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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."
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.
What, you mean $20 million a person isn't low enough?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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."
I want to see the video of the crayola sponsored craft with the four rockets in the corners being launched.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Yup. In fact, many of the engineers who worked on the DC-X are now at Blue Origin.
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 Environmental Impact Statement they were required to publish last year describing their suborbital vehicle says that the "stacked vehicle would have a roughly conical shape with a base diameter of approximately 7 meters (22 feet) and a height of approximately 15 meters (50 feet)."
Judging from the photograph with the guy standing next to the rocket, the current test article seems to be maybe 6-7 meters tall, so I guess the final thing will be more than twice as tall.
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.