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Honestly just roll my eyes now at these pissing contest blogposts from Bezos. He does his team a disservice by suggesting that what they are achieving is actual

by yborg 11y ago

Honestly just roll my eyes now at these pissing contest blogposts from Bezos. He does his team a disservice by suggesting that what they are achieving is actually more advanced than what SpaceX has done - it all looks like the approach the Soviets took in trumpeting various "firsts" in space in the 60s as the US methodically built capability far beyond what the Russians could sustain. I am impressed by both companies' ambition, and SpaceX clearly has both the time and money advantage over Blue Origin. Let your accomplishments speak for themselves.

avmich 11y ago
Sounds like a rather weak comparison, as USSR did manage to get a set of impressive results in space - at least as American specialists were characterizing them. Not sure if SpaceX really has more money than BlueOrigin - that used to be the other way around. Time advantage is clearly on the side of SpaceX though.
- hueving 11y ago
  Like what? I'm aware that they were early, but did they accomplish more once the US was landing on the moon?
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    They got several probes onto Mars. That's just off the top of my head, though. The Soviet space program was no joke. Though it may have been a combination of brute force and revisionist history over their failings. I personally suspect there are a lot more human corpses in orbit than anyone knows about.
    - avmich 11y ago
      Well, USSR had a really hard time with Mars landers. AFAIK, they got just one landed - and it stopped working shortly after that. But that one landed before Vikings.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        People forget how Mars was known as a graveyard for probes for many years. It's only fairly recently that anyone including the US has been able to deliver payloads to Mars with any reliability.
    - aninhumer 11y ago
      >I personally suspect there are a lot more human corpses in orbit than anyone knows about. I wouldn't be so sure, since we kind of have to know about them so we don't crash into them.
      - hueving 11y ago
        Well they would be officially registered as unmanned craft.
  - tim333 11y ago
    They landed probes on Venus that sent back photos. No one else has done that. And it's not the easiest thing given the surface temperature is 462C.
    - azernik 11y ago
      Look on the bright side - at least you don't need parachutes!
      - tim333 11y ago
        They did use parachutes a bit eg. Venera 14: "After entering the atmosphere a parachute was deployed. At an altitude of about 50 km the parachute was released and simple airbraking was used the rest of the way to the surface." The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 94x Earths so it slows stuff quite well. It survived 57 minutes before cooking. (Wikipedia)
        azernik 11y ago
        Heh. True. What struck me when reading about these probes was more the final descent - dense balls of metal and electronics like the Venera probes had terminal velocities around a walking pace.
  - ehnto 11y ago
    They were also pioneering in the space station/space habitat arena. We have the Russians to thank for a lot of the technology aboard the ISS, both when it was being built and to this day.
  - avmich 11y ago
    Once US was landing on the moon? What kind of achievements you'd like to have? Planetary probes, like Lunokhods - several weeks of Moon exploration? Or Luna-16 - automatic probe which brought lunar soil to Earth? You can say that's less impressive than Apollos, and I'd agree, but that still different things - which USA couldn't do at the time, and those programs had some advantages over Apollos too. Or a series of Venera probes, including landers? Mastery of automated docking? Orbital stations - starting with Salyut-1 - with myriads of experiments (medical, industrial etc.)? Rocket engines - more advanced than American ones by such criteria as working process (gas-gas was tested during 1960's in RD-270 with single chamber thrust rather similar to F-1), Isp and mass ratio (NK-33), total thrust (RD-170)? VEGA comet fly-by? By which criteria these don't count?
    - edem 11y ago
      Actually a Venera lander was the first and only (so far) which returned a picture from the surface of Venus. Brilliant engineering imho. Not to mention the MIR space station.
  - akhatri_aus 11y ago
    There's also the fact they were the first in space with a true orbit. Whereas Alan Shepard was simply on a ballistic trajectory, much like Bezos's launch a couple of weeks ago. Also Mir.. They still have more knowledge when it comes to staying in space for longer periods of time. Landing on Venus.. The US's one up is landing on the moon.
gall 11y ago
Blue Origin has actually been around longer than SpaceX. Both companies were also rans of the first XPrize.
ehnto 11y ago
If it's a pissing contest that accelerates the rate at which we progress space travel and technology then that's fine by me. Also I feel like perhaps you're underselling their achievements here, it's still impressive and it's still incredible progress in space travel. Good luck to them both.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  I love that Neil deGrasse Tyson quote, "Asteroids are nature's way of asking, 'How's that space program coming along?'"
  - fjejcjcjd 11y ago
    There are more stars in our galaxy than there are atoms in the universe.
    - euyyn 11y ago
      lol
    - swampthinker 11y ago
      I hope I'm just missing your /s tag
      - jk4930 11y ago
        It's called "Black Science Man" and the quote refers to this: http://i.imgur.com/IhASJV2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IhASJV2.jpg
        swampthinker 11y ago
        Ha, I actually know Black Science Man, but I've never seen that specific image.
    - jodrellblank 11y ago
      ... what are they made of?
jessriedel 11y ago
> He does his team a disservice by suggesting that what they are achieving is actually more advanced than what SpaceX has done What does this refer to? That single joke tweet?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  There's also this fragment of the article: > When you do a vertical landing, you’re solving the classic inverted pendulum problem, and the inverted pendulum problem gets a bit easier as the pendulum gets a bit bigger. Try balancing a pencil on the tip of your finger. Now try it with a broomstick. The broomstick is simpler because its greater moment of inertia makes it easier to balance. We solved the inverted pendulum problem on New Shepard with an engine that dynamically gimbals to balance the vehicle as it descends. And since New Shepard is the smallest booster we will ever build, this carefully choreographed dance atop our plume will just get easier from here. It could be read as a jab at SpaceX.
rdtsc 11y ago
> US methodically built capability far beyond what the Russians could sustain. You know what year it is, right? This is not 1998. Unfortunately US "sustainable" technology is mothballed and we are flying into space on Soviet technology. I hate the commies on principle, but at the end of day you gotta accept reality here. > Soviets took in trumpeting various "firsts" in space Also I can think of just a few firsts off the top of my head : First satellite, first ICBM, first human in space, first probe to reach moon, first EVA. Then looking up on Wikipedia I found: first probe launch to Mars, first probe launched to Moon, first probe to reach another plane (Venus), first unmanned rendezvous and docking, first permanently manned space station. And even the first fully automated flight of a space shuttle system. Which they did to show off, and then also realized "it was found too expensive to operate as a civilian launcher". It took US how many years and disasters and money to realize that?.
- jpgvm 11y ago
  Ontop of all of this.. ULA's heavy lift capability is entirely dependent on Russian engines to reach orbit. Made much worse by the fact ULA had until SpaceX arrived, complete monopoly of the US defence market. It does make me wonder how much of this is just follow on from the exact events you described. Specifically that the Russians were for the longest time far ahead in liquid fuel rocket engine technology.
  - kunai 11y ago
    They still are very ahead — of course, the Merlin and RS-25 are amazing designs, but they're still more of the brute-force American methodology that made the Saturn V so brutally effective at travelling to the moon. The Russian aerospace industry has always tried to approach rocketry with a lot more emphasis on finesse, precision, and clever engineering solutions — the astonishing reliability of the Soyuz is a testament to this. von Braun and his team at Marshall always pulled off amazing technological feats, but at the expense of greatly increased complexity and less efficiency. That legacy has largely carried on to the present day; I hope that this newer generation of American LVs (Falcon 9.1R, Vulcan) will turn things around in the opposite direction.
  - 11y ago
dba7dba 11y ago
I don't know who started this pissing contest but from what I heard it started when Bezos hired a top engineer away from SpaceX for Blue Origin, basically poaching. Either way, Bezos can p--s all he wants with his shorter rocket that carries less and goes to lower height when SpaceX rockets carry more and go higher. And not to mention Elon literally bet his farm to get it going during hard times...

by yborg 11y ago

avmich 11y ago

Sounds like a rather weak comparison, as USSR did manage to get a set of impressive results in space - at least as American specialists were characterizing them. Not sure if SpaceX really has more money than BlueOrigin - that used to be the other way around. Time advantage is clearly on the side of SpaceX though.

hueving 11y ago
Like what? I'm aware that they were early, but did they accomplish more once the US was landing on the moon?
- moron4hire 11y ago
  They got several probes onto Mars. That's just off the top of my head, though. The Soviet space program was no joke. Though it may have been a combination of brute force and revisionist history over their failings. I personally suspect there are a lot more human corpses in orbit than anyone knows about.
  - avmich 11y ago
    Well, USSR had a really hard time with Mars landers. AFAIK, they got just one landed - and it stopped working shortly after that. But that one landed before Vikings.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      People forget how Mars was known as a graveyard for probes for many years. It's only fairly recently that anyone including the US has been able to deliver payloads to Mars with any reliability.
  - aninhumer 11y ago
    >I personally suspect there are a lot more human corpses in orbit than anyone knows about. I wouldn't be so sure, since we kind of have to know about them so we don't crash into them.
    - hueving 11y ago
      Well they would be officially registered as unmanned craft.
- tim333 11y ago
  They landed probes on Venus that sent back photos. No one else has done that. And it's not the easiest thing given the surface temperature is 462C.
  - azernik 11y ago
    Look on the bright side - at least you don't need parachutes!
    - tim333 11y ago
      They did use parachutes a bit eg. Venera 14: "After entering the atmosphere a parachute was deployed. At an altitude of about 50 km the parachute was released and simple airbraking was used the rest of the way to the surface." The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 94x Earths so it slows stuff quite well. It survived 57 minutes before cooking. (Wikipedia)
      - azernik 11y ago
        Heh. True. What struck me when reading about these probes was more the final descent - dense balls of metal and electronics like the Venera probes had terminal velocities around a walking pace.
- ehnto 11y ago
  They were also pioneering in the space station/space habitat arena. We have the Russians to thank for a lot of the technology aboard the ISS, both when it was being built and to this day.
- avmich 11y ago
  Once US was landing on the moon? What kind of achievements you'd like to have? Planetary probes, like Lunokhods - several weeks of Moon exploration? Or Luna-16 - automatic probe which brought lunar soil to Earth? You can say that's less impressive than Apollos, and I'd agree, but that still different things - which USA couldn't do at the time, and those programs had some advantages over Apollos too. Or a series of Venera probes, including landers? Mastery of automated docking? Orbital stations - starting with Salyut-1 - with myriads of experiments (medical, industrial etc.)? Rocket engines - more advanced than American ones by such criteria as working process (gas-gas was tested during 1960's in RD-270 with single chamber thrust rather similar to F-1), Isp and mass ratio (NK-33), total thrust (RD-170)? VEGA comet fly-by? By which criteria these don't count?
  - edem 11y ago
    Actually a Venera lander was the first and only (so far) which returned a picture from the surface of Venus. Brilliant engineering imho. Not to mention the MIR space station.
- akhatri_aus 11y ago
  There's also the fact they were the first in space with a true orbit. Whereas Alan Shepard was simply on a ballistic trajectory, much like Bezos's launch a couple of weeks ago. Also Mir.. They still have more knowledge when it comes to staying in space for longer periods of time. Landing on Venus.. The US's one up is landing on the moon.

gall 11y ago

Blue Origin has actually been around longer than SpaceX. Both companies were also rans of the first XPrize.

ehnto 11y ago

If it's a pissing contest that accelerates the rate at which we progress space travel and technology then that's fine by me. Also I feel like perhaps you're underselling their achievements here, it's still impressive and it's still incredible progress in space travel. Good luck to them both.

moron4hire 11y ago
I love that Neil deGrasse Tyson quote, "Asteroids are nature's way of asking, 'How's that space program coming along?'"
- fjejcjcjd 11y ago
  There are more stars in our galaxy than there are atoms in the universe.
  - euyyn 11y ago
    lol
  - swampthinker 11y ago
    I hope I'm just missing your /s tag
    - jk4930 11y ago
      It's called "Black Science Man" and the quote refers to this: http://i.imgur.com/IhASJV2.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IhASJV2.jpg
      - swampthinker 11y ago
        Ha, I actually know Black Science Man, but I've never seen that specific image.
  - jodrellblank 11y ago
    ... what are they made of?

jessriedel 11y ago

> He does his team a disservice by suggesting that what they are achieving is actually more advanced than what SpaceX has done What does this refer to? That single joke tweet?

TeMPOraL 11y ago
There's also this fragment of the article: > When you do a vertical landing, you’re solving the classic inverted pendulum problem, and the inverted pendulum problem gets a bit easier as the pendulum gets a bit bigger. Try balancing a pencil on the tip of your finger. Now try it with a broomstick. The broomstick is simpler because its greater moment of inertia makes it easier to balance. We solved the inverted pendulum problem on New Shepard with an engine that dynamically gimbals to balance the vehicle as it descends. And since New Shepard is the smallest booster we will ever build, this carefully choreographed dance atop our plume will just get easier from here. It could be read as a jab at SpaceX.

rdtsc 11y ago

> US methodically built capability far beyond what the Russians could sustain. You know what year it is, right? This is not 1998. Unfortunately US "sustainable" technology is mothballed and we are flying into space on Soviet technology. I hate the commies on principle, but at the end of day you gotta accept reality here. > Soviets took in trumpeting various "firsts" in space Also I can think of just a few firsts off the top of my head : First satellite, first ICBM, first human in space, first probe to reach moon, first EVA. Then looking up on Wikipedia I found: first probe launch to Mars, first probe launched to Moon, first probe to reach another plane (Venus), first unmanned rendezvous and docking, first permanently manned space station. And even the first fully automated flight of a space shuttle system. Which they did to show off, and then also realized "it was found too expensive to operate as a civilian launcher". It took US how many years and disasters and money to realize that?.

jpgvm 11y ago
Ontop of all of this.. ULA's heavy lift capability is entirely dependent on Russian engines to reach orbit. Made much worse by the fact ULA had until SpaceX arrived, complete monopoly of the US defence market. It does make me wonder how much of this is just follow on from the exact events you described. Specifically that the Russians were for the longest time far ahead in liquid fuel rocket engine technology.
- kunai 11y ago
  They still are very ahead — of course, the Merlin and RS-25 are amazing designs, but they're still more of the brute-force American methodology that made the Saturn V so brutally effective at travelling to the moon. The Russian aerospace industry has always tried to approach rocketry with a lot more emphasis on finesse, precision, and clever engineering solutions — the astonishing reliability of the Soyuz is a testament to this. von Braun and his team at Marshall always pulled off amazing technological feats, but at the expense of greatly increased complexity and less efficiency. That legacy has largely carried on to the present day; I hope that this newer generation of American LVs (Falcon 9.1R, Vulcan) will turn things around in the opposite direction.
- 11y ago

dba7dba 11y ago

I don't know who started this pissing contest but from what I heard it started when Bezos hired a top engineer away from SpaceX for Blue Origin, basically poaching. Either way, Bezos can p--s all he wants with his shorter rocket that carries less and goes to lower height when SpaceX rockets carry more and go higher. And not to mention Elon literally bet his farm to get it going during hard times...