18 thoughts on “Blue Origin”

  1. I don’t remember seeing that oscillation on the previous capsule descents; was it perhaps a side effect of the dual instead of triple chutes?

    1. Remember that they aren’t dual chutes–they’re a simulation of a failure of one chute in a triple. I don’t have a clue whether that changes the loading on the capsule, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it amplified the oscillation when you put off-axis torque on the too-few chute configuration.

      1. I’m well aware of why they were coming down on two instead of three chutes; I didn’t think it needed to be reiterated here.

  3. Wow, that was amazing. Even more like we all pictured spaceflight is supposed to look. Of course I’m still waiting for the real SSTO ship that lands all in one piece, but this was great.
    No point in comparisons to SpaceX, of course, but I guess it is true that SpaceX pays a cost for piggybacking their reusability testing on actual missions: they are locked into the times and types of the missions. If they were just testing they might choose a very different sequence of flights.
    Course, they might go bankrupt that way, so no complaints. Exciting times.

    1. Before SpaceX did it a lot of people still considered propulsive landing on an orbital launcher not only an unsolved problem, but also a possibly unsolvable problem with current technology.

      1. IIRC, they were saying “impossible to take off and land vertically” before DC-X proved them wrong. The anti-resuable folks are always moving the goalposts, so the latest story is “yeah, it landed, but it will cost millions to refurbish. Just look at the Space Shuttle!”

        When SpaceX passes that goalpost, I’m sure the anti-reusable folks will come up with a new goal.

        1. Well, Blue Origin doesn’t seem to be expensive to refurbish, but then they aren’t doing a high-speed re-entry. I guess we’ll see: if re-entry does cause major obstacles (so far the major obstacle has been that you run out of fuel), that doesn’t mean you can’t engineer around them. First step was getting the chance to look at the returned boosters.
          SpaceX has an incredible advantage over Shuttle, that redesign of the Falcon seems to happen in months rather than decades.

          1. I am sure Blue Origin is keeping a keen eye on SpaceX’s efforts and will use their flights to engineer their orbital system large enough to accept the landing fraction from the start.

            Remember SpaceX orginally planned on parachute landings in the ocean for reuse. They had to innovate their existing rocket to pay for the landing hardware and fuel.

            Bezo can design his from the start to include that hit and will not have to stretch things later.

          2. One thing that would be very helpful to SpaceX is the ability to throttle further down. These suicide slam landings are neat, but unforgiving. Much nicer to be able to go to a hover and land gently.
            Would that be a very difficult thing for SpaceX to add?

  4. The bouncy drogue ride just helps marketing. Lots of people would pay money just for that part!

  5. What if Roton was used just to do what the New Shepard does. New Shepard wants to get to orbit, but say Rotary Rocket just had the goal to go Sub-orbital with it’s Roton rocket.
    And maybe the long term goal of Roton would sub-orbital travel- say up to 1000 km horizontal distance.

    But anyhow I like Blue Origin approach of doing a lot of tests with the sub-orbital hops. Also such experience can be translatable to getting off the Moon or Mars.

    1. I sometimes muse that the moon and mars were deliberately given their lower gravity to push us out of the nest. We could make a SSTO for either with current technology that would not work on earth.

      Of course if we build it on earth we still have to get it to LEO somehow.

      1. “Of course if we build it on earth we still have to get it to LEO somehow.”

        Another good reason to start on orbit manufacturing ASAP! Build it at EML-1. Use materials from 2016-HO3.

      2. You suppose there is a connection between the ability of a planet to retain an atmosphere and the difficulty of achieving the high propellant mass fraction required for a single-stage-to-orbit rocket?

        Something like the escape velocity being high in relation to the “tails” of the thermal velocity distribution that the atmosphere doesn’t “boil off” into space? Which makes the escape (or orbital) velocity multiples of the chemical rocket exhaust velocity? Which works against the rocket equation?

        And that worlds that allow SSTO are airless or have a thin atmosphere at a physiological space-equivalent-altitude requiring a pressure suit?

        1. Paul, you’re a wise alec 😉 but I do have a serious question for you. Why does venus, closer to the sun and less massive than earth, have such a thick atmosphere?

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