Slashdot Mirror
Blue Origin "New Shepherd" Makes It To Space... and Back Again (arstechnica.com)
Geoffrey.landis writes: Blue Origin's "New Shepherd" suborbital vehicle made its first flight into space (defined as 100 km altitude)... and successfully landed both the capsule (by parachute) and the booster rocket (vertical landing under rocket power). This is the first time that a vehicle has made it into space and had all components fully recovered for reuse since the NASA flights of the X-15 in the 1960s. Check out the videos at various places on the web.
Flights that just pop up to the Karman line and back down are virtually nothing like flights that actually go to orbit. Even the X-15, which actually reached a quarter of orbital velocity, was far more like an orbital flight than a straight up/down jaunt.
The Karman line is only 1/3rd to 1/4 of the way to proper orbital altitude. And the energy required to achieve orbital altitude is only a tiny fraction of that required to reach orbital velocity. And the rocket equation means that the faster you want to go, the exponentially more mass it takes. These little up-down jaunts do nothing except to confuse the general public into thinking that they're doing something similar to orbital spaceflight.
I hate to bring up our imminent arrest during your crazy time, but we gotta move.
At least we didn't need to cue the people who don't know the difference between cue and queue.
Billy (age 5): Look, Mommy, I writed a symphony!
Mom: Wrote, not writed, idiot. Let me see that. Harumph! This is barely a sonata. And no one writes for harpsichord anymore!
Billy: I wrote it for you! It's pretty, like you are!
Mom: Pandering, now? Disgusting. And I guess I would have been impressed, if Mozart hadn't beat you to it, by, oh, like, two hundred years!
Going to space vs getting to orbit
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Did they land it on a barge?
No they did not land it on a barge.
Did they land it at sea?
No they did not land it at sea.
Blue Origin did not do these things I see.
So not as difficult can they be.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Weren't both the White Knight and SpaceShipOne fully recovered for reuse? Wasn't that the point of the X-prize (and doing it twice in two weeks)?
links: SpaceShipOne and X-Prize.
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
Their design was kind of problematic. People naturally gravitate towards polybutadiene because of its use as a binder in solid rockets. But hybrids are not solids. Hybrids are great in most regards except for generally pathetic burn rates. Rather than consider other fuels, SS1 just used a typical solid rocket binder. One can compensate for the low burn rate, of course - usually by trying to increase the area by making many, smaller channels - this they did. But the more your propellant looks like swiss cheese, the more likely you are to have chunks break off as the rocket burns down. Which is exactly what happened on one flight, they had such a loud bang during the strike that the pilot thought his engine had exploded.
The proper solution is pointed to by research. Rather than polybutadiene the propellant should be something like paraffin or polyethylene. They melt at lower temperatures and become very fluid. The combustion basically whips up a "spray" off of the surface, making for very rapid combustion. With rapid combustion you don't have to "swiss cheeseify" your propellant. The polyethylene and the high melting point paraffins also are very strong and stable at room temperature.
I hate to bring up our imminent arrest during your crazy time, but we gotta move.