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Mentioning Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the same breath as SpaceX seems disingenuous. It's like comparing an horse+cart with a modern car. Maybe Electron

Mentioning Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the same breath as SpaceX seems disingenuous. It's like comparing an horse+cart with a modern car. Maybe Electron and Virgin Orbit are in the race, but these hop 100km (or 80!) up and about 5 miles downrange are nowhere near the same league.

gameswithgo 5y ago
Understanding the difference between orbital and suborbital space flight need not cause one to be cynical and negative about things. Especially since blue origin has a design that can scale up quickly, as SpaceX did with falcon 1 to 9
- themgt 5y ago
  Falcon 1 put a payload into orbit though, so it's really not the same. Falcon 9's first flight was less than 2 years after Falcon 1 made it to orbit. For myriad reasons Blue can't just "scale up quickly" in any meaningful way from NS to New Glenn, hence why it's going to take them 8+ years between the first NS and first NG launches. Being realistic about this is not cynical and negative.
  - chasd00 5y ago
    that's a good point, i think orbit was the minimum planned for Falcon1. I don't believe SpaceX every just went to the karman line and back. I think all of their flights have been either crashes or fully orbital.
    - chippiewill 5y ago
      > Think all of their flights have been either crashes or fully orbital. Certainly applies to the operational launches of all their rocket vehicles, however they've also done suborbital test flights with with Grasshopper, F9R, Starhopper, Starship (and maybe Super Heavy soon as well depending on if they do a sub-orbital with that first). The important difference is that SpaceX has never considered the Karman line as a target in its own right (somewhat rightly, its only value is for "whelming" space tourism).
- double0jimb0 5y ago
  “Scale up”, a software term that has almost zero value when translated to aerospace engineering.
  - machiaweliczny 5y ago
    Will see how Elon's 100 of Starships per year will affect costs of transport to space.
    - mmmBacon 5y ago
      I suspect that as they scale up their costs will increase due to logistics and maintenance costs not necessarily scaling linearly with launches. Furthermore, I suspect that the failure rate will also increase as the launch frequency goes up and hence costs associated with launch failures also increase.
      - iso1631 5y ago
        > I suspect that the failure rate will also increase as the launch frequency goes up So you're saying that after say the initial 100 launches Launch 100-199 would have 5 failures Launch 200-299 would have 7 failures Launch 300-399 would have 10 failures Why? Generally doing more of something reduces the cost per something. Why do you think the inverse will hold with spacex?
  - iso1631 5y ago
    "Scale up" is fine once you have a working design and can just pup out copies of that design by the dozen with mass production - what SpaceX is doing with Raptors (and did with Merlins) for example. You need the demand to make that worthwhile though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- eco 5y ago
  Falcon 9 was a direct extension of Falcon 1. New Glenn shares almost nothing in common with New Shepard. They don't even use the same fuel or engine.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Second stage of New Glenn uses a variant of the New Shephard engine.
freediver 5y ago
This tweet summed it up well: https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/1416286320956121090 https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/14162863209561210...
nimithryn 5y ago
The US was behind the USSR at the beginning of the last space race. Jeff Bezos is an extremely smart and talented guy, and is now focusing a lot more of his time on Blue Origin. I wouldn't count them out.
- ranman 5y ago
  Blue Origin technically started before SpaceX and has an increasing delta in accomplishments... They're easily a decade plus behind and SpaceX doesn't seem to be slowing down. Bezos is smart and talented... but it's hard to overcome a lead like that.
- ragebol 5y ago
  Bezos is a businessman, rockets require engineering. Sure, he studied electrical engineering in the 80s, but I don't think that's going to help Blue Origin catch up with it's main competitor.
  - nimithryn 5y ago
    Bezos can hire engineers to work for him. Amazon requires lots of engineers and that works fine. Bezos’s big contributions will be leadership, creating efficient processes, etc. He’s good at those things. You don’t need to be able to build the product to run a company.
    - ragebol 5y ago
      Then why hasn't he done so earlier?
      - nimithryn 5y ago
        Because he was busy being CEO of Amazon, one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Now he will spend most of his time on Blue Origin.
- iso1631 5y ago
  And the US was behind Russia at the end of the last space race, as Americans had to take Russian rockets to even get to orbit
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gameswithgo 5y ago

Understanding the difference between orbital and suborbital space flight need not cause one to be cynical and negative about things. Especially since blue origin has a design that can scale up quickly, as SpaceX did with falcon 1 to 9

themgt 5y ago
Falcon 1 put a payload into orbit though, so it's really not the same. Falcon 9's first flight was less than 2 years after Falcon 1 made it to orbit. For myriad reasons Blue can't just "scale up quickly" in any meaningful way from NS to New Glenn, hence why it's going to take them 8+ years between the first NS and first NG launches. Being realistic about this is not cynical and negative.
- chasd00 5y ago
  that's a good point, i think orbit was the minimum planned for Falcon1. I don't believe SpaceX every just went to the karman line and back. I think all of their flights have been either crashes or fully orbital.
  - chippiewill 5y ago
    > Think all of their flights have been either crashes or fully orbital. Certainly applies to the operational launches of all their rocket vehicles, however they've also done suborbital test flights with with Grasshopper, F9R, Starhopper, Starship (and maybe Super Heavy soon as well depending on if they do a sub-orbital with that first). The important difference is that SpaceX has never considered the Karman line as a target in its own right (somewhat rightly, its only value is for "whelming" space tourism).
double0jimb0 5y ago
“Scale up”, a software term that has almost zero value when translated to aerospace engineering.
- machiaweliczny 5y ago
  Will see how Elon's 100 of Starships per year will affect costs of transport to space.
  - mmmBacon 5y ago
    I suspect that as they scale up their costs will increase due to logistics and maintenance costs not necessarily scaling linearly with launches. Furthermore, I suspect that the failure rate will also increase as the launch frequency goes up and hence costs associated with launch failures also increase.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      > I suspect that the failure rate will also increase as the launch frequency goes up So you're saying that after say the initial 100 launches Launch 100-199 would have 5 failures Launch 200-299 would have 7 failures Launch 300-399 would have 10 failures Why? Generally doing more of something reduces the cost per something. Why do you think the inverse will hold with spacex?
- iso1631 5y ago
  "Scale up" is fine once you have a working design and can just pup out copies of that design by the dozen with mass production - what SpaceX is doing with Raptors (and did with Merlins) for example. You need the demand to make that worthwhile though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
eco 5y ago
Falcon 9 was a direct extension of Falcon 1. New Glenn shares almost nothing in common with New Shepard. They don't even use the same fuel or engine.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Second stage of New Glenn uses a variant of the New Shephard engine.

freediver 5y ago

This tweet summed it up well: https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/1416286320956121090 https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/14162863209561210...

nimithryn 5y ago

The US was behind the USSR at the beginning of the last space race. Jeff Bezos is an extremely smart and talented guy, and is now focusing a lot more of his time on Blue Origin. I wouldn't count them out.

ranman 5y ago
Blue Origin technically started before SpaceX and has an increasing delta in accomplishments... They're easily a decade plus behind and SpaceX doesn't seem to be slowing down. Bezos is smart and talented... but it's hard to overcome a lead like that.
ragebol 5y ago
Bezos is a businessman, rockets require engineering. Sure, he studied electrical engineering in the 80s, but I don't think that's going to help Blue Origin catch up with it's main competitor.
- nimithryn 5y ago
  Bezos can hire engineers to work for him. Amazon requires lots of engineers and that works fine. Bezos’s big contributions will be leadership, creating efficient processes, etc. He’s good at those things. You don’t need to be able to build the product to run a company.
  - ragebol 5y ago
    Then why hasn't he done so earlier?
    - nimithryn 5y ago
      Because he was busy being CEO of Amazon, one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Now he will spend most of his time on Blue Origin.
iso1631 5y ago
And the US was behind Russia at the end of the last space race, as Americans had to take Russian rockets to even get to orbit

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]