Slashdot Mirror
More Clues About Blue Origin's Space Plans
FleaPlus writes "Blue Origin, the secretive company started by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, has recently released a number of new details about their suborbital launch plans and their private desert launch facility. The vehicle will be fully reusable, and similar in many ways to the vertical-takeoff-and-landing DC-X. The details were part of a 229-page environmental impact statement the company filed to comply with federal regulations. The company plans to start launching test vehicles later this year, with commercial operations beginning in 2010."
the One Click Launch?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Here is a big cheer for the fact that the object is re-usable. This is fast becoming one of the more considered aspects of shuttle design, and given taht there is a "The Carbon Trust" campaign going on in the uk [and the world!] a reuable shuttle is a big bonus.
>>>Scanning for I.D.I.O.T.S. >>>
>>>I.D.I.O.T.S. FOUND! >>>
Given the spread of suborbital spacecraft, isn't now a good time to take a fresh look at the rotavator idea?
It doesn't require the same ridiculously exotic materials as a fully-fledged space elevator, and couldn't it potentially turn spacecraft like this and SpaceShipOne into orbital craft?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
30 Billion to get to Mars...
Another 30 billion to just get into space...
Yet another 30 billion just to say you'll go back into space...
Watching a first time yuppie from a dot-com industry spend...well... NOT 90 billion.... Pricel^H^H^H^H... it ain't 90 BILLION,/b>
(Note: I just pulled that 90 billion from my posterior... it could well be more or less).
At least it's not replica of a DC-8
We've gotten some "Blues Clues" as to whats really going on...
I can envisage a boomerang effect http://tinyurl.com/sxelz
"The acreage also has...a bat cave".
A secretive billionaire with advanced aerospace technology and a Batcave? Holy Amazon, Batman!
the planet ... I mean, go to mars or something.
Read radical news here
I've been an avid follower of space exploration for... well, all of my life. Hell, my father even woke me up at 3 AM so I could watch Armstrong do his stuff (I was eight) - he didn't dare *not* let me watch - the whinging would've been awful.
In those days, youngsters like me *knew* that we would have a base on the Moon in 10 years and another on Mars a few years after that. The excitement!
Oh, dear...
OK. I know now that it was all a "Get there before the Commies", but it *was* done. (BTW. To all you Yanks reading this - I think you guys made the greatest achievement of the human race, to date, happen. The reasons aren't important - you should be very proud).
Now look at it. It's starting again, but this time on many fronts - this isn't the only initiative. I'm eight years old again. The only difference is that I'm too old to play a part.
I hope it includes this quote from the article: "[the] most significant man-made feature of the area from a visual-aesthetic perspective is State Highway 54, a two-lane blacktop that connects Interstate 10 to State Highways 62 and 180." Bring your cameras when you go.
Plus, if you sign up now, you can get a ninety-day free trial of New Shephard Prime -- no minumum flights required, free shipping to and from the launch site (including your remains if you don't make it back in one piece), and you can share your flight with up to four family members.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
That doesn't sound correct. Spaceship One needed to reach a max speed of 3,518 km/h (mach 3.09) to get to the 100km mark. To cover 200km (up and down) in 10 minutes this vehicle would average 1,200 km/h and would be stationary 3 times en route.
872835240
Here is a big cheer for the fact that the object is re-usable. This is fast becoming one of the more considered aspects of shuttle design, and given taht there is a "The Carbon Trust" campaign going on in the uk [and the world!] a reuable shuttle is a big bonus.
The DC-X and space shuttle are not at all comparable. The DC-X has about 1/100th the performance of the shuttle. The use of decent engines if frivolously wasteful. I am not surprised Bezos is attracted to it. The weight penalty imposed on the space shuttle for reusability, wings, wheels, thermal protection is huge. Strip all of that away and use a simple aerodynamic shape and you have the NASA CEV.
What does "Carbon Trust" have anything to do with vehicles that use LOX and LH2 for fuel and are built out of Li-Al?
an ill wind that blows no good
If I worked at NASA, I might be updating my resume right now.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How silly and petty you Kyotoists are. Do you propose that we build rockets out of recycled plastic bottles? This is why your movement is dying. You are irresponsible. There would be a lot less CO2 if you held your breath.
an ill wind that blows no good
I'm sure with commercial development they will work out the problems of the landing statem.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Is that like Xenu's DC-10s with rockets? Are we seeing the second coming of Xenu? Is this Scientologies apocolypse?
Scientology MUST stop this DCX in the courts before it comes to pass!
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Blue's Clues
But does it run linux?
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
ICBM = Intercontinental Book Missile
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
If cross range reentry is a requirement, fine. The shuttle has never made use of its maximum cross range of 1100 miles. It still gets hung up in space due to tight weather restrictions on landing. Ballistic reentry vehicles are not as constrained by ground level winds. I would say supersonic manuaverability is the olnly advantage of a winged vehicle. Both the Russian design and the CEV hit the ground under steerable chutes. If fact landing into a strong headwind with steerable parachutes is desireable. Heat dissipation on the CEV for the orbital or lunar reentry profiles is elegantly handled by replaceable carbon-carbon heatshields.
The Soyuz bell shape comes close. NASA's tried and true conical design is a good tradeoff between low drag ascent performance and high drag and controllability for reentry.
The complaint is about the extent of the winged vehicle TPS and its exposure to the launch environment. Winged designs will continue to be dogged by this vulnerability.
The X-33 debocle killed SSTO for years to come. 2 Reusable stages are still too large and expensive. At best we could create an improved lighter space shuttle. But the severe architectural problem of parallel boost would remain.
The Russian design is ok. Not unlike LockMart's proposal for the CEV, which I am glad was rejected. Not sure what new shape buys them. It can't be that manuverable. The thermal protection system is exposed to the ascent environment. I am more interested in what they will launch it with. Today's Soyuz cannot launch a 6 person spacecraft.
It is not silly if you are worried about a new administration coming in to deconstruct the program, and if external military requirements were added, like with the shuttle. I personally do not envy, nor do I think the US should emulate Russia's glacially conservative design evolution approach.
an ill wind that blows no good
LOL!
Especially the last!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
This is of no real value in terms of weight or reusability.
Not very likely given that the CEV landing site is a dry lake. It is pretty well established that chutes are more weight efficient than wings. That is not an argument you are likely to win. Ofcourse the well designed Kliper will use both. Furthermore, the Kliper design is not very flexible. It cannot be used for a lunar mission, it lacks significant propulsion, interior volume, adaptability to a translunar stage etc.
Japan and Europe are not yet space faring nations. Neither is even developing a manned capability. Russia has no reusable program beyond Kliper. The CEV is reusable 20 times, like Kliper. What are you talking about? There is no fully reusable system in any real stage of planning by anyone.
During the last shuttle launch the ET impacted with a turkey vulture. Had the strike occured at a higher speed and altitude the vehicle could have been brought down. Exposure of the heat shield to the ascent environment is a high risk over many flights. Again, this is well established. The CEV designers happily relearned this lesson from Apollo in robust design.
Seriously, the recent Russian track record is abyssmal. Unlike LockMart or Boeing who have a huge string of successes going. Ask the satellite insurers. When a failure does occur they resort to KGB mode and keep the investigation shrouded in secrecy. How many Block DM stages will fail before they get it right.. It is only a matter of time before it creeps into their manned systems. Their manned program is going nowhere beyond supplying the few people who are marooned on the ISS some emergency rations.
an ill wind that blows no good
In the interest of not reading the article and thus providing the right amount of fuel needed for a lame question or joke...
What do you mean by "stationary 3 times en route". The thing is going to go from whatever bat-out-of-hell speed it's traveling, to a dead stop - not once, but 3 TIMES during the ascent?
Cartoon physics aside (which are hillariously significant), doesn't subjecting the human body to such rigors resemble something akin to "bug on windshield"?
If that's the case, then we will not only have succeeded in a new form of space travel - but in creating a whole new way of terrifying the next generation of astronauts in a manner unimaginable - at least for a brief moment - before they're turned into a colorful and dramatic splatter.
Just the thing for Fox's next big "extreme idiots killing themselves and losing limbs during tiger attacks and tornadoes while driving at high speed away from the cops and into day-care centers" show.
Of course there are exceptions. The old volvo estates are a good example, and I'll agree to your Civic note... but as a matter of scale, it's generally not the same. Old-school Land Rovers are very common, whereas 20, 30 or 40 year old cars are the exception rather than the norm.
:)
I don't live in the US
Well, in my experience - having lived in both urban, suburban and rural Britain, there are two types of "suv" - a "proper" 4x4 designed for use in the country, on farms, and for off-roading - typically, Land Rovers; and the school-run 4x4 - typically Porche or BMW monstrosities. I'm talking about the real off-roaders.
Now, maybe it's because countryside types are tight (teehee), or maybe it's because a "proper" 4x4 has been designed to take a shitload more punishment than any normal car would be exposed to, but off-roaders have, in my anecdotal experience, a much longer working lifespan than most other cars.
The simple fact is, a Land Rover *is* a *very* well built car - it has to be to survive it's job, and that's why militaries, governments and such all over the world use Land Rovers. One will easily last 30 years with just a little care and attention. Trying to run something as simple as a Ford Escort that's only something like 10 years old has been much more of a headache for a family member of mine than another who is running a ragtop series II.
but the headline made me start singing the blues clues theme song;)
Nothing - well thats something.
The defeating feature of this type of vehicle is that it must carry its entire fuel load for landing as well as lifting off. The space shuttle works around the issue by dropping much of its physical structure on ascent, and gliding back with virtually no fuel. Nuclear rocket engines would completely eliminate this issue because of their much higher Specific Impulse, which is basically a measurement of thrust combined with how long that thrust can be maintained by consuming a given amount of fuel. Take a look at this article (part of a longer series) about a design for a non-polluting, fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could lift 1000 tons of payload into orbit and return an equal payload to a powered landing (compare vs the shuttle's 32-ton capacity). Just like the Delta-X rockets, only practical because of the enormous power of the nuclear engines.
This would be the very first unpiloted passenger carrying air or space craft ever.
Getting the technology to the point where you would be willing to put your Mom into a craft and just sit back and watch it fly her around without a human pilot is really a much bigger accomplishment than going to 100km. Assuming you love your Mom of course.
This DC-X approach is very high risk compared to the much more conservative Scaled Composite X-15 style craft.
I'd let my Mom ride on Space Ship 2, but not New Shepard.