Slashdot Mirror
Blue Origin Lands Rocket During Launch Escape Test (gizmodo.com)
SpaceX isn't the only private company interested in reusable rockets. Blue Origin, an American privately-funded aerospace manufacturer established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, surprised everyone, including itself, by successfully landing its New Shepard rocket in today's in-flight launch escape test. Gizmodo reports: Moments ago, Blue Origin conducted an in flight test of its launch escape system, separating a crew capsule from its New Shepard booster at an altitude of 16,000 feet. This test was critical to ensure that the rocket will be safe for human passengers, whom Blue Origin hopes to start flying into sub-orbital space as early as next year. Not only did the crew capsule make a clean separation, deploy its parachutes, and land softly in a small cloud of dust back on Earth, but the booster -- which everybody expected to go splat -- continued on its merry way into suborbital space, after which it succeeded in landing smoothly back on Earth for a fifth time. Although Blue Origin has tested its launch escape system on the launchpad before, this is the first time such a system has been tested, by anyone, in flight since the 1960s. It was almost too perfect. You can watch the test here.
Given that Blue Origin are still yet to actually reach space, i'd say it's still their move...
They are not a competition for SpaceX since SpaceX does not do suborbital flights.
Blue Origin's actual competition is Virgin Galactic, which is also trying to get paying passengers on 15-minute suborbital flights.
The difference between a suborbital and an orbital flight is like the difference between a Schwinn bicycle and a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
You don't have to be in orbit to be in space. That was never part of the definition. The standard definition is passing the Karman line - which is between 90 and 100km above earth (depending on where you launch from and the air pressures - but generally by convention assumed to be 100km or above). That's being in space. The next definition is leaving the atmosphere - again the boundary is not perfectly clearly defined but generally taken as being above 150km.
Those are "in space" the difference between orbital and suborbital is how long you can *stay* in space. Suborbital comes right back - but it's a *lot* cheaper to do (you need a lot less horizontal velocity). It has it's uses too - it's a very fast way to get very long distances. ICBMs are frequently designed for suborbital trajectories for example.
But orbit is another beast altogether - that's not just going to space but staying there for an extended period, it takes a lot more fuel - which means a much heavier rocket, meaning more powerful boosters and more complicated stages. That's what SpaceX is doing. They are working on the harder of the two. B.O. is working on the easier one - both are making great strides in their games, but they are not playing the same sport. They are merely similar sports - it's like asking who was better Babe Ruth or Peter Pollock. Both are absolute legends in games that involve hitting a hard ball thrown at you away with a stick -but it's not the same game, it isn't scored the same and you can't compare them directly.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
No, they're not.
But those who don't know the difference between what Blue Origin is trying to do and what SpaceX is already capable of are idiots.
He probably thinks that getting a rocket in to a stable orbit, delivering long term useful cargo, and then landing on a moving barge in the ocean is a LOT harder than shooting a rocket practically straight up and coming right back down to land.
I think I agree with him.