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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Just Launched Its Flagship Rocket
- ColinWright 12y agoTrying to gauge the precise achievement here, it seems to have gone up about 60 miles, about 10 kms, and then parachuted the empty crew capsule back to Earth. That's about 1/4 of the altitude needed to get to LEO. Then we recall that the kinetic energy it needs to be in orbit is about 10 times the gravitational potential energy[0]. That means this is about 1/40 of the energy needed to get to LEO. Does that sound about right? This is undoubtedly a stage any company needs to go through, but it would be nice to have some confirmation of where they are in the progress time-line. [0] Roughly, orbital velocity is around 8000 m/s, or 1/2 (8000)^2 m^2/s^2/kg, which is 32 x 10^6 m^2/s^2/kg. GPE is about 10 x 320000 = 32 x 10^5 m^2/s^2/kg.
- sithadmin 12y agoRockets tend to be phallic, but this vehicle really goes all out.