they did know, but the landing was too light (even though practically running on fumes from the tanks ).

In other news, Scott Manley, KSP and others use pictures and video (practical demonstration), to teach anything to anyone in the audience.

 

[edit] Thanks Derek, I did fact check myself, but too slowly!

Edited October 4, 2016 by Technical Ben

[DerekL1963]

15 minutes ago, Technical Ben said:

The limit was not in the audiences ability to understand, it was in the teachers knowing what tools to use, or having full understanding themselves. As you say, a lot of this was entirely new to those being involved. I read that the Luna Lander legs were made too long, because they literally did not know how they would interact with the dust/rocks on the Moon and feared it may sink in.

No, they made extensive studies and sized the length almost perfectly.   What they "screwed up" (in quotes because it depends on your definition) was a) the shock absorption system in the legs was capable far beyond the requirements (the astronauts generally left the engines on longer than had been anticipated, resulting in much lower touchdown shock), and b) the footpads were over sized as they underestimated the bearing strength of the lunar regolith (they were designed long before the Surveyor results were available).  It's probably the latter you're thinking of.

[Technical Ben]

Wait. I've just realised... I'm an idiot. And Elon Musk (and his staff) are (possibly) as well.

From testing the launcher/refuel idea... could they not just use the booster minus payload (a fairing or something on top) AS the refuel tanker?

I'll be able to try out the two ideas in KSP, but no idea on the practical RL costs and results. You would need some engines for thrust in a vacuum, possibly?

Edited October 4, 2016 by Technical Ben