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

Re:slow on the uptake

[Bucc5062]

Actually, slashdot is true toform and dup'ing the news. This http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/0 3/2344241 was posted on Jan 3. Even repeated it is a cool story.

Re:slow on the uptake

[Thansal]

well, it is a dupe (and hey, the /. story is actualy earlier then the pythom one):
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/0 3/2344241

Not like DC-X

[J05H]

The Blue Origin's vehicle isn't anything like DC-X, except that they are both VTVL. The Goddard/New Shepard vehicles are axisymetric, base-first reentry and use hydrogen peroxide/kerosene. DC-X (and follow-ons) were biconic, used a side-first reentry with body flaps and were LOX/LH2 powered. Very different machines, both these test vehicles and any further versions. DC-X was based on the classified AMARV test article, the Goddard is more like the old "mega capsule" heavy lift concepts from the 60's and 70's, such as Boeing's LEO.

All the best to Bezos and Blue Origin! The flight video is excellent!

Josh

Re:Not like DC-X

[Rei]

1) People *always* say that on rocketry forums on Slashdot. It's a tradition.

2) Stored much easier? Apparently you've never dealt with high-test peroxide. It's not like the stuff you find in your medicine cabinet. Ask the crews of the Sidon and the Kursk what they think of this "easy" to store material.

3) Okay, lets pick one -- SS1. Budget ~25 million. Payload -- ~300kg to 100km. Per-launch cost undisclosed, but believed to be about half a million dollars. Lets compare this to, say, the SR-S sounding rocket: ~100kg to 200km, which should be a roughly equivalent challenge. Price: $95,000/launch (one launch to date). Total program budget at time of initial launch: $1.7 million (which developed and tested two scorpius designs, and initial work on the upcoming, larger variants). The entire Scorpius project (leading up to multiple orbital variants) is expected to be $20-25 million.

Yes, they didn't have to make it man-rated ("experimental" man-rated, that is ;) ). And if you want a sounding rocket with more launches under its belt, the development costs are generally several million more. But if you want to call projects like SS1 "shoestring budgets", I'm just going to laugh. Sounding rockets are trivial compared to orbital rockets. SS1 serves the same role as a payload-recovery sounding rocket. Don't expect "oohs" and "aahs" just because some companies add a cockpit/cabin and charge an arm and a leg for people to ride. Heck, for the price of a SS1 launch, you could launch twice the payload nearly to orbit on a Black Brant XII.

4) It was implied, and see #1.

5) See #1.

6) That's the thing: the space industry currently *is* run by corporations. While development is generally (but not always**) government subsidized, corporations usually (but not always**) bear the operating costs, compete for launch contracts, and gain the profit from the launches -- just like in any other industry.

** -- For example, the Orbital's Pegasus, SeaLaunch's Zenit, and SpaceX's Falcon.
*** -- For example, everyone's favorite punching bag, the Space Shuttle.

Re:Blue Origin Design

[UtilityFog]

It's not that simple. The basic design of the SSTO as a cone-shaped capsule uses ballistic re-entry. The powered landing needs only the delta-V of terminal velocity, not orbital. We're talking on the order of 100 m/s instead of 8000 (probably more like 10k if you account for air resistance on the way up).

good backgrounder: Harry Stine's Halfway to Anywhere.

Re:A little optomistic

[FleaPlus]

285 ft today, commercial sub orbital space in three years time. That doesn't sound like a deliberate pace, it sounds a bit rushed to me.

As another commenter mentioned, taking off and landing (which they've just demonstrated) are the most difficult parts of a launch. Additionally, SpaceShipOne went from starting full development in 2001, to their first test flight in 2003, to their first suborbital flight in 2004.

Re:Can't get to orbit that way

[rrohbeck]

Jerry Pournelle has some data that make it sound feasible.
A mass ratio of 17 (5.9% payload) with RL-10 engines doesn't sound too bad for a start.

Re:Can't get to orbit that way

[FleaPlus]

Of all of the possible uses of Nuclear power, using it to power a rocket out of the atmosphere is perhaps the last one I'd want to see actually implemented. It is hard to think of a better way of spreading radioactive particles all over a huge landscape, not to mention what happens when you crash.

I'm sure it'd be trivial compared to the spread of radioactive particles from coal power plants.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ colmain.html

Re:Makes sense

[Richard_at_work]

NASA flew the DC-X four times, with it being lost on the fourth flight. The US Airforce programme damanged the DC-X on its last flight with them and refused to spend funds on repairs, which was why NASA stepped in - they offered the funding to repair the vehicle and resume testing.