14 thoughts on “FAA Conference Notes”

1. Blue Origin doing a capsule for the EELV sounds like a major change of their business model of a VTVL SSTO. This is interesting.

2. They could be just seizing a near-term opportunity. It doesn’t mean they’ve given up on the longer-term goal or plans.

3. I don’t see it as a departure from their business model so much as an interim step that makes a lot of sense. It would give them experience with manned orbital development that would addd credibility to any future manned system they might develop. It’s a nice oasis that makes their trip across the revenue desert between suborbital and orbital manned launch easier.

4. I thought I read something last week about Blue Origin working on a new launch escape motor that pushes instead of pulls the capsule from the booster. It sounds like an interesting idea that might eliminate some failure modes. If it were liquid fueled (a first for LES), it might be designed to use the service module fuel in a one shot high thrust engine or something like that. If it were a pusher solid, then you’ve just added to the mass that you have to carry all the way to orbit.

5. Blue Origin doing a capsule for the EELV sounds like a major change of their business model of a VTVL SSTO.

   Where did you get the “SSTO” part from, has BO ever stated that they are working on one ? I dont think they have.

6. Reader,

   Blue Origins never states much beyond what is required on regulatory filings, their choice, but they appeared to have been following the DC-X approach to Orbital via Suborbital which was VTVL SSTO. They have also avoided government funding and the publicity it brings in the past, so the idea of building a capsule for an EELV for NASA’s commercial crew appears to be a major departure from past behavior.

7. No, thats pure speculation. Flying VTVL vehicles does not mean they plan on doing SSTO. It can easily be TSTO or any other configuration.

8. Reader,

   When a firm is as secretive as Blue Origin all you have is speculation on what their plans are as this article noted.

   http://www.thespacereview.com/article/959/1

   [[[That leaves us with lots of room to speculate about what they are up to. The shape of the Goddard vehicle reminds many old space hands of the original Max Hunter SSX design from the late 1980s. He laid out some of the details in his classic paper “SSX – Design for Flight Safety” which paved the way for the engineering philosophy behind the DC-X Delta Clipper.]]]

   and

   [[[But why all the secrecy if that is all there is to it? Why build a craft that can almost reach orbit unless, eventually, one wants to go all the way? So are we going to see a New Shepard 2? Will it be single stage to orbit (SSTO) or will it need two stages? Will it use plug aerospike engines or something more conventional?]]]

   Which is why going for a government contract with a capsule on EELV is so out of character for them. Once you take NASA dollars the tax payers supplying them tend to want to know what they are getting for their dollars. Blue Origin’s move also leads to further speculation on what happened to cause what appears to outsiders to be a major shift in direction.

   And what does it mean for the sub-orbital tourist plans? Are they moving forward there? or have they dropped them for some reason like lack of demand? or some technology issues? Funding?

   Then again maybe their confidential plan all along was simply to use an EELV to go to orbit….

   Or it may simply be a case of Blue Origin feeling that if NASA is going to start paying for their competitors to develop commercial human orbital spacecraft they might as well line up for the handouts as well… This is one of the problems with government funding, once you give it to one firm you really need to give it to all of them to keep the playing field level.

   Who knows, when a firm is in stealth mode its all speculation like in the days of the old Soviet space program…

   It looks like an interesting 2-3 years.

9. Hi All,

   I keeping hearing folks like Lori Garver talk about budget increases for NASA, but from what I have seen almost all of the increase is going to climate monitoring satellites. Are there any good Apples to Apples figures on how much NASA human space flight effort is getting over the next 5 years relative to the last 5 years?

10. Chinese SSTO?

11. Garver citing Aldrich (sic) Commission findings.

    That is excellent. No reason to toss away a lot of smart work. The Aldridge Commission deliverable, Report of the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, had a phenomenal period of public input and had a good approach to open up the Solar System for human expansion.

12. John, after skimming through the Aldrige Report, it’s pretty amazing how similar their recommendations are to NASA’s new plans (and how dissimilar they are to Constellation).

13. Lori was fantastic. Made a good conference really great. Amazingly, the only grumble I heard during her talk was from a NASA person…

14. By the way, Charles Miller also gave a wonderful talk the day before the conference — it was quite amazing, in fact. One of the things people should realize is that NASA had only 48 hours notice prior to the budget rollout that Ares/Orion/Constellation were ALL canceled. To blame them for not having a coherent plan for manned spaceflight for all eternity is very unfair.

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