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Having these billionaires willing to throw money at competitive space flight is pretty great - I'm sure positive effects on commercial space exploration and glo

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!
- k_lander 10y ago
  are blue origins rockets any more reusable than spacex's?
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    Their sub-orbital rocket "New Shepard" has launched and landed 4 times (i think, could be 3 times), with very minimal refurb in between each launch so far. So from that perspective, very reusable. But that's also a sub-orbital rocket. It's only a little bigger than SpaceX's landing legs without a payload[0]. So it might not be the most accurate comparison. Also, they have yet to launch anything else. So it's clearly still early for them as a company. [0]https://imgur.com/a/gLqsy https://imgur.com/a/gLqsy New Shepard is shown in this image in between Delta IV Heavy and New Glenn near the middle.
    - vkou 10y ago
      Making a reusable sub-orbital rocket is a solved problem. We call them airplanes. There are probably two orders of magnitude in complexity between making a reusable sub-orbital, and a reusable orbital rocket.
      - Klathmon 10y ago
        Yes, but an airplane is fundamentally different. This is a VTVL system. Aside from an obvious size and complexity difference, the launching and landing parts are very similar in suborbital and orbital land (for the most liberal use of the words "very similar"). Hell, if you want to argue semantics, Falcon-9's Stage-1 never gets to orbital velocities. So it's really just that "turning around" part that is the major difference (obviously a massive part, and again, i'm not trying to imply that ANY of this is easy in any way!) Nobody is saying that they will make a bigger New Shepard with no changes and call it a day. But the knowledge they are learning through the suborbital rockets is going to be useful going forward. And they have a lot of time to learn and experiment here, they are looking at a first launch in the next 4 years (no mention of landing), and they have been developing the engine for this new rocket for a few years already.
mhandley 10y ago
They've been developing the BE-4 engine for five years already, and the current plan is for that to be the first stage engine on the next ULA launcher. By the time they get round to launching the New Glenn, the BE-4 that it will use on the first stage will have already been tested courtesy of ULA. If I understand correctly, the second stage engines will be a development of what they're currently using on New Shepherd. This means they'll have already done much of the testing and development in other launch systems, so perhaps the step to a heavy-lift launcher is not quite so outrageous as it might first seem. Still, a lot can go wrong that isn't related to the engines, as SpaceX has discovered.
anovikov 10y ago
They are doing it 10 years later, so probably computer simulations are going to simplify the job more for them than they did for SpaceX. Also Bezos has more cash and less dependent on external funding or public opinion - if several of his rockets blow up in a row it won't stop him, and he can proceed quicker. Also, New Shepard uses hydrolox. That is harder than Falcon's kerolox. Not to say New Shepard is more comples than Falcon 1 - they are very different vehicles hard to directly compare - but it's definitely not a toy.

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!

k_lander 10y ago
are blue origins rockets any more reusable than spacex's?
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Their sub-orbital rocket "New Shepard" has launched and landed 4 times (i think, could be 3 times), with very minimal refurb in between each launch so far. So from that perspective, very reusable. But that's also a sub-orbital rocket. It's only a little bigger than SpaceX's landing legs without a payload[0]. So it might not be the most accurate comparison. Also, they have yet to launch anything else. So it's clearly still early for them as a company. [0]https://imgur.com/a/gLqsy https://imgur.com/a/gLqsy New Shepard is shown in this image in between Delta IV Heavy and New Glenn near the middle.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Making a reusable sub-orbital rocket is a solved problem. We call them airplanes. There are probably two orders of magnitude in complexity between making a reusable sub-orbital, and a reusable orbital rocket.
    - Klathmon 10y ago
      Yes, but an airplane is fundamentally different. This is a VTVL system. Aside from an obvious size and complexity difference, the launching and landing parts are very similar in suborbital and orbital land (for the most liberal use of the words "very similar"). Hell, if you want to argue semantics, Falcon-9's Stage-1 never gets to orbital velocities. So it's really just that "turning around" part that is the major difference (obviously a massive part, and again, i'm not trying to imply that ANY of this is easy in any way!) Nobody is saying that they will make a bigger New Shepard with no changes and call it a day. But the knowledge they are learning through the suborbital rockets is going to be useful going forward. And they have a lot of time to learn and experiment here, they are looking at a first launch in the next 4 years (no mention of landing), and they have been developing the engine for this new rocket for a few years already.

mhandley 10y ago

They've been developing the BE-4 engine for five years already, and the current plan is for that to be the first stage engine on the next ULA launcher. By the time they get round to launching the New Glenn, the BE-4 that it will use on the first stage will have already been tested courtesy of ULA. If I understand correctly, the second stage engines will be a development of what they're currently using on New Shepherd. This means they'll have already done much of the testing and development in other launch systems, so perhaps the step to a heavy-lift launcher is not quite so outrageous as it might first seem. Still, a lot can go wrong that isn't related to the engines, as SpaceX has discovered.

anovikov 10y ago

They are doing it 10 years later, so probably computer simulations are going to simplify the job more for them than they did for SpaceX. Also Bezos has more cash and less dependent on external funding or public opinion - if several of his rockets blow up in a row it won't stop him, and he can proceed quicker. Also, New Shepard uses hydrolox. That is harder than Falcon's kerolox. Not to say New Shepard is more comples than Falcon 1 - they are very different vehicles hard to directly compare - but it's definitely not a toy.