6 ms·

They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. BE-4 has been delayed, true, but if it were looking li

They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. BE-4 has been delayed, true, but if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago. I think 2022 will clear up lots of things for everyone. SLS, BE-4, New Glenn, etc... Till then there is no sense of dooming anything.

Retric 5y ago
Blue Origin arguably did the first verticals landing from “space” as defined by 100km of altitude in 2015. Though the lunar lander is perhaps the more famous vertical landing from space in 1969, following earlier soft landings like Luna 9 1966, and a lot of earlier VTVL rocket research at the time. SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015. I don’t mean to dump on Blue Origin but their achievements are really just around the definition of space as 100km which is completely arbitrary, their effectively just publicity stunts. It’s possible that Blue Origin will create a useful system for space exploration, but based on past progress their years if not decades from that point.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  > SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015 I'm not sure how important/big the difference is, but IIRC spaceX only lands boosters that never actually reach orbital velocity. They help boost things into orbital velocity, sure, but the things that land under powered flight never actually reach orbital velocity, right? I'm aware that the crew dragon was supposed to do this, but AFAIK it never has.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    It's still a dramatically different and faster trajectory than straight up-and-down. There's a reason SpaceX has drone ships out in the middle of the ocean -- they travel laterally hundreds of miles.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Yes, but what I was getting at was the safety factor. As part of the first stage of an orbital rocket SpaceX was stuck with a ~20% safety factor if they wanted to get significant cargo to orbit, where Blue Origin could seriously over engineer the rocket without any obvious problems. I am not saying they fudged things or that it was easy, just that it wasn’t the kind of litmus test you see on an actual orbital rocket.
justahuman74 5y ago
Blue's landing is not in the same league as SpaceX's orbital re-entry landing
- xgbi 5y ago
  > *near-orbital re-entry The first stage is far from orbital velocities when it reaches MECO and starts down, even though I strongly agree with you: SpaceX is in an entire other league.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
jhgb 5y ago
> New Shepard was the first to land vertically Apollo LM was the first to land vertically. > if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago That seems to be assuming that they have a choice. Given the fuel difference between AR-1 and BE-4, they've been committed to BE-4 for quite some time, no matter how much progress BO is doing (or not doing) on BE-4.
- Retric 5y ago
  The first soft landing on the moon occurred in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 Many rockets did soft landing on earth before that point, but none of them had been in space.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Sure, if that probe's rather crude landing system is enough for you, suit yourself with Luna 9. However, the LM landed on its legs in one piece, just like DC-X, New Shepard, Grasshopper, and F9 first stage did later.
    - Retric 5y ago
      I think it’s fair to classify Luna 9’s landing as soft because at 14 mph it was survivable, though other landers where softer. LM was an achievement not just because humans, but also because it could take off again without maintenance.
xoa 5y ago
>They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. Sorry, but the McDonnell Douglas DC-X did the rocket straight up & down vertical landing in 1993. New Shepard frankly wasn't particularly different. It went higher and longer sure, but for orbital rocketry the challenge isn't height so much as speed and everything that comes with that. The Falcon 9 flight 20 at the end of 2015 that marked its first landing was a vastly bigger achievement given that it was an orbital class rocket booster. It was going much, much faster and had to descend on a much more complicated arc through the atmosphere. And it pathfinded for actual rapid reuse, which is a whole different set of skills. That New Shepard did a suborbital jump a mere one month earlier 2015 honestly just isn't great. Since then, F9 has done over 100 more flights, to orbit, including crewed ones, and set ever growing records on cadence, reuse of boosters and refurb speed, satellite launch records, etc. NS has done... what? 5 test flights over 6 years? Then that silly little PR stunt? It's ludicrous. And it's long since stopped serving any useful purpose in terms of learning because it avoids so many of the true challenges in going orbital which involve 9+km/s of delta-v.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > silly little PR stunt The media has been grossly unfair to Bezos. What Bezos actually did was risk his own neck in the first manned flight of a totally new rocket design. It was a massive display of faith in his engineering team. Musk didn't do that. Branson didn't do that - and earlier test pilots of his craft died. As for the BO rocket being totally automated, that was the original intent of the Mercury missions, until the astronauts objected. Nobody called them joyriders or ludicrous.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Personally, though, I would have taken with me as passengers the chief mechanic and the chief engineer, just to ensure the rocket works well!
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Y'all might be interested that the Air Force used to take the chief mechanic along for the check ride after an overhaul. It wasn't policy, but it happened a lot. It ensured the airplanes got overhauled properly. It's a good thing. I've also always been happy to fly on a 757. (I worked on the design of flight critical parts for it.)

Retric 5y ago

Blue Origin arguably did the first verticals landing from “space” as defined by 100km of altitude in 2015. Though the lunar lander is perhaps the more famous vertical landing from space in 1969, following earlier soft landings like Luna 9 1966, and a lot of earlier VTVL rocket research at the time. SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015. I don’t mean to dump on Blue Origin but their achievements are really just around the definition of space as 100km which is completely arbitrary, their effectively just publicity stunts. It’s possible that Blue Origin will create a useful system for space exploration, but based on past progress their years if not decades from that point.

SahAssar 5y ago
> SpaceX started on powered decent in 2011 achieving it’s first landing from an actual orbital space flight in 2015 I'm not sure how important/big the difference is, but IIRC spaceX only lands boosters that never actually reach orbital velocity. They help boost things into orbital velocity, sure, but the things that land under powered flight never actually reach orbital velocity, right? I'm aware that the crew dragon was supposed to do this, but AFAIK it never has.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  It's still a dramatically different and faster trajectory than straight up-and-down. There's a reason SpaceX has drone ships out in the middle of the ocean -- they travel laterally hundreds of miles.
- Retric 5y ago
  Yes, but what I was getting at was the safety factor. As part of the first stage of an orbital rocket SpaceX was stuck with a ~20% safety factor if they wanted to get significant cargo to orbit, where Blue Origin could seriously over engineer the rocket without any obvious problems. I am not saying they fudged things or that it was easy, just that it wasn’t the kind of litmus test you see on an actual orbital rocket.

justahuman74 5y ago

Blue's landing is not in the same league as SpaceX's orbital re-entry landing

xgbi 5y ago
> *near-orbital re-entry The first stage is far from orbital velocities when it reaches MECO and starts down, even though I strongly agree with you: SpaceX is in an entire other league.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jhgb 5y ago

> New Shepard was the first to land vertically Apollo LM was the first to land vertically. > if it were looking like a failure, ULA would have dropped them a long time ago That seems to be assuming that they have a choice. Given the fuel difference between AR-1 and BE-4, they've been committed to BE-4 for quite some time, no matter how much progress BO is doing (or not doing) on BE-4.

Retric 5y ago
The first soft landing on the moon occurred in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 Many rockets did soft landing on earth before that point, but none of them had been in space.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Sure, if that probe's rather crude landing system is enough for you, suit yourself with Luna 9. However, the LM landed on its legs in one piece, just like DC-X, New Shepard, Grasshopper, and F9 first stage did later.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I think it’s fair to classify Luna 9’s landing as soft because at 14 mph it was survivable, though other landers where softer. LM was an achievement not just because humans, but also because it could take off again without maintenance.

xoa 5y ago

>They have some achievements to show. New Shepard was the first to land vertically. That's not nothing. Sorry, but the McDonnell Douglas DC-X did the rocket straight up & down vertical landing in 1993. New Shepard frankly wasn't particularly different. It went higher and longer sure, but for orbital rocketry the challenge isn't height so much as speed and everything that comes with that. The Falcon 9 flight 20 at the end of 2015 that marked its first landing was a vastly bigger achievement given that it was an orbital class rocket booster. It was going much, much faster and had to descend on a much more complicated arc through the atmosphere. And it pathfinded for actual rapid reuse, which is a whole different set of skills. That New Shepard did a suborbital jump a mere one month earlier 2015 honestly just isn't great. Since then, F9 has done over 100 more flights, to orbit, including crewed ones, and set ever growing records on cadence, reuse of boosters and refurb speed, satellite launch records, etc. NS has done... what? 5 test flights over 6 years? Then that silly little PR stunt? It's ludicrous. And it's long since stopped serving any useful purpose in terms of learning because it avoids so many of the true challenges in going orbital which involve 9+km/s of delta-v.

WalterBright 5y ago
> silly little PR stunt The media has been grossly unfair to Bezos. What Bezos actually did was risk his own neck in the first manned flight of a totally new rocket design. It was a massive display of faith in his engineering team. Musk didn't do that. Branson didn't do that - and earlier test pilots of his craft died. As for the BO rocket being totally automated, that was the original intent of the Mercury missions, until the astronauts objected. Nobody called them joyriders or ludicrous.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Personally, though, I would have taken with me as passengers the chief mechanic and the chief engineer, just to ensure the rocket works well!
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Y'all might be interested that the Air Force used to take the chief mechanic along for the check ride after an overhaul. It wasn't policy, but it happened a lot. It ensured the airplanes got overhauled properly. It's a good thing. I've also always been happy to fly on a 757. (I worked on the design of flight critical parts for it.)