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"Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!" Oy... someone needs to tell Bezos it's a whole different scale than what

"Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!" Oy... someone needs to tell Bezos it's a whole different scale than what he did. https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067 https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067

CamperBob2 11y ago
"Welcome to the club"? Wow, that was classless. What Blue Origin did was impressive, but it was utterly trivial compared to what just happened with this flight.
- notjustanymike 11y ago
  Someone should return the favor whenever he gets into orbit
- grkvlt 11y ago
  Really, 'classless'? The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. And, Blue Origin managed that first, no two ways about it. I think it's probably pretty classless to imply that what Blue Origin managed to do was 'trivial'. Just because SpaceX is the current hacker's favourite, doesn't mean you have to downplay everyone else. I think Musk's tweet about the difference between 'space' and 'orbit' was actually pretty pointless hair-splitting. Now, you can get technical and say that the achievement is landing a booster that is part of an orbital launch system but really, what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage, and I think everyone else understands that.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    I think you underestimate the degree of difficulty between these two achievements. They are both very impressive but what SpaceX just did is many times more difficult than what Blue Origin did.
    - grkvlt 11y ago
      OK, explain how the landing of the SpaceX first stage was many times more difficult? They used different mechanisms, yes (suicide burn vs. hover-capable) and the purpose of the overall system was different, but they are both VTOL rockets. Blue Origin was first, and Bezos can quite rightly welcome SpaceX to 'the club' as the second company to achieve this, without being accused of being classless, surely?
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Because the Falcon 9 traveled at several thousand miles per hour horizontally when it did its flip and then the first retro burn. By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down. It never moved away from the launchpad in any appreciable amount and it never had to change orientation. From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp. Today, history was made. Blue Origin: not so much. Nice but nowhere near in the same league (or the same club, to stick with Bezos).
        gozo 11y ago
        History is being made wheter you like it or not.
        stcredzero 11y ago
        By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down...From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp. Actually, the "pop-up" 1st stage trajectory is interesting from a space applications perspective. You can think of it this way: a SSTO spaceplane is just beyond the cusp of possible for technology made out of normal matter and fueled by chemical rockets. But what if you could somehow cheat and launch an SSTO at very high altitude? Then it's just below the cusp of possible. So you wind up with a completely reusable TSTO craft. So how is that more interesting than a high altitude blimp? You get the craft back faster, directly to the facility. Recovery is more straightforward. The equipment and technology is the same sort of equipment and technology as in the orbiter craft. Also, if you're able to get up to a "mere" 600 mph or so downrange velocity, due to the mathematics of the rocket equation, you're still saving a sizable chunk of vehicle weight in fuel.
  - JshWright 11y ago
    New Shepard is able to make several compromises that make landing _much_ easier. New Shepard doesn't have to get anywhere close to orbital velocity, so it can use a far less powerful engine. That means it can throttle down far enough to hover. That is a _huge_ advantage over Falcon 9, which must time the landing burn perfectly to hit 0 velocity at the exact moment it touches the ground. They're in the same club like a general aviation pilot landing his Piper Cub on a giant runway and a navy pilot landing his F-14 on a carrier are "in the same club". While it's technically true, pointing it out would be pretty tacky...
    - grkvlt 11y ago
      But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember. The achievements are comparable, despite the fact it makes SpaceX come second. Blue Origin was first with a VTOL rocket stage, as part of a space system.
      - JshWright 11y ago
        > But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember. It gets a whole lot closer (and is _much_ larger). I really can't emphasize enough how much of a difference the ability to hover makes for New Shepard. SpaceX has been doing "New Shepard" type flights for a long time now (they didn't bother going that high, but 'high' isn't really that interesting, it's 'fast' that matters). However, Grasshopper (like New Shepard) was able to throttle down to a TWR less than 1. That makes landing so much easier (the rocket can 'stop' and get settled before it proceeds to land).
        darkmighty 11y ago
        To give people an idea, this is the difference of scale: http://i.imgur.com/RVOKED2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RVOKED2.jpg Blue Origin's achievement is nice; just as older prototypes that achieved suborbital landing (Grasshopper, DC-X), but it's unclear yet what it meant for the industry (hope they keep going though, they're a good track). SpaceX's landing is a landmark for space travel, rapid reusability is now much closer. I'm much more confident now this will change the cost structure of the whole industry, seeing how launch is a dominant factor.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    What, exactly, did Blue Origin do that the X-15 didn't do 50 years ago? Other than the terrestrial launch, that's about all I can think of.
    - grkvlt 11y ago
      That's pretty much it. As I understand it, the difficult bit was landing your rocket safely after launching it 100km up.
      - JshWright 11y ago
        Not really... terminal velocity is terminal velocity. There is a limit to how fast you can fall through the atmosphere, regardless of how far up you start falling from.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - cornholio 11y ago
    "what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage" That assertion is ridiculous. The rocket is optimized to do one thing, push it's payload into orbit, this is a very strict restriction, especially on a two stage rocket. On the other hand, the designer of a suborbital vehicle has ample design space to play. It's like comparing your practice free throw, in your back yard, with a slam-dunk in the NBA.
  - resu_nimda 11y ago
    The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. Who said that was the achievement? What is important about that achievement? The important achievement is dramatically reducing the cost of sending things into space (such that they will stay there). SpaceX's rockets achieve this, Blue Origin's don't even attempt to be in that league. Using your Everest analogy, Blue Origin was the first to climb some lesser peak nobody cared that much about (still, nice job), then SpaceX climbed Everest, and Bezos said "welcome to the tall mountain club."
    - gozo 11y ago
      "Who said that was the achievement?" Anyone who understood what was being achieved. That doesn't mean that a single achieve or being first in itself is that meaningful, but it's still an achivement. Just like anyone who understands mountaineering knows that climbing Everest isn't the greatest norvthe hardest achivement among tall mountains i.e. the eight-thousanders.
  - sxcurry 11y ago
    I don't think you understand the big picture. Musk = Good, Everyone Else = Bad. The Musk sycophants are peeing their pants in excitement over this achievement, and you are just not allowed to question any part of it.
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    http://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg http://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - grey-area 11y ago
    BO was not trivial, just as grasshopper was not trivial years before, but there is a significant difference. Going up into space can be done in a balloon or plane, but not orbit. The difference is qualitative. F9 will significantly reduce the cost of putting things in orbit. NS will reduce the cost of space tourism (momentary views of earth), but would require new engines and a different design and landing style to put things into space, something like F9. Hence implying they are the same is a bit tacky and inappropriate as it will mislead lots of people.
mavhc 11y ago
Dear Mr Bezos: people will care about your rocket when you offer free shipping to space for Prime customers
- aggie 11y ago
  I think his remark was an ugly bit of ego, but I care about any endeavor to develop space travel technology.
  - calinet6 11y ago
    I think it was all in good fun, and everyone is making way too big a deal out of it.
AYBABTME 11y ago
He knows, but the public doesn't and he can say what he wants to twist the perception in his favor and give the impression that the feats were equally challenging. Not to remove any merit to Blue Origin's achievement, but it's nowhere near what SpaceX just pulled off.
- aggie 11y ago
  The public that cares about this achievement (or Blue Origin's) likely understands the difference.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    As does the public that might decide to host a bunch of stuff with AWS (or not). Really bad move on Bezos' part, not everything is economics.
    - calinet6 11y ago
      I guarantee our ops team will not make infrastructure buying decisions based on the quality of their aerospace side-projects.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I disagree. There are a lot of people out there who are interested in space but don't really understand it. Just one anecdote, I spent twenty minutes explaining the difference to my father after BO's landing, which he genuinely thought was beating SpaceX to the punch.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I have a vague feeling he's being snide to pay Elon back for those mildly snarky tweets back when Blue Origin landed their rocket. EDIT: Musk: "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster" Musk: "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/" https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/" http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-twitter-fight-blue-origin/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jef... EDIT2: NASAWatch: "Gee Jeff @SpaceX just put a bunch of stuff into orbit - again. Something you have yet to figure out how to do." https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896 https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896 I'm not sure if they're all joking around, or are there serious ego issues at play here.
- planckscnst 11y ago
  Actually, thinking about it, if they staged a faux-rivalry, it would probably get more public interest in space. People can choose their team and have someone to root for and someone to hate.
  - cma 11y ago
    They've been in a hiring war for talent too though, lending weight to a genuine rivalry.
  - mabbo 11y ago
    I've said it before: we need another space race. If we can't convince the superpower countries to do it, might as well be two billionaire CEOs. Think we can get Gates or Buffet into it as well maybe?
    - soperj 11y ago
      Buffet no, but Paul Allen has invests in space (SpaceshipOne, and Vulkan)
- swampthinker 11y ago
  Your link has a little extra on it :) https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
agumonkey 11y ago
and geohot
jacquesm 11y ago
That's pretty low.
tunesmith 11y ago
Can someone explain exactly what Bezos/Blue Origin did, and how it is different than what SpaceX did? EDIT: Here's a video that compares/contrasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c7RUjNFDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c7RUjNFDo
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  This video ain't bad, but it skims over the two most important points and skips one completely: - SpaceX rocket goes really fast horizontally; it has to flip around and boost back, and then correct from horizontal to vertical orientation. - Falcon 9 is an actual space launch system; it has different (i.e. much stricter) engineering constraints than a suborbital rocket. In particular, this affects the engine design. - Most importantly, the first stage of Falcon 9 does what's known as "suicide burn" - it waits until the last possible second to fire back the engine, so that it reaches exactly zero velocity relative to the ground as it touches down. It does so, because it can't hover - even the single one one of the nine Merlin engines, throttled down to minimum, still generates more thrust than the now almost empty booster weights. On the other hand, Blue Origin's rocket can slow down to a hover, and then take its time to stabilize and land.
  - hyperpallium 11y ago
    Why don't they put a smaller engine in the centre for landings?
    - extrapickles 11y ago
      It would make the rocket too heavy. To add another engine, they would have to make the rocket larger in diameter, increasing the weight by a fair amount (they currently have the 9th engine in the middle, so it would have to get moved to the ring with the rest). Reducing the power of the center engine would also reduce the amount of payload to orbit. Rockets that can reach orbit have very bad weight to payload ratios (Falcon 9 is ~2.5% takeoff weight to LEO) so there isn't much room for dead weight.

CamperBob2 11y ago

"Welcome to the club"? Wow, that was classless. What Blue Origin did was impressive, but it was utterly trivial compared to what just happened with this flight.

notjustanymike 11y ago
Someone should return the favor whenever he gets into orbit
grkvlt 11y ago
Really, 'classless'? The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. And, Blue Origin managed that first, no two ways about it. I think it's probably pretty classless to imply that what Blue Origin managed to do was 'trivial'. Just because SpaceX is the current hacker's favourite, doesn't mean you have to downplay everyone else. I think Musk's tweet about the difference between 'space' and 'orbit' was actually pretty pointless hair-splitting. Now, you can get technical and say that the achievement is landing a booster that is part of an orbital launch system but really, what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage, and I think everyone else understands that.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I think you underestimate the degree of difficulty between these two achievements. They are both very impressive but what SpaceX just did is many times more difficult than what Blue Origin did.
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    OK, explain how the landing of the SpaceX first stage was many times more difficult? They used different mechanisms, yes (suicide burn vs. hover-capable) and the purpose of the overall system was different, but they are both VTOL rockets. Blue Origin was first, and Bezos can quite rightly welcome SpaceX to 'the club' as the second company to achieve this, without being accused of being classless, surely?
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Because the Falcon 9 traveled at several thousand miles per hour horizontally when it did its flip and then the first retro burn. By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down. It never moved away from the launchpad in any appreciable amount and it never had to change orientation. From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp. Today, history was made. Blue Origin: not so much. Nice but nowhere near in the same league (or the same club, to stick with Bezos).
      - gozo 11y ago
        History is being made wheter you like it or not.
      - stcredzero 11y ago
        By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down...From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp. Actually, the "pop-up" 1st stage trajectory is interesting from a space applications perspective. You can think of it this way: a SSTO spaceplane is just beyond the cusp of possible for technology made out of normal matter and fueled by chemical rockets. But what if you could somehow cheat and launch an SSTO at very high altitude? Then it's just below the cusp of possible. So you wind up with a completely reusable TSTO craft. So how is that more interesting than a high altitude blimp? You get the craft back faster, directly to the facility. Recovery is more straightforward. The equipment and technology is the same sort of equipment and technology as in the orbiter craft. Also, if you're able to get up to a "mere" 600 mph or so downrange velocity, due to the mathematics of the rocket equation, you're still saving a sizable chunk of vehicle weight in fuel.
- JshWright 11y ago
  New Shepard is able to make several compromises that make landing _much_ easier. New Shepard doesn't have to get anywhere close to orbital velocity, so it can use a far less powerful engine. That means it can throttle down far enough to hover. That is a _huge_ advantage over Falcon 9, which must time the landing burn perfectly to hit 0 velocity at the exact moment it touches the ground. They're in the same club like a general aviation pilot landing his Piper Cub on a giant runway and a navy pilot landing his F-14 on a carrier are "in the same club". While it's technically true, pointing it out would be pretty tacky...
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember. The achievements are comparable, despite the fact it makes SpaceX come second. Blue Origin was first with a VTOL rocket stage, as part of a space system.
    - JshWright 11y ago
      > But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember. It gets a whole lot closer (and is _much_ larger). I really can't emphasize enough how much of a difference the ability to hover makes for New Shepard. SpaceX has been doing "New Shepard" type flights for a long time now (they didn't bother going that high, but 'high' isn't really that interesting, it's 'fast' that matters). However, Grasshopper (like New Shepard) was able to throttle down to a TWR less than 1. That makes landing so much easier (the rocket can 'stop' and get settled before it proceeds to land).
      - darkmighty 11y ago
        To give people an idea, this is the difference of scale: http://i.imgur.com/RVOKED2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RVOKED2.jpg Blue Origin's achievement is nice; just as older prototypes that achieved suborbital landing (Grasshopper, DC-X), but it's unclear yet what it meant for the industry (hope they keep going though, they're a good track). SpaceX's landing is a landmark for space travel, rapid reusability is now much closer. I'm much more confident now this will change the cost structure of the whole industry, seeing how launch is a dominant factor.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  What, exactly, did Blue Origin do that the X-15 didn't do 50 years ago? Other than the terrestrial launch, that's about all I can think of.
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    That's pretty much it. As I understand it, the difficult bit was landing your rocket safely after launching it 100km up.
    - JshWright 11y ago
      Not really... terminal velocity is terminal velocity. There is a limit to how fast you can fall through the atmosphere, regardless of how far up you start falling from.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- cornholio 11y ago
  "what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage" That assertion is ridiculous. The rocket is optimized to do one thing, push it's payload into orbit, this is a very strict restriction, especially on a two stage rocket. On the other hand, the designer of a suborbital vehicle has ample design space to play. It's like comparing your practice free throw, in your back yard, with a slam-dunk in the NBA.
- resu_nimda 11y ago
  The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. Who said that was the achievement? What is important about that achievement? The important achievement is dramatically reducing the cost of sending things into space (such that they will stay there). SpaceX's rockets achieve this, Blue Origin's don't even attempt to be in that league. Using your Everest analogy, Blue Origin was the first to climb some lesser peak nobody cared that much about (still, nice job), then SpaceX climbed Everest, and Bezos said "welcome to the tall mountain club."
  - gozo 11y ago
    "Who said that was the achievement?" Anyone who understood what was being achieved. That doesn't mean that a single achieve or being first in itself is that meaningful, but it's still an achivement. Just like anyone who understands mountaineering knows that climbing Everest isn't the greatest norvthe hardest achivement among tall mountains i.e. the eight-thousanders.
- sxcurry 11y ago
  I don't think you understand the big picture. Musk = Good, Everyone Else = Bad. The Musk sycophants are peeing their pants in excitement over this achievement, and you are just not allowed to question any part of it.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  http://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg http://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- grey-area 11y ago
  BO was not trivial, just as grasshopper was not trivial years before, but there is a significant difference. Going up into space can be done in a balloon or plane, but not orbit. The difference is qualitative. F9 will significantly reduce the cost of putting things in orbit. NS will reduce the cost of space tourism (momentary views of earth), but would require new engines and a different design and landing style to put things into space, something like F9. Hence implying they are the same is a bit tacky and inappropriate as it will mislead lots of people.

mavhc 11y ago

Dear Mr Bezos: people will care about your rocket when you offer free shipping to space for Prime customers

aggie 11y ago
I think his remark was an ugly bit of ego, but I care about any endeavor to develop space travel technology.
- calinet6 11y ago
  I think it was all in good fun, and everyone is making way too big a deal out of it.

AYBABTME 11y ago

He knows, but the public doesn't and he can say what he wants to twist the perception in his favor and give the impression that the feats were equally challenging. Not to remove any merit to Blue Origin's achievement, but it's nowhere near what SpaceX just pulled off.

aggie 11y ago
The public that cares about this achievement (or Blue Origin's) likely understands the difference.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  As does the public that might decide to host a bunch of stuff with AWS (or not). Really bad move on Bezos' part, not everything is economics.
  - calinet6 11y ago
    I guarantee our ops team will not make infrastructure buying decisions based on the quality of their aerospace side-projects.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I disagree. There are a lot of people out there who are interested in space but don't really understand it. Just one anecdote, I spent twenty minutes explaining the difference to my father after BO's landing, which he genuinely thought was beating SpaceX to the punch.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I have a vague feeling he's being snide to pay Elon back for those mildly snarky tweets back when Blue Origin landed their rocket. EDIT: Musk: "Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster" Musk: "It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/" https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/" http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-twitter-fight-blue-origin/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/news/companies/elon-musk-jef... EDIT2: NASAWatch: "Gee Jeff @SpaceX just put a bunch of stuff into orbit - again. Something you have yet to figure out how to do." https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896 https://twitter.com/NASAWatch/status/679126712295120896 I'm not sure if they're all joking around, or are there serious ego issues at play here.

planckscnst 11y ago
Actually, thinking about it, if they staged a faux-rivalry, it would probably get more public interest in space. People can choose their team and have someone to root for and someone to hate.
- cma 11y ago
  They've been in a hiring war for talent too though, lending weight to a genuine rivalry.
- mabbo 11y ago
  I've said it before: we need another space race. If we can't convince the superpower countries to do it, might as well be two billionaire CEOs. Think we can get Gates or Buffet into it as well maybe?
  - soperj 11y ago
    Buffet no, but Paul Allen has invests in space (SpaceshipOne, and Vulkan)
swampthinker 11y ago
Your link has a little extra on it :) https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

agumonkey 11y ago

and geohot

jacquesm 11y ago

That's pretty low.

tunesmith 11y ago

Can someone explain exactly what Bezos/Blue Origin did, and how it is different than what SpaceX did? EDIT: Here's a video that compares/contrasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c7RUjNFDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c7RUjNFDo

TeMPOraL 11y ago
This video ain't bad, but it skims over the two most important points and skips one completely: - SpaceX rocket goes really fast horizontally; it has to flip around and boost back, and then correct from horizontal to vertical orientation. - Falcon 9 is an actual space launch system; it has different (i.e. much stricter) engineering constraints than a suborbital rocket. In particular, this affects the engine design. - Most importantly, the first stage of Falcon 9 does what's known as "suicide burn" - it waits until the last possible second to fire back the engine, so that it reaches exactly zero velocity relative to the ground as it touches down. It does so, because it can't hover - even the single one one of the nine Merlin engines, throttled down to minimum, still generates more thrust than the now almost empty booster weights. On the other hand, Blue Origin's rocket can slow down to a hover, and then take its time to stabilize and land.
- hyperpallium 11y ago
  Why don't they put a smaller engine in the centre for landings?
  - extrapickles 11y ago
    It would make the rocket too heavy. To add another engine, they would have to make the rocket larger in diameter, increasing the weight by a fair amount (they currently have the 9th engine in the middle, so it would have to get moved to the ring with the rest). Reducing the power of the center engine would also reduce the amount of payload to orbit. Rockets that can reach orbit have very bad weight to payload ratios (Falcon 9 is ~2.5% takeoff weight to LEO) so there isn't much room for dead weight.