Blue Origin

[Deepwater6]

http://www.space.com/31202-blue-origin-historic-private-rocket-landing.html

 

http://www.space.com/31203-poll-would-you-ride-blue-origin-spaceship.html

 

 

 

I'm a die-hard space enthusiast and this event is a milestone for the industry. I was starting to have my doubts about us ever cost effectively recovering launched rockets after the Space X failures, but this gives us some hope. Even though it was only a suborbital flight, it did have to deal with strong crosswinds to land on the pad.

 

As enthused as I am I wouldn't be able to take a flight. I have several reasons for this hesitation.

 

1. The Virgin Galactic accident showed us all that the industry has a lot issues to work out before it's ready.

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/blame-catastrophic-blindspot-virgin-galactic-crash/

 

 

2. Airline passengers are fighting with each other now because a seat was reclined, can you imagine the stress they would be under for a space launch? A fist fight at suborbital altitudes because someone else got a better view for the money they laid down can't be good.

 

3. Cost, I wouldn't want to spend thousands of dollars for such a short flight.

 

Today's news is certainly a step in the right direction in bringing the cost down. The downside is, as this industry continues to grow the chances of mishaps and even more deaths are likely to rise. At some point it should get to a safety record similar to the airline industry hopefully, but IMHO we're nowhere near that now.

 

So my question is, if your long lost aunt you didn't know you had, left you a few hundred thousand that could only be used for a space flight, would you take it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CraigD]

So my question is, if your long lost aunt you didn't know you had, left you a few hundred thousand that could only be used for a space flight, would you take it?

Without hesitation I would.

 

Which would you choose?

• A guaranteed short, suborbital flight like Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship 2 or Blue Origin’s New Shepard, or the uncertain possibility of long, true orbital flight, such as on a Soyuz.
• A flight on a Spaceship 2 or New Shepard or a few dozen 25 second periods of weightlessness a Zero-G 727 (AKA a vomit comet)

I was starting to have my doubts about us ever cost effectively recovering launched rockets after the Space X failures, but this [today’s successful Blue Origin New Shepherd return flight] gives us some hope.

Blue Origin has a place in history for the first successful return and soft landing of a rocket booster after a full-speed flight, but I think it’s important to emphasize the difference between the single stage suborbital New Shepard and a Falcon 9 1st stage.

A Falcon 9 1st stage engine cutoff (MECO) is at +0:02:37, 80 km altitude, speed mach 10.

A New Shepherd’s is at +0:01:50, 40 km, mach 3.7.

 

The Falcon 9 is a much larger and higher performance rocket than the New Shepherd.

 

I’m optimistic that SpaceX will successfully land a Falcon 9 1st stage soon – the 24 Apr 2015 crash appears to me to have been nearly a successful landing.

 

I don’t know the status of the planned deorbit and landing of the 2nd stage.

 

The Virgin Galactic accident showed us all that the industry has a lot issues to work out before it's ready.

:thumbs_up I think it’s important to note that the 2014 loss of VSS Enterprise and death of one of its two test pilots was due to pilot error, not an engineering failure.

 

From the linked article, I’m hopeful that Virgin Galactic has made major changes in the “keep it simple” philosophy that made so many critical actions the un-automated responsibility of the pilots, a philosophy apparently inherited from Scaled Composites. While this philosophy served Scaled well in its many successful, record-setting projects, and was appropriate for an experimental aircraft maker, I agree with the accident investigators’ conclusion that it’s not for a planned space tourism business. Scaled and Virgin seem to be establishing a more appropriate relationship, reducing Scaled’s responsibilities to engineering, with Virgin taking over operations and safety.

 

 

 

Airline passengers are fighting with each other now because a seat was reclined, can you imagine the stress they would be under for a space launch? A fist fight at suborbital altitudes because someone else got a better view for the money they laid down can't be good.

Spaceship 2 and New Shepherd plan to screen and train their customers, more like the Russian space tourism program than a commercial airline. A fist fight among these vehicles’ 6 space trourist passengers is as unlikely, I think, as one among the astronaut and mission specialists crew of an ISS expedition.

 

My main misgivings about Spaceship 2 and New Shepherd are that they are, essentially, gimmicks for the amusement of rich people, not systems that could be scaled up in size and performance to equal the capacity of the retired 1970s Space Shuttle. They are certainly much less expensive than any orbital spacecraft, but this is for the most part because they are sub-orbital. They are less expensive because they are less capable.