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Blue Origin thread.


Vanamonde

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1 hour ago, tater said:

I know most here are not BO fanbois, but BO is gonna hit the market like a freight train.

Well dayum - one of those will sure keep the weeds down.

Can't say I am much of a Blue Origin fanboy, for the practical reason that SpaceX's more tangible progress makes them easier to cheer for and for the distinctly fanboy reason that I find Musk's internet persona more engaging than Bezo's. From afar that is - I doubt that working for either of them would be a barrel of chuckles.

On the other hand, I bear Blue Origin no ill-will at all. Can't wait to see New Glenn flying and hopefully the industry will expand to provide more than enough room for both companies. And if Blue Origin manage to out-compete SpaceX - well it's up to SpaceX to step up their game. I'm a fanboy - not a fanboi.

Edited by KSK
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34 minutes ago, Racescort666 said:

I thought they were calling that New Shepard.

Well that’s the thing, can they glean enough data from that lil thang for full-on hypervelocity landings? SpaceX had the luxury of testing landing procedure on “spent” boosters, and still does. I seem to recall BO saying they’re going to recover from day 1, tho I could be wrong. And it’s probably changed anyway.  

32 minutes ago, KSK said:

t I find Musk's internet persona more engaging than Bezo's.

We will certainly never see the BO equivalent to this<_<

Spoiler

58de81a68af578622c8b5338.jpg

 

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15 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well that’s the thing, can they glean enough data from that lil thang for full-on hypervelocity landings? SpaceX had the luxury of testing landing procedure on “spent” boosters, and still does. I seem to recall BO saying they’re going to recover from day 1, tho I could be wrong. And it’s probably changed anyway.  

We will certainly never see the BO equivalent to this<_<

 

or how about "How not to land a booster": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

I somehow doubt that BO is going to build their first orbital-capable booster with a 99% chance of successful landing (not anything you can walk away from, but enough to reuse the engines).  It seems that their market certainly includes those who take paper/powerpoint rockets at their word.

On the other hand, they certainly seem likely to shake up the rocket world.  I doubt ULA and the SLS program are going to be happy explaining their continued high costs.  Spacex has an orbiting ISP to pay for the BFR, I wonder what type of manifest New Glen is supposed to have.

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2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

We will certainly never see the BO equivalent to this<_<

  Reveal hidden contents

58de81a68af578622c8b5338.jpg

 

Not publicly, no. :wink: 

 

2 hours ago, Racescort666 said:

I thought they were calling that New Shepard.

 

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Well that’s the thing, can they glean enough data from that lil thang for full-on hypervelocity landings? SpaceX had the luxury of testing landing procedure on “spent” boosters, and still does. I seem to recall BO saying they’re going to recover from day 1, tho I could be wrong. And it’s probably changed anyway.

Keep in mind, they stuck their landing the second time they flew. (Don't recall what happened to the first...) And they've since proven that they can repeat that feat with impressive accuracy. Yes, it's a straight up and down mission, but they still go from transsonic to hovering over the pad in a little less than 15 seconds.

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20 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Yes, it's a straight up and down mission, but they still go from transsonic to hovering over the pad in a little less than 15 seconds.

So they’ve got the terminal side of things down, now they just need to hit the side of a barn with another small building from the edge of space. That’s quite the reach...:o

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1 hour ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Well, SpaceX proved that that part is actually fairly straightforward... it was the whole "soft landing" thing that eluded them for a couple attempts.

They got the "soft landing on water" long before they landed on the barge.

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9 minutes ago, tater said:

Have you heard anyone say NG would put 70-90 tons in LEO as he says in that video?

 

Maybe with expendable first stage, and then two hydrolox stages... Yea, still sounds a bit too high. I only heard the 45t number, but that was for the two stage variant with first stage reuse. It’s probably outdated info by now.

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2 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Maybe with expendable first stage, and then two hydrolox stages... Yea, still sounds a bit too high. I only heard the 45t number, but that was for the two stage variant with first stage reuse. It’s probably outdated info by now.

I am becoming quite happy with the rate at which information becomes out of date in the modern spaceflight field.

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6 hours ago, cubinator said:

I am becoming quite happy with the rate at which information becomes out of date in the modern spaceflight field.

...And it's becoming out of date in the right direction for the most part, too! Most of the time the changes are negative, but not now!

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1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Watch us all get trolled when it's a New Glenn grasshopper test.

That would be... most interesting indeed. :cool:

And watch us get doubly trolled when they don’t say a peep about it for months. :rolleyes:

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Maybe a pad abort test?

AFAIK, that was already done quite a while ago. :/

 

Ooh ooh... just thought... 

Maybe the frist manned test??

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2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Watch us all get trolled when it's a New Glenn grasshopper test.

Unlikely. You'd have noticed the stage getting transported to the facility. it's kinda hard to hide a 7m diameter stage... or to haul it on the roads.

 

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Yeah, maximum altitude is 8,000ft, which is not very high at all. I wonder... Maybe a pad abort test? New version of NS testing? I swear, if it's NG already...

I suspect no pad abort test. They already tested the ability of the LES to punch away from the pad several years ago.

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19 minutes ago, MaverickSawyer said:

I suspect no pad abort test. They already tested the ability of the LES to punch away from the pad several years ago.

There is a small chance they want to do multiple tests. If you're going to be flying people, better safe than sorry. I'm not sure how many of these were pad aborts, but Apollo iirc had over half a dozen abort tests.

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On 4/21/2018 at 10:36 PM, tater said:

They've likely dumped stage 3 now that stage 2 is hydrolox. The mass to LEO is likely better than it was with methlox, but I haven't seen numbers that big thrown around.

If this is to be believed, there isn't a big improvement. However, as I've posted previously, I disagree. I really need better information on the specific impulse of the BE-3U though. I suspect that it is around 430s +/- 10s (same as what we were saying up thread) but only because my best analogue is the J-2 which isn't even the same cycle. If the BE-3U actually has this performance, they're looking at 55-60t to LEO although they'll probably have to fly a slightly different flight profile due to the lower TWR which may impact the payload.

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