11 ms·

Bezos names big next rocket New Glenn

130 points by smb06 10y ago

walkingolof 10y ago
7 meter diameter will be a game changer for hauling cargo, that's for sure, now they just have to build it :)
Jgrubb 10y ago
> In a statement on Monday, the Amazon boss said: "Our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glenn is a very important step." Serious question because I don't know - seems like it would introduce a lot of overhead into daily life having to support that much life "out there". What's the value prop? Why would I want to live in space (aside from it being cool)?
- walkingolof 10y ago
  Redundancy mostly, spreading the species, I assume. Most of what we need to do in space can be done by robots.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I can see that as interesting. Cut the interaction between humans and the biosphere, make them live closer to constant solar power, let the biosphere regenerate and produce better and fewer nutrient that we cannot recycle in the sky... brb, writing my SF novel.
- Pfhreak 10y ago
  It's the frontier. There's money to be made, there's incredibly quantities of resources out there -- kilometer wide balls of platinum, chunks of iron larger than the sum of what humanity has mined to date. Managed well, a huge pool of resources that would obviate some of the need for us to destroy our own planet to get at resources.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    None of that stuff makes economic sense to retrieve. And the place is called "space" for a reason.
    - michwill 10y ago
      This stuff makes economic sense to retrieve at certain costs of space launch. As well as manufacturing some stuff (like optical fibers) in space, producing energy, sending nuclear waste there etc
    - perrylaj 10y ago
      I disagree. If your goal is to collect metals only for the purposes of returning to earth, then perhaps you are right in the short term. However, if those materials are used off-planet (or on-site) for the further production, it makes a LOT of sense. Once the foundation of production is in place, mining and building <more spacecraft, Mars habitats, ...> becomes almost exponentially more efficient to do off of Earth (especially factoring in time requirements). Beyond that, there is a good chance that future technologies will require 'rare-earth' and other precious metals that exceed quantities that could ever possibly be extracted here at any cost.
      - vkou 10y ago
        That's a closed loop. Mining asteroids is extremely valuable because getting stuff into space is very hard. Making it cheaper to put more raw materials into space will have the effect of... Making it cheaper to put more raw materials into space. How do we profit off of this? Manufacturing? I understand why you would want to build a widget factory in China, but what possible goods could we produce on Mars, that wouldn't be easier to produce on Earth? I understand the situation of rare-metal shortage, but many of them are rare because extracting them requires uneconomical amounts of energy. Mining them from space (And good luck finding an asteroid with more then traces of Gallium) would still require uneconomical amounts of energy.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
- fit2rule 10y ago
  I'd like to think that one of the ways we can address the urgency of global warming is to move our manufacturing industries into space, and re-vitalize Earth as a new garden planet. Like, I know its just sci-fi, but I could imagine that no manufacturing at all ever needs to be done down here - we can do it all on an Asteroid - and live in a garden of eden, receiving our latest toys directly from orbit. I imagine a day when I order my Amazon/Apple/Tesla product by satellite, and it slowly flies itself down into the atmosphere and delivers itself to me... A man can dream.
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Read Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, to get a really good understanding of why we need to get off this fragile ball of life as quickly as possible. Until we are a space faring civilization, we are one asteroid/comet strike away from extinction.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    Read Seveneves and extinction will come to feel like a blessed release. It's a terrible novel.
    - david-given 10y ago
      I wouldn't say it's terrible. Instead I'd say it was deeply flawed and I found it profoundly disappointing. SPOILERS HEREWITH Also, big brain dump. The fundamental premise makes no sense --- the amount of energy needed to blow up the moon in the way described is about 10^29 joules, if you do the maths, and even the sun takes six minutes to release that amount of energy. It's not survivable to be in the same solar system as that, and I'd be unhappy about being in the next solar system; I'd expect some high-fraction-of-the-speed-of-light fragments coming along fairly soon. The first question any sensible physicist is going to ask after seeing the moon explode into fragments like that is 'why hasn't half the Earth been vaporised?' (Not to mention that there's no mention as to what the fragments of the moon are orbiting around.) The research is poor. When the Hard Rain comes, anything in low orbit is going to be toast, because all the bolides are going to have to pass through there to reach the Earth. They literally build the Cloud Ark in the worst possible place. (Why not boost each piece out to geostationary orbit, or better, the same orbit as the Moon but on the opposite side of the Earth? Any fragments you meet there will have very low relative velocity, so you can assemble the habitat there in safety.) Likewise, the entire concept of the Cloud Ark can't work --- it relies on burning thruster fuel all the time, and there is no way to replace this. It's fundamentally unsustainable. (Also, it suffers badly from Darlings: this is when an author discovers a Cool Thing, and is determined to use it whereever possible. In Seveneyes' case, it's whips. When an editor tells you, kill your darlings, this is what they mean. Unless it's important to the plot, this sort of thing is simply an indulgence and should be removed.) The plot is... very telegraphed. Very, very telegraphed. He made such a big thing of the mines and the submarines that it was painfully obvious they were going to important later. Indeed, in the last section I found myself saying, "yes, all right, the people from the mines are coming up, JUST GET ON WITH IT AND MEET THEM". And then when the ex-President shows up at the very last moment before the Earth gets destroyed, the entire remainder of the first-section plot flashed before my eyes, and it wasn't a good sight. (Particularly after the promising beginning when he opted out of political soap-operaing entirely.) Then there's the weird tonal shift half-way through the book, when the cannibals appear. At that point, there is no possible way any of them can survive; they simply don't have the population any more to maintain the skills to run the equipment. As Stephenson says, they live in a high-tech incubator; they need people, lots of people, because they need knowledge to make everything run. With only a double-digit population they might as just give up and die. Instead we take a hard left into some weird metaphysical area, and then whats-her-name gets her magic gene machine out and... I don't know; I had no idea what he was trying to do here. Then there's the last section, set in the far future. We get a bit of closure from finally seeing the other end of the submarine and mine plots (yeah, and what happened to all the other submarines? And all the other mines? Oh, and his explanation of why the mines couldn't expand doesn't make sense either), but it opens up lots of other plot threads, and seems strangely disconnected from the rest of the book. As you can tell, I feel quite strongly about Seveneyes; parts of it are really excellent, especially the first third; so much so that discovering that the whole thing was just sort of... incoherent and rambling... came as a horrible disappointment. I don't know what the book is trying to say, or even if it's trying to say anything at all. Oh, well. I'll just have to go reread Anathem now.
- 0xffff2 10y ago
  For some more concrete reading, try The High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill[1]. He makes the opposite case; arguing that orbital habitats could have a net positive economic return in fairly short order. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/d...
- nixos 10y ago
  The same question I have for SpaceX's goal of moving to Mars: Who'd go? People compare it to the colonization of America, but there are a few fundamental differences: 1. Who are the pioneers. The early settlers in America were the low class or religious fanatics (think ISIS style). Many couldn't afford their own ticket, made it to America to get a piece of land (translate: basic economic opportunity), which was unavailable in England. Who'd go to Mars? You'd have to send the best and brightest. There'll be plenty of robotic help, but with Mission Control half an hour away (with periodic week long breaks with no mission control), they're on their own. An Oxygen leak? Fix it yourself or everyone dies. Oh. and no StackOverflow for help. How much will you have to offer these people. The first batch will go for the principle or fame (the first colonists on Mars FTW!!). What about the thousandth? 2. For that matter, how will you ship infrastructure there? In the 1600s, all you needed were some "surgeons", blacksmiths and you're done and ready. Nowadays, you'd need hospitals, operating rooms, ER, experts, dentists, metallurgists, teachers, professors, colleges... Oh, and if you're a top notch scientist, won't you want to keep up with what's going on? No scientific conferences/conventions on Mars. 3. Who keeps the loot. Seeing how Tesla's slowly moving everything to a "rental" model, how will "property" exist on Mars? If someone disobeys "God Elon", will he be thrown out into the wild? Or will he threaten to not send basic raw materials until the colony behaves? It'll be a viable threat for quite some time
- arzt 10y ago
  He's quoted as saying we should move all heavy industry off of earth and turn it into a park for the sake of its own existence.[1] [1]http://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11826514/jeff-bezos-space-save-earth http://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11826514/jeff-bezos-space-sav...
deleted 10y ago
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bimmer44 10y ago
Having these billionaires willing to throw money at competitive space flight is pretty great - I'm sure positive effects on commercial space exploration and global internet access will inevitably follow. I'm intrigued that they plan to go from New Shepard straight to a rocket that's bigger than Falcon 9 (3.85m pounds thrust for New Shepard vs. latest Full Thrust version of Falcon 9 at 1.71m pounds). I was under the impression that New Shepard wasn't as serious as Falcon 1 (.e.g not capable of reaching orbit) and that SpaceX spent quite a number of years moving from pre-Falcon 1 to the regular launch successes of Falcon 9. Maybe someone who knows more about this can explain - are the technical challenges involved less associated with pure size and more to do with design/fabrication processes etc.?
- walkingolof 10y ago
  New Shepard is a sub-orbital vehicle that has been tooted as a space tourism thing ala Virgin Galactic SpaceShip One/Two I suspect however its also worked like a testbed for engine, plumbing and electronics trials for the bigger plans brewing behind closed doors.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    touted
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Now i'm just an excited but casual bystander in all of this, so don't take anything i say as anything more than rumour. That being said... I read that Blue Origin (specifically Bezos) has a lot more funding to throw at this problem than SpaceX did/does (IIRC Bezos has something like 6x the net worth of Musk. That alone might not say much, but it's obvious that if push comes to shove, Bezos can throw more money at the problem). And if you look at some of the numbers (not sure if they are completely "confirmed" yet), New Glenn still won't quite have the lifting power of Falcon Heavy (despite it's larger size). Also, if you look at the timeline of Falcon 9 (Funded in 2006, first launched in 2010), Blue Origin's looks very similar, so it's not exactly impossible. To me it just looks like they are going in a different direction. SpaceX wanted to get to reusability with an orbital rocket first, then scale up. Blue Origin is nailing down the extreme reusability in sub-orbital land for now, and will apply that to an orbital rocket. And the simpler design (one massive booster VS 3 separate stage-1 boosters) seems like a simpler plan (i'm not trying to imply in any way that any of this is easy, it's still rocket science!) It's looking like we are going to have another space race in the next decade. And I can't wait!
Pfhreak 10y ago
Within my lifetime, I hope to see: private spaceflight a reasonable option for a middle class person, resources mined from asteroids, construction in orbit, and a human walk on Mars. I want to know what's in the oceans of Europa, and I want to see detailed images from all the celestial bodies of our solar system. I think there's a reasonable chance of all of those happening, and it feels incredible to see companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin building the foundation of commercial spaceflight. Good luck to both as they continue to grow and iterate on their journeys to other worlds.
- astazangasta 10y ago
  I want a pony. Rather than asteroid mining, what I want in my lifetime is an end to mining, period, an end to exploitative adventurism, an end to expanding our rapaciousness across the cosmos. I want the development of organic, sustainable technologies that don't depend on endless inputs. I want people to love the beauty on this planet before lusting to see another.
  - Pfhreak 10y ago
    We should do both. There are a lot of avenues to research and grow our knowledge. Ideally, the lessons we learn in building a sustainable colony offworld lead to increases in sustainability here on Earth. And what we learn about managing ecosystems here leads to respectful treatment of offworld systems from the start.
    - astazangasta 10y ago
      "Should" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015 >The update to US law explicitly allows "US citizens to engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of 'space resources' [including ... water and minerals]."
      - whiskers08xmt 10y ago
        The idea of ruining or polluting space is ridiculous. Space is already one of the least hospitable places imaginable, in most of it's forms. What's wrong with exploiting dead space rocks for the sake of all life?
binalpatel 10y ago
I love this, it seems like we've been pushing the frontier of the very large and the very small in the last few years (space scale and molecular scale), and I can't wait to see what come out of it.
agumonkey 10y ago
Funny, SpaceX fumbles, medias turn to Bezos ? or is it him who gave them a call ?
jacquesm 10y ago
The only thing that got launched here is a bunch of pictures. SpaceX is years ahead of Blue Origin at this point, and rather than aiming for a rocket larger than a Falcon Heavy / Delta IV heavy as a 'starter' (which of course is excellent PR and makes Blue Origin right away a manufacturer of larger rockets than SpaceX in the eyes of some) maybe they should go for something a bit less ambitious to lob into orbit, failure is a lot cheaper on a smaller scale, and in the beginning there most likely will be failures.
- rohit89 10y ago
  Cost is likely not as a big an issue for Bezos as it is for Musk. They could blow up a bunch of rockets every year and still not hurt for cash. This gives them quite a bit of advantage. I think BO are going to nail down re-usability first and then work on increasing their payload capacity.
- curtis 10y ago
  I mostly agree with you. However, I should point out that there is a less ambitious project already, Vulcan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(rocket)], which at least in its current incarnation is a joint project between ULA and Blue Origin. Vulcan is officially a ULA project, but as long as they're planning to use Blue Origin engines, I think you can make a credible argument that it's substantially a Blue Origin project too.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Blue Origin is supplying a rocket engine for Vulcan. ULA currently buys rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Russians for their existing Delta and Atlas rockets. You can argue all you like, but ULA is driving the bus, and Blue Origin's contribution and responsibility is limited. That's even more true now that Blue Origin has announced that they plan on competing with ULA.
    - curtis 10y ago
      I don't think there's any part of engineering a rocket that's easy, but I am under the impression that the rocket engines are generally regarded as the hardest part. Of course the true veterans would probably tell you that the economics of the launch business is actually the hardest part, but since we're talking about Jeff Bezos here, the normal economic rules probably don't apply.
mathattack 10y ago
I like that they named it after John Glenn. I was surprised to see that he's still alive, albeit not in great health. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3082348/Astronaut-John-Glenn-93-American-orbit-Earth-reveals-stroke-left-no-longer-able-read-drive.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3082348/Astronaut-Jo...
- arjunnarayan 10y ago
  The naming scheme is: Alan Shepard (first American into suborbital) -> New Shepard (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable suborbital) John Glenn (first American into orbit) -> New Glenn (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable orbits) Neil Armstrong (first American to land on the moon) -> New Armstrong (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable lunar launches)
  - dreistdreist 10y ago
    In that case NASA better hurries up with sending an American to Mars.
ixtli 10y ago
Did Aunty Beebs just mess up adjectival order? As a native American English speaker "big next" sounds awkward to me.
cwkoss 10y ago
Growing up, I'd see the cost of "$10k/pound" quoted everywhere as the cost of getting things into orbit. With the rise of commercial spaceflight and inflation, how has this number changed?
- valarauca1 10y ago
  Currently it hasn't. Musk's rockets while landing, haven't been mass re-used yet. So SpaceX hasn't adjusted it's pricing. Bezos's rockets while landing/re-launching aren't putting cargo in orbit. So they have no KG/$$ to obit prices. Everyone else is just doing single use disposable still. Likely we could see prices start to fall within maybe 3-5 years once re-usability is proved out and pricing adjusted.
  - neuromancer2701 10y ago
    At its 2016 launch price and at full LEO payload capacity, the Falcon 9 FT cost $1,233 per pound ($2,719/kg).
    - neuromancer2701 10y ago
      Additionally, the Heavy could drop it to $1,600/kg. This does not take into consideration any of the reusability so SpaceX has lowered the cost an order of magnitude already.
xux 10y ago
Exciting times. I used to feel a bit disappointed when I read about all the New World explorations going on back in the 1400s. But now it's starting up all over!
nsxwolf 10y ago
The big one looks like it gives the Saturn V a run for its money. Could that thing take you to the moon?
ajarmst 10y ago
Poor Grissom gets screwed again.
jondubois 10y ago
Bezos's big rocket... Unlike Elon, Jeff doesn't seem to be having any trouble getting it up.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
I've read a number of stories on this announcement now, 7 BE-4 engines[1]? If wikipedia is accurate[2] that suggests seven BE-4's produce 16,800 kN vs 7,605 kN from nine Merlin engines[3]. Twice the thrust should be interesting to watch. Also the comment about LNG not resulting in soot (carbon deposits) is interesting as it speaks to the re-usability aspects. All of the landed F9 boosters are covered in soot. And the last interesting question will be how dynamic is the throttle capability. I am amazed at the 'net 0' games that SpaceX has to play to bring the booster to a net zero vertical velocity with an engine that can't reduce its throttle low enough to operate in a mode that produces less thrust than the mass of the booster and remaining fuel. 10% of a BE-4 is like 100% of a Merlin 1D. All that sums up to a new entry in the field that has chosen many different options, hence it will provide a lot of new information about choices that work or don't work well. Can't wait to see it flying! [1] https://www.blueorigin.com/be4 https://www.blueorigin.com/be4 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)
skywhopper 10y ago
Off-topic, thanks to that meme going around about adjective order in English: Doesn't the order of the adjectives sound wrong? Am I missing something to explain why it's "big next rocket" instead of "next big rocket"?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Doesn't the order of the adjectives sound wrong? Yes. > Am I missing something to explain why it's "big next rocket" instead of "next big rocket"? Well, if you are looking at the meme, which is incomplete, yes. And even most of the more complete descriptions of English adjective order I can find are missing this. But there is a category (I'd call it sequence) that comes before any of the listed categories, that includes things like "first", "next", "last", etc.
yarapavan 10y ago
This is why Bezos wins: <quote> Our mascot is the tortoise. We paint one on our vehicles after each successful flight. Our motto is "Gradatim Ferociter" - step by step, ferociously. We believe "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." In the long run, deliberate and methodical wins the day, and you do things quickest by never skipping steps. This step-by-step approach is a powerful enabler of boldness and a critical ingredient in achieving the audacious. We're excited to give you a preview of our next step. One we've been working on for four years. Meet New Glenn: </quote>

130 points by smb06 10y ago

7 meter diameter will be a game changer for hauling cargo, that's for sure, now they just have to build it :)

> In a statement on Monday, the Amazon boss said: "Our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glenn is a very important step." Serious question because I don't know - seems like it would introduce a lot of overhead into daily life having to support that much life "out there". What's the value prop? Why would I want to live in space (aside from it being cool)?

walkingolof 10y ago
Redundancy mostly, spreading the species, I assume. Most of what we need to do in space can be done by robots.
agumonkey 10y ago
I can see that as interesting. Cut the interaction between humans and the biosphere, make them live closer to constant solar power, let the biosphere regenerate and produce better and fewer nutrient that we cannot recycle in the sky... brb, writing my SF novel.
Pfhreak 10y ago
It's the frontier. There's money to be made, there's incredibly quantities of resources out there -- kilometer wide balls of platinum, chunks of iron larger than the sum of what humanity has mined to date. Managed well, a huge pool of resources that would obviate some of the need for us to destroy our own planet to get at resources.
- idlewords 10y ago
  None of that stuff makes economic sense to retrieve. And the place is called "space" for a reason.
  - michwill 10y ago
    This stuff makes economic sense to retrieve at certain costs of space launch. As well as manufacturing some stuff (like optical fibers) in space, producing energy, sending nuclear waste there etc
  - perrylaj 10y ago
    I disagree. If your goal is to collect metals only for the purposes of returning to earth, then perhaps you are right in the short term. However, if those materials are used off-planet (or on-site) for the further production, it makes a LOT of sense. Once the foundation of production is in place, mining and building <more spacecraft, Mars habitats, ...> becomes almost exponentially more efficient to do off of Earth (especially factoring in time requirements). Beyond that, there is a good chance that future technologies will require 'rare-earth' and other precious metals that exceed quantities that could ever possibly be extracted here at any cost.
    - vkou 10y ago
      That's a closed loop. Mining asteroids is extremely valuable because getting stuff into space is very hard. Making it cheaper to put more raw materials into space will have the effect of... Making it cheaper to put more raw materials into space. How do we profit off of this? Manufacturing? I understand why you would want to build a widget factory in China, but what possible goods could we produce on Mars, that wouldn't be easier to produce on Earth? I understand the situation of rare-metal shortage, but many of them are rare because extracting them requires uneconomical amounts of energy. Mining them from space (And good luck finding an asteroid with more then traces of Gallium) would still require uneconomical amounts of energy.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
fit2rule 10y ago
I'd like to think that one of the ways we can address the urgency of global warming is to move our manufacturing industries into space, and re-vitalize Earth as a new garden planet. Like, I know its just sci-fi, but I could imagine that no manufacturing at all ever needs to be done down here - we can do it all on an Asteroid - and live in a garden of eden, receiving our latest toys directly from orbit. I imagine a day when I order my Amazon/Apple/Tesla product by satellite, and it slowly flies itself down into the atmosphere and delivers itself to me... A man can dream.
ghshephard 10y ago
Read Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, to get a really good understanding of why we need to get off this fragile ball of life as quickly as possible. Until we are a space faring civilization, we are one asteroid/comet strike away from extinction.
- idlewords 10y ago
  Read Seveneves and extinction will come to feel like a blessed release. It's a terrible novel.
  - david-given 10y ago
    I wouldn't say it's terrible. Instead I'd say it was deeply flawed and I found it profoundly disappointing. SPOILERS HEREWITH Also, big brain dump. The fundamental premise makes no sense --- the amount of energy needed to blow up the moon in the way described is about 10^29 joules, if you do the maths, and even the sun takes six minutes to release that amount of energy. It's not survivable to be in the same solar system as that, and I'd be unhappy about being in the next solar system; I'd expect some high-fraction-of-the-speed-of-light fragments coming along fairly soon. The first question any sensible physicist is going to ask after seeing the moon explode into fragments like that is 'why hasn't half the Earth been vaporised?' (Not to mention that there's no mention as to what the fragments of the moon are orbiting around.) The research is poor. When the Hard Rain comes, anything in low orbit is going to be toast, because all the bolides are going to have to pass through there to reach the Earth. They literally build the Cloud Ark in the worst possible place. (Why not boost each piece out to geostationary orbit, or better, the same orbit as the Moon but on the opposite side of the Earth? Any fragments you meet there will have very low relative velocity, so you can assemble the habitat there in safety.) Likewise, the entire concept of the Cloud Ark can't work --- it relies on burning thruster fuel all the time, and there is no way to replace this. It's fundamentally unsustainable. (Also, it suffers badly from Darlings: this is when an author discovers a Cool Thing, and is determined to use it whereever possible. In Seveneyes' case, it's whips. When an editor tells you, kill your darlings, this is what they mean. Unless it's important to the plot, this sort of thing is simply an indulgence and should be removed.) The plot is... very telegraphed. Very, very telegraphed. He made such a big thing of the mines and the submarines that it was painfully obvious they were going to important later. Indeed, in the last section I found myself saying, "yes, all right, the people from the mines are coming up, JUST GET ON WITH IT AND MEET THEM". And then when the ex-President shows up at the very last moment before the Earth gets destroyed, the entire remainder of the first-section plot flashed before my eyes, and it wasn't a good sight. (Particularly after the promising beginning when he opted out of political soap-operaing entirely.) Then there's the weird tonal shift half-way through the book, when the cannibals appear. At that point, there is no possible way any of them can survive; they simply don't have the population any more to maintain the skills to run the equipment. As Stephenson says, they live in a high-tech incubator; they need people, lots of people, because they need knowledge to make everything run. With only a double-digit population they might as just give up and die. Instead we take a hard left into some weird metaphysical area, and then whats-her-name gets her magic gene machine out and... I don't know; I had no idea what he was trying to do here. Then there's the last section, set in the far future. We get a bit of closure from finally seeing the other end of the submarine and mine plots (yeah, and what happened to all the other submarines? And all the other mines? Oh, and his explanation of why the mines couldn't expand doesn't make sense either), but it opens up lots of other plot threads, and seems strangely disconnected from the rest of the book. As you can tell, I feel quite strongly about Seveneyes; parts of it are really excellent, especially the first third; so much so that discovering that the whole thing was just sort of... incoherent and rambling... came as a horrible disappointment. I don't know what the book is trying to say, or even if it's trying to say anything at all. Oh, well. I'll just have to go reread Anathem now.
0xffff2 10y ago
For some more concrete reading, try The High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill[1]. He makes the opposite case; arguing that orbital habitats could have a net positive economic return in fairly short order. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/d...
nixos 10y ago
The same question I have for SpaceX's goal of moving to Mars: Who'd go? People compare it to the colonization of America, but there are a few fundamental differences: 1. Who are the pioneers. The early settlers in America were the low class or religious fanatics (think ISIS style). Many couldn't afford their own ticket, made it to America to get a piece of land (translate: basic economic opportunity), which was unavailable in England. Who'd go to Mars? You'd have to send the best and brightest. There'll be plenty of robotic help, but with Mission Control half an hour away (with periodic week long breaks with no mission control), they're on their own. An Oxygen leak? Fix it yourself or everyone dies. Oh. and no StackOverflow for help. How much will you have to offer these people. The first batch will go for the principle or fame (the first colonists on Mars FTW!!). What about the thousandth? 2. For that matter, how will you ship infrastructure there? In the 1600s, all you needed were some "surgeons", blacksmiths and you're done and ready. Nowadays, you'd need hospitals, operating rooms, ER, experts, dentists, metallurgists, teachers, professors, colleges... Oh, and if you're a top notch scientist, won't you want to keep up with what's going on? No scientific conferences/conventions on Mars. 3. Who keeps the loot. Seeing how Tesla's slowly moving everything to a "rental" model, how will "property" exist on Mars? If someone disobeys "God Elon", will he be thrown out into the wild? Or will he threaten to not send basic raw materials until the colony behaves? It'll be a viable threat for quite some time
arzt 10y ago
He's quoted as saying we should move all heavy industry off of earth and turn it into a park for the sake of its own existence.[1] [1]http://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11826514/jeff-bezos-space-save-earth http://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11826514/jeff-bezos-space-sav...

deleted 10y ago

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bimmer44 10y ago

Having these billionaires willing to throw money at competitive space flight is pretty great - I'm sure positive effects on commercial space exploration and global internet access will inevitably follow. I'm intrigued that they plan to go from New Shepard straight to a rocket that's bigger than Falcon 9 (3.85m pounds thrust for New Shepard vs. latest Full Thrust version of Falcon 9 at 1.71m pounds). I was under the impression that New Shepard wasn't as serious as Falcon 1 (.e.g not capable of reaching orbit) and that SpaceX spent quite a number of years moving from pre-Falcon 1 to the regular launch successes of Falcon 9. Maybe someone who knows more about this can explain - are the technical challenges involved less associated with pure size and more to do with design/fabrication processes etc.?

walkingolof 10y ago
New Shepard is a sub-orbital vehicle that has been tooted as a space tourism thing ala Virgin Galactic SpaceShip One/Two I suspect however its also worked like a testbed for engine, plumbing and electronics trials for the bigger plans brewing behind closed doors.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  touted
Klathmon 10y ago
Now i'm just an excited but casual bystander in all of this, so don't take anything i say as anything more than rumour. That being said... I read that Blue Origin (specifically Bezos) has a lot more funding to throw at this problem than SpaceX did/does (IIRC Bezos has something like 6x the net worth of Musk. That alone might not say much, but it's obvious that if push comes to shove, Bezos can throw more money at the problem). And if you look at some of the numbers (not sure if they are completely "confirmed" yet), New Glenn still won't quite have the lifting power of Falcon Heavy (despite it's larger size). Also, if you look at the timeline of Falcon 9 (Funded in 2006, first launched in 2010), Blue Origin's looks very similar, so it's not exactly impossible. To me it just looks like they are going in a different direction. SpaceX wanted to get to reusability with an orbital rocket first, then scale up. Blue Origin is nailing down the extreme reusability in sub-orbital land for now, and will apply that to an orbital rocket. And the simpler design (one massive booster VS 3 separate stage-1 boosters) seems like a simpler plan (i'm not trying to imply in any way that any of this is easy, it's still rocket science!) It's looking like we are going to have another space race in the next decade. And I can't wait!

Pfhreak 10y ago

Within my lifetime, I hope to see: private spaceflight a reasonable option for a middle class person, resources mined from asteroids, construction in orbit, and a human walk on Mars. I want to know what's in the oceans of Europa, and I want to see detailed images from all the celestial bodies of our solar system. I think there's a reasonable chance of all of those happening, and it feels incredible to see companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin building the foundation of commercial spaceflight. Good luck to both as they continue to grow and iterate on their journeys to other worlds.

astazangasta 10y ago
I want a pony. Rather than asteroid mining, what I want in my lifetime is an end to mining, period, an end to exploitative adventurism, an end to expanding our rapaciousness across the cosmos. I want the development of organic, sustainable technologies that don't depend on endless inputs. I want people to love the beauty on this planet before lusting to see another.
- Pfhreak 10y ago
  We should do both. There are a lot of avenues to research and grow our knowledge. Ideally, the lessons we learn in building a sustainable colony offworld lead to increases in sustainability here on Earth. And what we learn about managing ecosystems here leads to respectful treatment of offworld systems from the start.
  - astazangasta 10y ago
    "Should" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPACE_Act_of_2015 >The update to US law explicitly allows "US citizens to engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of 'space resources' [including ... water and minerals]."
    - whiskers08xmt 10y ago
      The idea of ruining or polluting space is ridiculous. Space is already one of the least hospitable places imaginable, in most of it's forms. What's wrong with exploiting dead space rocks for the sake of all life?

binalpatel 10y ago

I love this, it seems like we've been pushing the frontier of the very large and the very small in the last few years (space scale and molecular scale), and I can't wait to see what come out of it.

agumonkey 10y ago

Funny, SpaceX fumbles, medias turn to Bezos ? or is it him who gave them a call ?

jacquesm 10y ago

The only thing that got launched here is a bunch of pictures. SpaceX is years ahead of Blue Origin at this point, and rather than aiming for a rocket larger than a Falcon Heavy / Delta IV heavy as a 'starter' (which of course is excellent PR and makes Blue Origin right away a manufacturer of larger rockets than SpaceX in the eyes of some) maybe they should go for something a bit less ambitious to lob into orbit, failure is a lot cheaper on a smaller scale, and in the beginning there most likely will be failures.

rohit89 10y ago
Cost is likely not as a big an issue for Bezos as it is for Musk. They could blow up a bunch of rockets every year and still not hurt for cash. This gives them quite a bit of advantage. I think BO are going to nail down re-usability first and then work on increasing their payload capacity.
curtis 10y ago
I mostly agree with you. However, I should point out that there is a less ambitious project already, Vulcan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(rocket)], which at least in its current incarnation is a joint project between ULA and Blue Origin. Vulcan is officially a ULA project, but as long as they're planning to use Blue Origin engines, I think you can make a credible argument that it's substantially a Blue Origin project too.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Blue Origin is supplying a rocket engine for Vulcan. ULA currently buys rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Russians for their existing Delta and Atlas rockets. You can argue all you like, but ULA is driving the bus, and Blue Origin's contribution and responsibility is limited. That's even more true now that Blue Origin has announced that they plan on competing with ULA.
  - curtis 10y ago
    I don't think there's any part of engineering a rocket that's easy, but I am under the impression that the rocket engines are generally regarded as the hardest part. Of course the true veterans would probably tell you that the economics of the launch business is actually the hardest part, but since we're talking about Jeff Bezos here, the normal economic rules probably don't apply.

mathattack 10y ago

I like that they named it after John Glenn. I was surprised to see that he's still alive, albeit not in great health. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3082348/Astronaut-John-Glenn-93-American-orbit-Earth-reveals-stroke-left-no-longer-able-read-drive.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3082348/Astronaut-Jo...

arjunnarayan 10y ago
The naming scheme is: Alan Shepard (first American into suborbital) -> New Shepard (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable suborbital) John Glenn (first American into orbit) -> New Glenn (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable orbits) Neil Armstrong (first American to land on the moon) -> New Armstrong (Blue Origin rocket to do reusable lunar launches)
- dreistdreist 10y ago
  In that case NASA better hurries up with sending an American to Mars.

ixtli 10y ago

Did Aunty Beebs just mess up adjectival order? As a native American English speaker "big next" sounds awkward to me.

cwkoss 10y ago

Growing up, I'd see the cost of "$10k/pound" quoted everywhere as the cost of getting things into orbit. With the rise of commercial spaceflight and inflation, how has this number changed?

valarauca1 10y ago
Currently it hasn't. Musk's rockets while landing, haven't been mass re-used yet. So SpaceX hasn't adjusted it's pricing. Bezos's rockets while landing/re-launching aren't putting cargo in orbit. So they have no KG/$$ to obit prices. Everyone else is just doing single use disposable still. Likely we could see prices start to fall within maybe 3-5 years once re-usability is proved out and pricing adjusted.
- neuromancer2701 10y ago
  At its 2016 launch price and at full LEO payload capacity, the Falcon 9 FT cost $1,233 per pound ($2,719/kg).
  - neuromancer2701 10y ago
    Additionally, the Heavy could drop it to $1,600/kg. This does not take into consideration any of the reusability so SpaceX has lowered the cost an order of magnitude already.

xux 10y ago

Exciting times. I used to feel a bit disappointed when I read about all the New World explorations going on back in the 1400s. But now it's starting up all over!

nsxwolf 10y ago

The big one looks like it gives the Saturn V a run for its money. Could that thing take you to the moon?

ajarmst 10y ago

Poor Grissom gets screwed again.

jondubois 10y ago

Bezos's big rocket... Unlike Elon, Jeff doesn't seem to be having any trouble getting it up.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

I've read a number of stories on this announcement now, 7 BE-4 engines[1]? If wikipedia is accurate[2] that suggests seven BE-4's produce 16,800 kN vs 7,605 kN from nine Merlin engines[3]. Twice the thrust should be interesting to watch. Also the comment about LNG not resulting in soot (carbon deposits) is interesting as it speaks to the re-usability aspects. All of the landed F9 boosters are covered in soot. And the last interesting question will be how dynamic is the throttle capability. I am amazed at the 'net 0' games that SpaceX has to play to bring the booster to a net zero vertical velocity with an engine that can't reduce its throttle low enough to operate in a mode that produces less thrust than the mass of the booster and remaining fuel. 10% of a BE-4 is like 100% of a Merlin 1D. All that sums up to a new entry in the field that has chosen many different options, hence it will provide a lot of new information about choices that work or don't work well. Can't wait to see it flying! [1] https://www.blueorigin.com/be4 https://www.blueorigin.com/be4 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)

skywhopper 10y ago

Off-topic, thanks to that meme going around about adjective order in English: Doesn't the order of the adjectives sound wrong? Am I missing something to explain why it's "big next rocket" instead of "next big rocket"?

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Doesn't the order of the adjectives sound wrong? Yes. > Am I missing something to explain why it's "big next rocket" instead of "next big rocket"? Well, if you are looking at the meme, which is incomplete, yes. And even most of the more complete descriptions of English adjective order I can find are missing this. But there is a category (I'd call it sequence) that comes before any of the listed categories, that includes things like "first", "next", "last", etc.

yarapavan 10y ago

This is why Bezos wins: <quote> Our mascot is the tortoise. We paint one on our vehicles after each successful flight. Our motto is "Gradatim Ferociter" - step by step, ferociously. We believe "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." In the long run, deliberate and methodical wins the day, and you do things quickest by never skipping steps. This step-by-step approach is a powerful enabler of boldness and a critical ingredient in achieving the audacious. We're excited to give you a preview of our next step. One we've been working on for four years. Meet New Glenn: </quote>