Well, everyone is talking about the New Years treat. Blue Origin finally lifts the curtain on its vehicle developments, with comments and pics from the Amazonmeister himself (note: probably not a permalink). John Carmack thinks that the vehicle is too big. Alan Boyle has more, having interviewed some of the Blue Origin folks.

I wonder where he's getting his high-test peroxide? Is he manufacturing it in Van Horn?

There's an interesting comment in Alan's post, with which I don't necessarily agree:

"In response to my inquiry about that, Hicks said, 'I just want to remind you that we said previously we didn't plan to comment one way or another about tests, whether they are scheduled, were scheduled, happened, didn't happen, etc.'"

How nice. I can only think that a philosophy like that makes it sooo simple to avoid telling the (potential ticket-buying) public about any screw-ups or failures of system unless forced to by public enquiry via legal means. What kind of public relations philosophy is that for a company that wants to throw and eager public into space and bring them back for mega bucks? Methinks I will not be trusting anyone with the Madison Avenue mentality trying to sell me rides into space. Even NASA kills people in the business of trying to expand our world and species into the universe. It's inherent in the technological challenges. The public has every right to know everything before stepping aboard Wobbly Flight 106 to nowhere in particular.

It's not clear what the best strategy is, from a marketing standpoint. Certainly Blue Origin has been the most secretive of all of the serious players in the business, at least to date. Whether this is for competitive reasons, or because of a fear of revealing failure to customers, isn't clear. It's also unclear why they decided to show their stuff now, after six years of circumspection (the most prevalent theory being that the secrecy was hampering their ability to get good employees, but I'm not sure that makes sense--secret government programs manage just fine).

Does Boeing invite the public to test flights of its airliners? Did the excitement of the "corkscrewing" of SS1 increase, or decrease the confidence of potential passengers? On the one hand, it was an unexpected (and no doubt would have been unpleasant for passengers, given how upset Melvill was about it) maneuver. On the other, he recovered, so it could serve as a demonstration of the safety and robustness of the system.

I think that it's less important to show every single flight test, than it is to demonstrate a long track record of public successful flights. The first passengers to fly on these vehicles will be less risk averse. As confidence builds with a series of safe flights, more will be confident enough to take their ride. I don't think that early prototype test flights will really be relevant, successful or otherwise.

Of course, the great thing is that, like technical approaches, it's not clear what the right marketing or flight test approaches are either. Now that we have a variety of entities working the problem, instead of a monolithic government agency, we'll find out what works best the way we always do ultimately--via the market.

I would go with the theory of publicity to increase prospects of good employees. Considering the head line is "Development Flight, and We are Hiring". We have had the discussion before that finding highly qualified engineers is difficult.

While a "corkscrewing" SS1 was exciting to enthusiasts, it was not comforting to people who build and design these things. Not to take anything away from the great progress made by Scaled Composites, but it wasn't exactly surprising that after capturing the X-prize, they went back to the drawing boards before loading passengers.

Going back a couple of posts, the newer generations look for changes and measurements of them to occur much faster. It use to be refered to as "instant gratification", but success is not necessarily as important as getting the knowledge; good or bad.

Now Bezos' team has a big test under their belt, and it seems really successful. Many things were validated, and that should eliminate some anxiety and frustration. That is very motivating.

I'm not going to speculate on the reasons for secrecy. I have some ideas why I would want secrecy over publicity, but I'm not a marketing guy.

Hey! The launch left no CRATER! It was FAKED!

"There's an interesting comment in Alan's post, with which I don't necessarily agree:"

You might want to be careful with your wording there. Boyle did not make the comment that you object to. It was made by somebody else. You should get the attribution right.

I didn't get the attribution wrong. I didn't say that Alan said it. I said that it was a comment in his post, just as yours is a comment in mine.

The first public test vehicle was Goddard... arg! I just realized that the "New Shepard" suborbital vehicle planned is actually an Alan Shepard reference. Or was that obvious all along and I'm just being dense?

"I said that it was a comment in his post,"

It's not a comment in his "post." It's a comment in his _blog._ He made a "post" in his own blog.

Why didn't you simply write that Don Boyer made the comment?

Err, you mean these comments aren't tied to this particular post?

Sure you're not thinking of a message board?

285 feet? Big deal, my ebay $10 battery powered helicopter goes higher than 285 feet!

Tell me when he breaks 100km.

...and when he does reach 100km, the inevitable cries will be "Big deal! Tell me when he reaches orbit."

Snarking is easy. Doing is hard.

This demonstrator produces a couple of solid
achievements.

1) it's a solid demo of the avionics GNC etc.

2) it shows their systems engineering process is sound.

3) it's a test of transport from Kent to Van Horn.

I will be curious to see if they can take this vehicle
supersonic, that would be a major accomplishment.

...and when he does reach 100km, the inevitable cries will be "Big deal! Tell me when he reaches orbit."
Snarking is easy. Doing is hard.

Mr Anonymous coward, a craft that only reaches 285ft is entirely useless as both a reusable sounding rocket and for carrying suborbital tourists. It is no better than a $10 ebay helicopter, which as I have mentioned above, I have indeed 'done'.

I see no indication that this little peroxide monopropellant powered toy has the mass fraction or can carry the structural load to get to the stratosphere, let alone space. Until he starts using real 'manly man' bipropellants like a certain other much more interesting and much more open hobbyist from the silicon valley tech community, I will continue to consider this no more impressive than a 4 foot hobby rocket or ebay helicopter.