Blue Origin Building DC-X Lookalike

rrohbeck writes "The New York Times is running an article on what Blue Origin (Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' space company) is up to after his Texas land grab. A couple of Flash videos show a short successful test hop of the 'Goddard' test vehicle. From the article: 'The Goddard has a science-fiction sleekness. Videos show the craft taking off and landing again with a loud whooshing sound. In one view, one of the nine rocket nozzles jitters as it maintains the ship's attitude. Goddard resembles the DC-X, another vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft under development in the 1990s by McDonnell Douglas for the Defense Department and NASA until the government pulled the plug.' And in case you're an aerospace engineer, they're hiring."

Comments

that's better

[macadamia_harold]

Videos show the craft taking off and landing again with a loud whooshing sound.

I suppose that's better than taking off and landing again with a crashing sound.

It made me think of...

[d3m0nCr4t]

Douglas Adams: "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." :D

Re:They're hiring?

[kfg]

I wonder what they pay?

Money.

KFG

Blue Origin Design

[amightywind]

Powered ascent and descent results in a craft that is 4 times more massive than one that would reach the same altitude but land using a ballistic reentry and a parachute. You would not see Burt Rutan embrace an inefficient design like that.

Next up for Blue Origin

[sokoban]

Building DC-9 Lookalikes, but with rocket engines in order to transport Thetans to Teegeeack in clusters (packaged by the thousands together), and thereafter drop them in two volcanic areas, one of which is Las Palmas, and the other Hawaii.

(The preceding joke is based upon the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, which make up a core belief in Scientology (OT III, Incident 2))