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Understanding the difference between orbital and suborbital space flight need not cause one to be cynical and negative about things. Especially since blue orig

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
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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.

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.