Blue Origin thread.

[tater]

5 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Honestly New Shephard is a pretty good tourist rocket and better than virgin galactic’s “thingy” in terms of crew safety. It actually has an abort and isn’t strapped to an SRB ( I know it’s a hybrid rocket but still) like virgin galactic’s rocket plane is.

Yeah, I'd get on NS for the first flight (if it cost like a few hundred bucks, not a few million, lol). I would have gone on the last flight if they wanted a guinea pig for free.

Virgin charges $250k for a flight? I'd not take $250k in payment to ride that thing. I mean there is some amount of money I would take to fly in Spaceship 2, but it would need to be a life-changing amount. Pay me $250M? Sure. $25M? I'd have to think about it. $2.5M? Yeah, hard pass.

Seems like poor salesmanship to have something where I might debate how much they'd have to pay me to use their product.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Where will New Glenn be relative to SH in terms of lift, seeing as they're both unbuilt? 

 

 

I've not seen a graphic showing Falcon next to SH - but NG looks like a beast 

[tater]

12 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've not seen a graphic showing Falcon next to SH - but NG looks like a beast 

That's an old NG render.

SS/SH is larger than Saturn V.

[SpaceFace545]

22 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Where will New Glenn be relative to SH in terms of lift, seeing as they're both unbuilt? 

Starship will be on top but I doubt it will really be able to fly the promoted 100 tons. 
 

On another note, would the wing things on New Glenn produce any lift?

[Spaceman.Spiff]

7 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I doubt it will really be able to fly the promoted 100 tons. 

Uhhh why not?

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Okay - I am a little confused... what is the basis of BO's objection to the NASA award if they don't even have a working rocket at this point?  (SN has at least flown and landed)

[SOXBLOX]

6 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Starship will be on top but I doubt it will really be able to fly the promoted 100 tons. 

On another note, would the wing things on New Glenn produce any lift?

A) Do you have any justification for that doubt? and B) Yes, the strakes provide a bit of lift, for extra cross-range capability.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Okay - I am a little confused... what is the basis of BO's objection to the NASA award if they don't even have a working rocket at this point?  (SN has at least flown and landed)

As far as I can see, it's because *exaggerated Bezos voice* "It'S aNtiCoMPetiTivE!! Oh, and cHiNa!!"

Which is to say, it's complete bovine waste.

Edited May 23, 2021 by SOXBLOX

[RealKerbal3x]

New Glenn is in a similar category to Falcon Heavy.

Unfortunately, they seem to be shooting at the wrong target. Falcon Heavy is a technological dead-end, as evidenced by SpaceX discontinuing further development of it before its first launch. BO should really be working on a Starship-class fully reusable launch vehicle if they want to be competitive.

4 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Do you have any justification for that doubt?

The justification is probably 'I don't want it to work, therefore it won't'.

[Elthy]

With that big of a ship they may be able to install a large grappler-arm-thing or something similar. Like those cranes that lift complete tree-trunks, just bigger and more gentle...

[tater]

2 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

BO should really be working on a Starship-class fully reusable launch vehicle if they want to be competitive.

A reusable stage 2 is not impossible later, NG is substantially larger than F9, so there's more margin there.

[Codraroll]

14 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Uhhh why not?

I've noticed he has a certain tendency of strong opinions backed by doing no research whatsoever.  It is honestly becoming quite annoying.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, tater said:

A reusable stage 2 is not impossible later, NG is substantially larger than F9, so there's more margin there.

True, but trying to retrofit a re-entry shield, a landing maneuvering system, a braking scheme (on a spacecraft presumably designed with vacuum engines) and landing legs is going to be tricky.  The Shuttle was designed with all that (plus an ambitious cross-range bit) and only had one kg of cargo space left over for each 3-4 kg of dry mass to orbit.  So far, the electron appears to be the only rocket so far to try to retrofit stage 1 recovery onto an existing rocket.   We'll see if they launch one a second time.

[RyanRising]

10 hours ago, wumpus said:

True, but trying to retrofit a re-entry shield, a landing maneuvering system, a braking scheme (on a spacecraft presumably designed with vacuum engines) and landing legs is going to be tricky.  The Shuttle was designed with all that (plus an ambitious cross-range bit) and only had one kg of cargo space left over for each 3-4 kg of dry mass to orbit.  So far, the electron appears to be the only rocket so far to try to retrofit stage 1 recovery onto an existing rocket.   We'll see if they launch one a second time.

Yeah, a reusable stage two wouldn’t be just slapping stuff onto the second stage they have, it’d be a completely different beast. It seems feasible to design something that could fit in those limitations, but we’ve had no indication BO is doing so, much as I’d like to see it. 
 

Also, Falcon 9 was originally designed with recovery in mind, but with a completely different recovery mode than what it ended up with (chutes vs propulsive landing). I think it’s fair to say the way it was recovered was retrofit onto that rocket.

[tater]

SpaceX was originally looking at S2 reuse. I think it's completely possible.

A better idea might be reuse for crew in a way that is less controversial than Starship.

years ago Blue proposed a biconic crew capsule. Might be possible to do that for S2.

I like the idea of different concepts for reuse being tried, actually. One might be substantially more reliable.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

12 hours ago, tater said:

SpaceX was originally looking at S2 reuse. I think it's completely possible.

A better idea might be reuse for crew in a way that is less controversial than Starship.

years ago Blue proposed a biconic crew capsule. Might be possible to do that for S2.

I like the idea

Second stage is moving fast enough and goes high enough that it pretty much has to be built for orbital speed reentry, right? 

Also - isn't the downrange pretty far off?  

If both are true - this increases recovery costs. 

I remember reading that engine recovery is worth it - but while that's true for a stage that lands 'dry' (ship or shore) is that still true for one that gets doused in seawater? 

 

... 

What's a biconic crew capsule? 

[sevenperforce]

12 hours ago, tater said:

SpaceX was originally looking at S2 reuse. I think it's completely possible.

A better idea might be reuse for crew in a way that is less controversial than Starship.

years ago Blue proposed a biconic crew capsule. Might be possible to do that for S2.

I like the idea of different concepts for reuse being tried, actually. One might be substantially more reliable.

It should be doable, yes. The biggest issue IMO is weight distribution. Those two engines are heavy and the nose is extremely draggy, moreso if it retains the fairing. Aerodynamic forces will make it wanna re-enter engine-first which would be a bad day. That's one of the reason SpaceX put the LOX header tank up in the nose: to get that proper balance.

The brute-force solution would be to wrap a large inflatable ballute around the engines and cover both it and the tank exterior with ablative paint. That upper stage shouldn't weigh terribly much more than the New Shepard Crew Capsule so they can chute it down into the desert once it makes it through re-entry, and the ballute can double as an airbag to protect the engines.

10 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What's a biconic crew capsule? 

It's a capsule that is vertical on launch but re-enters sideways, not unlike Starship.

Spoiler

 

[tater]

Yeah, might have to go with something more spaceplane like.

Like if an X-37B included S2 within it.

[SpaceX]

Does anyone know if there are any good Blue Origin mods out there for KSP these days?

[Starhelperdude]

Just now, SpaceX said:

Does anyone know if there are any good Blue Origin mods out there for KSP these days?

provenance aerospace is the best

[SpaceX]

7 minutes ago, Starhelperdude said:

provenance aerospace is the best

Thanks! - So nothing in a forum post here or anything along those lines? (I wasn't able to find anything in a quick forum search using that phraseology)

5 minutes ago, SpaceX said:

Thanks! - So nothing in a forum post here or anything along those lines? (I wasn't able to find anything in a quick forum search using that phraseology)

Scratch that - Found it!  - Thanks again!

Edited May 24, 2021 by SpaceX

[Starhelperdude]

5 minutes ago, SpaceX said:

Thanks! - So nothing in a forum post here or anything along those lines? (I wasn't able to find anything in a quick forum search using that phraseology)

 

[DylanSemrau]

On 5/22/2021 at 11:57 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Okay - I am a little confused... what is the basis of BO's objection to the NASA award if they don't even have a working rocket at this point?  (SN has at least flown and landed)

You don’t need a flying rocket to justify having a second option available

furthermore the lander has no relation to New Glenn other than the fact that they could fly on it, but it appears that it’ll probably rely more on Vulcan if things actually go through

the idea that they at least need their own orbital rocket that has done this and that for them to even be considered for HLS is something I see a lot and it just shows no actual understanding of how this contract works

[RealKerbal3x]

Jeff Who wants in on the steel action;

 

[Elthy]

With that change they more or less have to start over with a lot of components, dont they? Well, another 2 year delay wont matter that much if you have friends in congress that will give you money no matter what.

[tater]

Looks like 304 is ~$1.50/kg and 6061 Al is more like $12.00/kg.