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Jeff Bezos's Space Company Reveals Some Secrets
An anonymous reader writes "Jeff Bezos's commercial spaceflight company, Blue Origin, has kept its plans secret to better compete with rivals such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. But in order to build its launch facility in West Texas, it has revealed some details of its future operations: Blue Origin's Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) will carry three or more passengers on suborbital, ballistic trajectories to altitudes in excess of 325,000 feet above sea level. It will launch vertically and land vertically, and will use hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellants. It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control. Blue Origin plans a maximum rate of 52 launches per year."
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon guy, has a space company? That's plenty of revelation for me!
☠
Cue the unmanned-spaceflight-is-the-only-way-to-go zealots...
I don't know about this one. "Culberson County, we have a problem" just doesn't have a good ring to it.
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Is this actually a real venture or just a pipe dream to conveniently write tax dollars off against?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Any idea on how much tickets are going to cost?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Look for life insurance policies to have a new clause added to explicitly exclude coverage in the event of a spacecraft mishap (if they don't already have such a clause).
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
will use hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellants. It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control.
No problems what so ever. Sounds incredibly safe to me.
I'm assuming they mean they're going to use 'chutes to land - landing on reverse thrusters or what have you in earth's gravity well could be fairly fuel expensive, and doesn't make much sense.
As long as the passengers after the flight are reusable too, it should be a workable, safe plan. However, could we claim spaceflights under the "Amazon Prime Plan", which claims "Unlimited shipping privileges cost just $79 per year"? After all, it all boils down to being shipped by Amazon.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The Scaled/VG approach will use a safer fuel, I believe.
Apparently, the interface for the vehicle will be a single button with the word "click" stenciled underneath it.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
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As a public service, here are some facts about Culberson County, Texas.
* The county seat is Van Horn.
* As you can see by the satellite photo, the rugged Guadalupe Mountains meet the barren, flat Llano Estacado.
* Culberson County includes the highest point in Texas, part of Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
* Road geeks will appreciate the significance of this fact: Van Horn is the western terminus of U.S. Highway 90.
* Due to the lack of water, tourism and mining are the only sources of income. For details on how the county's 3,407 souls bide their time while waiting for the new spaceport to be built, see the Handbook of Texas Online.
And in the tongue-in-cheek words of singer-songwriter Brian Burns:
Welcome to Texas,
Don't anybody get me wrong;
We're glad y'all came to see us,
Just don't forget to go back home.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
[...]would operate autonomously under control of on-board computers,
:)...
Didn't know anyone had systems relable enough for civilian passengers (i.e. not NASA, military, etc.) to do this yet (or maybe it's all in the disclaimer you have to sign beforehand
with no ground control during nominal flight conditions[...]
So they will have ground control during less than nominal flight conditions?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
"The TANG was stale"
"Space captain farted in airlock and refused to provide refund"
"Unsecured lunch lockers: tribbles ate my sandwich"
"I am a smoker, and was told that smokers had to step outside during spaceflight. Do NOT buy!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
at one launch per week, it wouldnt take more than a year or two to send prety much everyone i dont like into space. ^_^
So now there are two companies willing to take us into the upper stratosphere..
Will it only be half as unaffordable?
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I guess weekly launches aren't unattainable, as long as there's no requirement for an equal number of landings, and a large supply of launch vehicles.
S
I don't know. To me this is like the Wright brothers announcing their new airline and airport before ever flying at Kittyhawk.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
So we're coming to the day when cheap intercontinental ballistic missiles will be available to all. Thank you to Jeff and all the
wealthy amateur space enthusiasts.
Would he have a one click launch sequence?
Would he patent it?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Better yet, charge the rubes $3000. Then ship them down to Disneyworld on $179 "Jet Blue" flights. Tell them they are really in Cape Kennedy, and to ignore the perv in the Tigger costume. Have them ride "Space Mountain" a few times while telling them they are really in orbit. Then send 'em home.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Will it have a patented "one click" Affiliate Program?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Would you take a ride on this thing?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
What about evasive evasive maneuvers? Ground clearance? and all the other details involved in space flight?
This thing is supposed to land vertically? That sounds more like a crash to me.
Will it have parachutes?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
"WTF do you want us to do about it, all the guidance computers are on your ship!"
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I've heard that everyone that's gone into space, end up getting sick, due to the lack of gravity, and some inner-ear problems. Do any of you guys know if this would apply? I can't remember if it's the space-ship that has been used, and the pure force that it creates, or the gravity thing. You guys are smart, does anyone here know? It'd suck to go into orbit just to watch vomit float.
> It will operate autonomously under control of
> on-board computers, with no ground control.
I for one welcome our hydrogen peroxide and kerosene swilling SkyNet Overlords.
Estimate the fraction of the launch mass of the ship which must be dedicated to fuel to achieve the mission's desired trajectory.
Estimate the terminal velocity of the rocket as it approaches the surface after the mission.
What fraction of the ship's mass must be used as fuel to come to rest from terminal velocity it lands purely under rocket power? How does the fraction depend on the time to choose a landing site?
Is this is this a large or small amount compared to the initial fuel fraction?
Now, how much mass would needed if a parachute or paraglider was used to come to rest instead?
Is the difference in mass fractions significant? Which system is easier to maintain? Which is more reliable?
These are the sorts of questions you have to consider when you are thinking about spacecraft design. It's worthwhile to work this through... none of the steps are particularly complicated, and as you go along and think it through you'll see that there are interesting reasons to go either way.
Crash? We prefer to refer to it as a high-velocity landing with 100% collateral damage to passenger, crew, and craft.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The place looks close enough to Roswell.
Is there a secret meaning to Blue Origin?
From their site: "Blue Origin is developing vehicles and technologies that, over time, will help enable an enduring human presence in space." Yeah sure, but first we're gonna fire three people at a time up in a pod like a bullet, and hope they land safely should the 'chutes deploy. Sounds like a long way from A to B in this case.
You're still in Texas. Sheesh! I though the idea was to escape.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Jeff Bezos' company will not protect you from the Terrible Secret of Space.
/. editors, note proper usage of apostrophe with words ending with the letter S. Thanks.
^ Also for
Are they implying that this thing will be unguided? Just pointed at the sky and shot off without post launch guidance, like a bullet? That's what it sounds like to me, and would explain why ground control guidance is not seen as a problem: there's no way to guide it. It would be considerably cheaper to develop, but I'm not sure it would be too popular.
Another thing I'd like to know is, where does it land? If it's a water landing, that makes passenger safety and training more complex (they have to learn how to stay afloat if something goes balls up). If it's a land based touchdown, who's land is it going to land on? They'll have to buy a pretty big slab of dirt if they're going to guarantee it always lands on their property.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, The Baroque Cycle, etc.) has taken a part-time job as a consultant for Blue Origins.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Not really on topic, or of any use whatsoever, but NASAs group life indurance policy (as of 10 years ago) actually did include loss of life due to space craft disaster.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Snake Plisken?
I heard you were dead."
When are we going to get 90-minute express ballistic shipping to anywhere on the planet?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
"It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control..."
This could certainly add new meaning to the phrase "Blue Screen of Death."
I'll wager that they'll never get guv'mint approval to operate without at least one human pilot.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
In high power model rocketry, we call this condition "Shovel Recovery," and it's not pretty.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
I don't know if this Blue Origin is related to the X Prize winner, but this space flight stuff is very real and very doable. I watched this whole flight, and it's pretty exciting that low-cost, safe space flight is a real possibility. Check out the photos or webcasts here: X Prize
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Jeff Bezos's commercial spaceflight company, Blue Origin, has kept its plans secret to better compete with rivals such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.
Commercial manned space travel still seems like quite a lofty goal - lofty enough, and expensive enough, that trying to ensure competition in the marketplace at this very early stage seems counterproductive. One would think that everyone could benefit from open cooperation between Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, at least until they both get a revenue stream going (read: customers actually in space).
Unless, that is, Bezos and/or Branson think the first-mover advantage will really translate into significant profits. I suspect, however, that those profits are in the pretty distant future, and the best way to bring the profits closer would be to cooperate.
For maximum efficiency and use of packaging space, the boarding procedure includes an 18 minute wait in an airlock heated to 1540 degrees F.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
You know, from what I hear, jet airliners basically fly themselves. It's not a major problem for a pilot to land or take off in one of these things, and once you get it up, it's basically cruise control. Of course, as they say, when you need an experienced airline pilot, there is no substitute.
What happens when something goes wrong? If this thing isn't built to have some human control when things are out of the ordinary, no one in his right mind would go up in one of these things.
(Just my two cents.)
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The Wright brothers probably did not have to file environmental impact statements or calculate mean casuality per launch or estimate the damage of an explosion for insurance purposes or...
Jeff Bezos brought his evironmental impact statement to a conference once; it's about the size of a metropolitan phone book. It has sections that state that their rocket will not cause floods or hurricanes, will not change the flow of any rivers, will not interfere with the mating habits of local desert lizards, and on and on.
Present day aerospace development is regulated to the point of near inactivity. At least, the developers are still allowed to kill themselves in the process or nothing would get done.
On the upside, recent legislation has made launching easier. Finding a launch site with an appropriate window and a minimum of EPA hassles is still tricky.
-Hope
I'm not sure of the geography of Nevada or Utah, but Texas has a coast and a big gulf full of splashdown area. Of course that is only important if Blue Origin's landing sequence involves a splashdown.
Perhaps it's because they already own the property.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It was Jeff Greason of XCOR not Jeff Bezos, but the comment stands. Where is my coffee...
-Hope
This is obviously pretty cool stuff - two private enterprises working on passenger flights to outer space. The one question that I have is why? I mean, yeah - the OMG factor is there but where are they going? Do they just plan to fly out of the atmosphere and then land? Did someone colonize the moon when I wasn't looking? Besides bragging rights, what are they really hoping to gain from this?
I've never heard of Tang going stale.
This is another common one in the feedback: "Aliens insisted on giving me anal probe". About half of these feedback listings are negative, and half are positive.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
But, couldn't a launch accident involving hydrogen perozide render everyone within a 3-mile radius blond?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Cool... fire and forget it space travel! That worked well for NASA.
OK so this thing is going to shoot straight up, then it's going to fall right back down so it will be able to land vertically... like a splashdown i assume. This doesn't sound like fun to me. I mean I think the only way you can land near where you launched with a ballistic trajectory is straight up and straight down. (well really close to it, you know what I mean)
300-sum-thousand feet?
I am just disappointed.
But on the brighter side, there are people who will pay to do this and maybe it will become a viable market thus making it possible better things will come along during my life time I might just be able to afford.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Send enough flights into space and EVENTUALLY one will come down profitably.
that sounds exactly like the method john carmack was using for his armidillo x-prize entrant. do i really want to trust john carmack not to return me to earth, but continue off in space eventually landing on mars with no flashlight, and an open gate to hell?
It'll never stand up in court.
Here's a one-click launch system developed in 1980. Note the reusable launch vehicle which can also carry at least three people (plus the red launch button).
I use the word 'people' loosely.
This
People shower in more countries than just the US. Those countries just don't happen to be in Europe. (you insensitive clod)
Reads like the old "jump buggies" out of science fiction novels; single point of launch, ballistic trajectory, get anywhere in the world in 45 minutes flat. I used to wonder why people hadn't already tried to implement them as travel could be significantly faster (and possibly cheaper) than keeping an aircraft aloft for the endless hours of a trans-continental flight.
>> It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control.
Hmm... lack of a pilot and no chance of remote control... I bet that makes the victi.. err... passengers feel very warm and fuzzy.
A: Ocean Spray - It was their second choice because they couldn't get 7-UP.
There is a long list, certainly more than these.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
As you can see by the satellite photo, the rugged Guadalupe Mountains meet the barren, flat Llano Estacado.
"Llano" means flat in Spanish. So yes, it's not that surprising that Llano Estacado is flat. I'm also guessing the Guadalupe Mountains would be mountainous.
Culberson County is one of the "Trans-Pecos" counties of western Texas. If you have ever traveled along I-10 and stopped for the night in Van Horn, you will know that it is basically an oasis town, retirement community, and truck stop in the middle of nowhere. I have always enjoyed stopping there just for that fact. They are proud of their "beautiful 9-hole golf course." Maybe the tiny airport there, with its existing aviation infrastructure and avgas would be a good location for a space port. What an eclectic mix that would be!
Perhaps you would find that less of a problem if you used conventional insulated tanks instead of using your rectum for storage. Even if it is a good place to get methane fuel.
Glad I could help.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Of course, the second payload will be delayed a few months, while the OS is changed to a real-time -ix (Linux and BSD zealots may start fighting about which distro is best for this now) and the software is rewritten.
I suppose having the blast crater at 1 Microsoft Way would be too much to hope for.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Here's the obligatory quote from his slashdot interview:
The Wikipedia lists you as a part-time advisor for Blue Origin, a company that is working to "develop a crewed, suborbital launch system." What is it that you do for them and has the recent winning of the X-Prize by the Spaceship One team had any effect on Blue Origin's plans? What are your visions of future private space flight?
Like Spock on the deck of the Enterprise, I sit in the corner and await opportunities to jump out and yammer about Science. Unlike Spock, I don't have anyone reporting to me and I never get to sit in the captain's chair and aim the phasers. This is probably good.
Though the X-Prize is cool and good, Blue Origin never intended to compete for it. Consequently, it has had no effect, other than destroying productivity whenever a SpaceShipOne flight is being broadcast.
As for my visions of future private space flight: here I have to remind you of something, which is that, up to this point in the interview, I have been wearing my novelist hat, meaning that I talk freely about whatever I please. But private space flight is an area where I wear a different hat (or helmet). I do not freely disseminate my thoughts on this one topic because I have agreed to sell those thoughts to Blue Origin. Admittedly, this feels a little strange to a novelist who is accustomed to running his mouth whenever he feels like it. But it is a small price to pay for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a minor character in a Robert Heinlein novel.
I'm thinking I read somewhere Richard Branson said something like $1,000,000 for his package.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A previous landlord once buggered up a LOX connection on a drill rig in the Pilbara and folded a drilling platform in half. Literally. He shot a stream of LOX across a steel platform and thermal effects folded the platform up a few degrees and broke (shattered the frozen legs of) the tower, which thankfully did not fall on the LOX tank.
Said landlord was also extremely pleased that the electricals for the tower ran up one of the other legs and didn't make sparks until those legs folded a few minutes later - 'coz if they'd run up one of the shettered legs... well, let's just say that LOX is not exactly a fire retardant.
H2O2 will only burn the crap out of you and then dissolve you. Much safer. d-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm thinking I read somewhere Richard Branson said something like $1,000,000 for his package.
The ticket price for Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson's service) is US$200,000.
http://www.virgingalactic.com/en/when.asp
I'm thinking I read somewhere Richard Branson said something like $1,000,000 for his package.
The ticket price for Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson's service) is US$200,000.
Thanks for the correction.
FalconShould there be a Law?