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Blue Origin Release Flight Videos
Reality Master 101 writes "Space start-up Blue Origin (financed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) had a secret test flight on November 13, 2006. They've now released video and pictures of the very successful flight. Looks like they're making good progress." From the page: "We're working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. Accomplishing this mission will take a long time, and we're working on it methodically."
What a cute little rocket :D
What they should do is get business partners who already know how to build rockets and offer them incentives to partipate. NASA's vision right now is not on target but that is not a failure of NASA engineers but a failure of management. Draw the engineering teams into this that already have experience. Don't do it half-assed.
And before the NASA bashers get their RSS feed and feel the need to talk about how stupid NASA is...yes NASA has problems but between Orbital, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, ATK, the Russians, the other numerous companies who build and integrate rockets and have spend billions upon billions on launch vehicles, this current effort is honestly a waste to me. It's great to see people wanting to innovate, but wanting and doing are not the same.
Rocket science is not easy. You cannot cut corners on development and testing and there is no substitute for the decades of experience these companies have.
If you want to innovate, get on board advanced propulsion or space elevator projects. sub-orbital is not hard...warp drive to the next galaxy is hard.
We want burning flames and heat haze not condensation and frost.
It's not condensation and frost -- it's steam. As another commenter mentioned, the rocket uses H2O2 as propellant.
2 H2O2 => O2 + 2 H2O
The problem is NASA doesn't seem interested in cheaper access to space.
One might even say all NASA seems interested in is transferring government money to Orbital, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, et al. without anything to show for it. *cough*X-33*cough*
Maybe they need to be embarrassed into some actual innovation instead of more business-as-usual.
All the companies you mentioned have an interest in keeping space flight and expensive, government-only prospect. While hiring engineers from those companies might be OK, those companies in themselves are part of the military-industrial complex and have no interest in making cheap consumer goods.