Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Blue Origin Will Be VTOL

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the less-glide-for-your-ride dept.

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"

5 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Scales better than SS1 by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SpaceShip[12..] is a design which will only work as a straight up-down suborbital vehicle. The basic idea behind Blue Origin: to have a straight forward rocket with a high mass fraction can be made to scale towards semiballistic lobs and eventually orbit. Its a good way to go.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. Distance to space? by wjcofkc · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Considering that medium orbital distance is 6,250 - 10,000 miles high, and that this craft is intended to go no higher than 62 miles, is this a spaceship, or a space plane? Is sixty-two miles qualifiable for low Earth orbit? Otherwise, it is a nice thought to be able to go 62 miles straight up and land somewhere else on Earth in short order relative to a jumbo jet.

    A fine step forward eitherway. I look forward to the day when these new space companies will competing for passengers - regular people passengers.

    Priceline.com, get the best rates for a moon vacation!

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
  3. Re:Impressive turn-around time, too... by drgould · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At one point they were able to turn the DC-X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X) around in 26-hours.

    It's just a matter of designing for reliability and servicability instead of cutting-edge performance like NASA does.

    It helps that this is a sub-orbital vehicle.

  4. Re:Hmmmm by Salgak1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sounds more like the old DC-X / Delta Clipper project. . . In fact, according to Wikipedia, Blue Origin has hired a number of DC-X engineers . . .

  5. Re:Impressive turn-around time, too... by Tx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thanks for the Econ 101 lecture ;). Obviously my contention is that there won't be enough demand at the prices they will end up charging as the economics of the business work through. And yes, no one can say such things for sure. However my point is that the "product" here is fundamentally not a particularly attractive one, once you take out the "one of the first to do it" and "uniqueness of experience" factors. It's a fundamentally high altitude flight with a few minutes only technically in space, where even the most wildly optimistic pricing I've heard, $20,000 per head, would buy weeks in luxury on a tropical island. I'm a huge space fan, I'd sell significant limbs to do any kind of significant space travel, but I wouldn't pay $20,000 for a few minutes of suborbital flight, even if it was a minor sum to me.

    --
    Oh no... it's the future.