Blue Origin Will Be VTOL

Spy Handler writes "The Blue Origin spacecraft, being built by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos' new venture, will have VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capability, according to the company's FAA permit applications. It will be a cone-shaped vehicle about 50 feet tall and 22 feet in diameter at the base, and carry 3 or more passengers to an altitude of 325,000 feet"

Comments

Re:Welcome to 1961

[Pacifist Brawler]

I think the important fact that we are overlooking here is the concept of a controlled veritcal landing -- one that allows for subsequent vertical take-off. Otherwise anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry and poor instincts for self-preservation could do this much cheaper.

Re:In normal units

[MichaelSmith]

to an altitude of 99 kilometers

I suspect that a rounding error crept in there.

Re:Normal units are boring!

[Big Nothing]

"The Blue Origin spacecraft, being built by Amazon.com multi-hundradaire Jeff Bezos' new venture, will have VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capability, according to the company's FAA permit applications. It will be a pointed-shaped vehicle about 8.3 fathoms tall and 2.17313508 x 10^-16 Parsecs in diameter at the base, and carry ~pi or more passengers to an altitude of 9.90600 x 10^14 angstrom"

VTOL, as it should be

[Ranten_N_Raven]

"Just like God and Robert A. Heinlein intended!"

Man -- I wish I was the one who'd thought that one up....

Re:Distance to space?

[Red Flayer]

this craft is intended to go no higher than 62 miles, is this a spaceship, or a space plane?

Neither. Here's a rather dull/akward metaphor:

If a (flying) bird is a creature of the air, and a swimming fish is a creature of the water, what do you call a fish that can momentarily break the surface of the water?

I'd still call it a creature of the water.

Similarly, I'd call Bezos's craft a VTOL airplane -- though I might give it an asterisk -- VTOL airplane*.

*capable of reaching super-mesospheric** altitude.

**Where super-mesospheric*** means above 99.9999% of the atmospheric mass.

***Though at the the time of the X-15 flight (1963) the US considered 50 miles**** (~80km) to be the boundary of space.

****But the significance of the 100km boundary is that it is the approximate altitude of the turbopause, below which turbulent mixing***** of the atmosphere predominates; above this, molecular diffusion dominates.

*****Speaking of which, it's time to get another cup of coffee (with milk, turbulently mixed) before the asterisks really get out of hand.

Why can't we use journalistic units?

[dmatos]

"The Blue Origin spacecraft, being build by Amazon.com multi-millionaire Jeff Bezos' new venture, will have VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capability, according to the company's FAA permit applications. It will be a pointed-shaped vehicle one sixth of a football field tall, and 270,000 human hair widths in diameter at the base, and carry as many passengers as can comfortably fit in a volkswagon beetle to an altitude of 260 empire state buildings (179 CN towers)."

Re:Distance to space?

[zentinal]

If you throw up during the flight. Would that be "projectile vomiting"?

If it's used mainly to send Billionaires on trips between continents, would it be an InterContinental Billionaire Missile?

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.