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Blue Origin Release Flight Videos

Posted by samzenpus on from the up-up-and-away dept.

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."

11 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. As god intended by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    a vertical take-off, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a sub-orbital journey into space.

    And to quote a great song writer "and it will take off and land on its tail, Like God and Robert Heinlein intended."

    1. Re:As god intended by samkass · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This reminds me of the old "Delta Clipper" DC-X design from McDonnell Douglas. Ironically, when looking Delta Clipper up at wikipedia to find a link for my previous sentence, it mentions the same thing.

      The really nice thing about powered landings are that they can be done in an airless environment. You can use the same design to get to orbit, refuel, then go to the moon, mars, asteroids, etc. Just start cranking them off the manufacturing line and putting a fleet in LEO and you're halfway to everywhere.

      --
      E pluribus unum
  2. Scaling Up? by dgillies · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Amazon vs. Armadillo for the next Lunar Lander Challenge at the X-Prize Cup? It sure looks Bezos has more than enough to create some meaningful competition. Seriously though - how much bigger is this vehicle going to get? The photos of it on the flatbed truck are awe inspiring...yet I can't imagine how much of that must simply be for fuel. The website's career section has a lot of talk on cryogenics, turbopumps, and Delta/Atlas sized rockets. It sounds like Bezos is going along the conventional routes for launch (erm just look at the name of the rocket - the New Shephard), and the H2O2 rockets being tested out now in the video are only retrorockets to be used during landing, in place of or in addition to parachutes. It'll be really interesting to see what a sub-orbital version looks like.

  3. Re:looks like fat DC-X by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yup. In fact, many of the engineers who worked on the DC-X are now at Blue Origin.

  4. A question about energy by rminsk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can understand vertical take off but why do a veritcal landing? It would seem it would need a lot of energy just to land meaning you need much more fuel. More fuel means more weight which means more energy to take off and to land. This would seem to make space flight more expensive not less expensive. The Space Shuttle and Space Ship One glided to a landing burning off the extra engergy with the lift (which is drag) from flight. The only advantage I see is a smaller landing area.

    1. Re:A question about energy by DigitalRaptor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree. Vertical is dumb for landing in a high gravity environment (earth bad, moon good).

      For that matter, tether this thing to a balloon, take it to high altitude and do a drop launch. High safety margin (if something goes wrong you have a long time to deploy shoots or dictate your will to a lawyer on the ground), much less fuel consumption.

      But, alas, not as glorious and sci-fi looking (the only two reasons I can think of for VTOL).

      --
      Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
    2. Re:A question about energy by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I can understand vertical take off but why do a veritcal landing?

      Vertical landing versus horizontal landing is one of those big debates. The argument for vertical landing, as I understand it, can be summed up as "airplanes are bad spaceships, and spaceships are bad airplanes." In other words, trying to make a ship do both means it's poor at both. Look at all the problems the Space Shuttle has with protecting the wings from damage, for example.

      Actually, I read an amusing quote from Bob Truax that said (paraphrase), "Insisting that spaceships land like airplanes makes as much sense as insisting a hundred years ago that airplanes should land on railroad tracks."

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  5. half right by everphilski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    H2O2 + a fuel. They are pretty secretive about what they do out on the ranch but that much is known from public filings. And no (to answer sibling post) this rocket isn't orbital although it may be the upper stage of an orbital craft (or just a technology testbed)

  6. Bezos hired some of the ex-DC-X people by everphilski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bezos hired some of the ex-DC-X people. Which explains the similarities.

  7. Re:Defrosters by JCondon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...or for better results see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

  8. 6 is better by cyclomedia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    with 4 legs if one fails the thing falls over. with 6 legs any two can fail and the thing will still remain upright, provided the weight is uniformly spread.

    Remember this is going to weigh a lot more than the lunar lander and will land on earth, with it's much stronger gravitational pull, both those factors multiply the stresses on the gear and even with services these are designed to be reused, microfactures will creep through and joints will stick

    --
    If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.