Blue Origin Pushed Its Rocket 'To Its Limits' With High-Altitude Emergency Abort Test (theverge.com) 45
Blue Origin pulled off another successful test launch today, landing both the New Shepard rocket -- a reusable vehicle designed to take tourists to the edge of space and back -- and capsule after flight. From a report: The company ignited the capsule's emergency motor after it had separated from the rocket, pushing the spacecraft up to a top altitude of around 74 miles -- a new record for Blue Origin. The firing also caused the capsule to sustain up to 10 Gs during the test, but Blue Origin host Ariane Cornell said "that is well within what humans can take, especially for such a short spurt of time."
[...] The rocket which went up today is the third New Shepard vehicle that the company has ever flown. The first one flew to a super high altitude in April 2015, but the booster was unable to land back on Earth after flight. The second iteration of the vehicle was much more successful, however. Blue Origin launched and landed the rocket and booster a total of five times before retiring the system. This third New Shepard has already done two launches and landings, and it sports some upgrades over its predecessors. For instance, this one actually has windows in the crew capsule; the second vehicle had its windows painted on. Blue Origin is building even more vehicles to carry passengers, though there isn't a firm date for when the first crewed flights will occur. The company's president Rob Meyerson has estimated that the first test passengers could fly as soon as this year, while commercial flights could start in 2019. Blue Origin also plans to start selling tickets next year, too.
[...] The rocket which went up today is the third New Shepard vehicle that the company has ever flown. The first one flew to a super high altitude in April 2015, but the booster was unable to land back on Earth after flight. The second iteration of the vehicle was much more successful, however. Blue Origin launched and landed the rocket and booster a total of five times before retiring the system. This third New Shepard has already done two launches and landings, and it sports some upgrades over its predecessors. For instance, this one actually has windows in the crew capsule; the second vehicle had its windows painted on. Blue Origin is building even more vehicles to carry passengers, though there isn't a firm date for when the first crewed flights will occur. The company's president Rob Meyerson has estimated that the first test passengers could fly as soon as this year, while commercial flights could start in 2019. Blue Origin also plans to start selling tickets next year, too.
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.at least Trump is solving the Korea was problem
Well, to be fair, the solution is up to Kim, not Trump, though Trump may get the credit for brokering the deal. Right now the North Koreans are running around trying to figure out exactly how much of their nuclear program they can hide and are busy finding and filling holes with paperwork and equipment. This will take awhile, so I don't expect any "progress" with NK until this is done and the radiation in certain areas has died down.
The proof will be that Trump doesn't relax sanctions on NK until the dis
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The US military has thousands of nuclear weapons, I only have three...What are they worried about?
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My point was that Kim is the one deciding how this plays out. Trump has put his position on the table, complete verified disarmament before sanctions get lifted, Kim can either accept it or the sanctions remain in place.
Trump get's credit for negotiating the deal, but Kim is the one making the choices at this point.
Obviously the North Koreans are following their old warn path in their tactics. Talk, give up a little bit of something, then backtrack claiming some insult once they get what they want. They
Rocket Name (Score:2)
My name is New Shepard, and this is my favorite spot in the atmosphere.
Wow! That's impressive! (Score:2)
Maybe in a couple of years Blue Origin will actually put something useful into orbit. You know, like SpaceX has done about 60 some odd times so far.
Re:Wow! That's impressive! (Score:5, Informative)
Not likely. New Shepard goes up at about Mach 3, orbital speed is about Mach 25. Testing suborbital doesn't really get you anywhere toward orbital flight, and as far as I know they haven't built or done any tests of their theoretical orbital rocket yet.
Re:Wow! That's impressive! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that suborbital is an order of magnitude away from orbital velocity, and two orders of magnitude away in terms of energy, but I will say the method that Blue Origin is using to achieve suborbital flight above the Karman line is more extensible to orbital spaceflight than either Virgin Galactic (using hybrid rockets and feather reentry) or XCOR (although XCOR, may they RIP, did have a hydrogen variant concept that would've been extensible).
The New Shepard booster is using pump-fed hydrolox engines, and vertical takeoff/landing is very scalable to large sizes. Their orbital rocket has a new factory in Florida that is basically finished (currently being furnished inside) with a launch pad undergoing construction, and the engines for it are currently undergoing extensive testing. So you should take their orbital aspirations seriously, although there is a long ways to go. The upper stage of New Glenn uses couple vacuum-optimized engines based on this sea-level-optimized one used for New Shepard, so there is some direct heritage.
New Shepard is to New Glenn (the orbital rocket) as Falcon 1 is to Falcon 9 or maybe Falcon Heavy.
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New Shepard is to New Glenn (the orbital rocket) as Falcon 1 is to Falcon 9 or maybe Falcon Heavy.
Not really. Falcon 1 was also an orbital rocket. New Shepard still just isn't.
Are they learning things, as they say? Yes. Are they learning relevant things? Some. Not very much. They've gotten really good at landing something that never really goes very fast. Being able to build any rocket that can ignite, fire, and shut off without exploding is an achievement, of sorts, but the Max-Q New Shepard experiences is nothing like the Max-Q an orbital vehicle experiences. Their engine people are maybe lea
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Suborbital may be useful for things like ultrafast delivery, transportation, etc.
Scaling up suborbital for a reasonable number of people/cargo/weight is still easier than scaling up LEO launches. Assuming the launch vehicle is easily reusable - along the lines of 'preflight, launch, land, refuel, repeat' - then it may have viability even though it never puts anything into orbit.
Pricey, sure...but if you could do NY to London in an hour people would pay for it. Very rich people would pay a very large amoun
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They are just doing things in the opposite order that SpaceX is doing them. SpaceX built orbital rockets first and then developed reusable technology. Blue Origin is working on making reusable rockets and engines and then when that is proven they will make orbital rockets. Which is the better approach? Well SpaceX is certainly flying real missions right now, but Blue Origin also started with the goal of being an engine company. Not a rocket company. They intend to mass produce BE-3s and BE-4s and sell them
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New Shepard is to New Glenn (the orbital rocket) as Falcon 1 is to Falcon 9 or maybe Falcon Heavy.
Not really. Falcon 1 was also an orbital rocket. New Shepard still just isn't.
Okay. New Shepard is to New Glenn as Redstone [wikipedia.org] (which carried Alan Shepard--first American in space) is to Atlas [wikipedia.org] (which carried John Glenn--first American to orbit the Earth).
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New Shepard is a testbed for their orbital tech, which will be the New Glenn rocket. Specifically, where New Shepard uses a single BE-3 engine, New Glenn's second stage will use two BE-3 engines. The BE-3 engine is designed more for the orbital role than the suborbital one - hydrolox engines have very high Isp but low propellant density, making them much better suited for high altitude flight. The BE-4 engines that will power New Glenn's first stage use a methalox chemistry, and have been built and test-fir
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Doesn't matter what they're shipping if they can't get it anywhere close to orbit - and Blue Origin can only get about 10% of the way there. Getting out of the atmosphere is easy - we've got space enthusiast groups launching balloons that can make it almost all the way out (see Airship to Orbit). The hard part is getting up to orbital velocity, which requires about 10x as much energy as required to reach to the right altitude.
While Blue Origin is doing some interesting and impressive things in rocketry th
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Anything space is difficult as shit, but after seeing the Space X suicide landings, watching Blue Origins is just a bit boring, is like seeing someone parallel park in a really tight spot after seeing someone park at the same stop but doing a bootleg turn.
Re: Great! (Score:1)
A liar? Man, your marriage counseling sessions must get rough.
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Aliens did it.
Howard the Duck took care of the quack up.. That's what...
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No, it still came back to Earth, it just didn't land so much as impact.
Interesting terminology (Score:1)
A rocket that looks like a phallus sustained 10Gs in a short "spurt" of time.
Makes me wonder... (Score:3)
How fit will you have to be to make one of these trips? If you have to be able to withstand up to 10G for any amount of time, even if just in an emergency, how do you determine who is fit enough to be a space tourist? Granted, that is less than many car wrecks but still dangerous...
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It is just for aborts, so very rare. It's like being protected by an airbag.
Re:Makes me wonder... (Score:4, Informative)
The 10G was during the escape capsule emergency escape sequence so it's not expected on a normal flight. And the escape rockets only fire for a few seconds. Even someone reasonably un-fit should be able to handle 10Gs for less than 5 seconds. Wouldn't be pleasant but beats dying because of a problem with the booster.
For a similar reference, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FXVjf46T8
is the SpaceX Dragon capsule testing its escape system. The heavy G is only felt while the engines fire, and in that video you can see it's only about 5-6 seconds' worth.
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The 10G is only during the escape, so normally nobody will go through that.
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How fit will you have to be to make one of these trips? If you have to be able to withstand up to 10G for any amount of time, even if just in an emergency, how do you determine who is fit enough to be a space tourist?
"You must be this tall to ride on this ride." There's one roller coaster in the world that achieves 6.3 Gs, and five others that achieve at least 5 Gs. Riders of New Shepard will have to be fit enough to ride a roller coaster, and for the same reasons. I expect that will be the standard. The US legal system likes nothing better than "this thing is a lot like that thing."
The Wrong Stuff (Score:1)
Virgil R. "Gus" Grissom: "Hey, little lady. How would you like one of these?"
Bar Tendress: "I can get one of those anywhere."
Gus: "Not one that's been in space you can't!"
"Well! I might be interested...if it's been in space!"
Modern Slashdot Nerd who buys a space ride: "It's been in space, wink!"
Woman at Bar: "Still no thanks."
Good progress, but far behind SpaceX (Score:2)
If it weren't for SpaceX, this would be impressive, but they have a lot of catching up to do. The H2/O2 engine is nice for upper stages, but I can't find any specific impulse numbers so it isn't clear how well they are doing. (there are valid arguments for either kerosine / O2, or H2/O2 for upper stages)).
The landing is still a hover / descend landing. That shows great throttability of the engine, but the SpaceX suicide burn is more efficient and they seem to be getting pretty good reliability with that.
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