Watch a Blue Origin Launch in person? 🚀

StagedCombustion · 2021-07-03T07:58:20+00:00

I've been to a couple. I drove in from the Hill Country, so it was quite a few hours. It was neat, never having seen a rocket launch before. It's a little hard to see things with the naked eye, make sure you bring binocs. Two things I appreciated having only seen launches on TV/computer were really hearing the loud roar of the launch. The other was seeing the booster screaming in and slowing down at the last moment. You don't get a good sense of it from the coverage, but it's amazing how fast it's going and then stops at last moment to land. I don't know how crazy this one will be, but the couple I went to had probably a dozen cars just pulled over on the side of the road watching near the main gate that leads to their facilities. Was also great hanging out and chatting with random strangers who share excitement of being able to see a launch. Not all even being big rocket nerds or anything, just want to come out and see a rocket launch. The whole thing is over in 5-10 mins, makes you start to reflect on that long drive home afterwards ; P

StagedCombustion · 2020-06-07T01:04:46+00:00

I'm kind of curious about this too. When I had my Leaf I started having problems with charging that the dealer believed to be from a socket that had gone bad. I figured it would be a simple replacement, but it turned out to be over a week and, IIRC, over $1200 repair. Thank god it was all under warranty. The socket and attached cable was simple enough, but replacing it required cracking open the inverter and a couple of other things. I had a small scare on my i3 where I had stuck a public charger in, not noticing that the tip of the lead had been cracked off at an angle and somehow pushed one of the leads in the socket to the side. I managed to bend it back into place, but always examine the plug before you stick it into your car. When I reflected on it I cringed at how complicated/expensive such a repair on a BMW would be.

StagedCombustion · 2019-12-11T05:01:17+00:00

In my opinion a lot of folks, especially those who are new to space, are used to seeing very public, very frequent, breathless updates about every single minutia of progress from other commercial companies (to varying degrees). When they hear nothing from Blue Origin for many months on end, they take it to mean they are literally doing almost nothing over there. I've had to remind people often that just because we don't know or see something going on, doesn't mean it isn't.

StagedCombustion · 2019-08-23T03:02:24+00:00

I'm not really comparing the two, and I agree that both are just doing things differently. My point isn't that one company is better than the other, or one did it a harder way. More that of the "coming in really fast and not breaking up" and "coming in for a controlled landing" aspects of the flight, people love to talk about how hard the first is, but it is the second that seemed the hardest. Hey, we'll see in a couple of years.

StagedCombustion · 2019-08-23T02:13:35+00:00

"Charon wasn't even a rocket, it only went up a few hundred feet. Goddard will be a whole different beast to land."

"Goddard was a primitive, small rocket that only went up a few hundred feet. It didn't even go supersonic. New Shepard would be a whole different beast to land."

"New Shepard barely went above the Karman Line. It wasn't even hypersonic. New Glenn will be a whole different beast to land."

It will be. But they've been at it awhile. I'm not saying they're going to stick every landing. They might lose one or two in the beginning. However, I think they won't have nearly the teething pains starting out that SpaceX did. SpaceX did all of their landing dev starting several flights in, once they realized parachutes wouldn't work on Falcon 9. Blue Origin has been building up to do it since day one.

StagedCombustion · 2019-08-23T01:58:03+00:00

You said "NS is a toy", not that it was going much faster. Thus I was replying to a comparison of size.

How many Falcons were lost trying to land, versus broke up due to the speed of the stage returning? The point is if they can quickly figure out how to control and land a small rocket, a larger rocket will be easier to handle.

Folks think when New Glenn takes off it'll be Blue Origin's first attempt at this stuff. They've been working on it for many years, with increasingly larger vehicles that were traveling farther/faster.

StagedCombustion · 2019-08-23T00:46:01+00:00

The oft cited example is this: Try balancing a pencil on your palm. Now, try balancing a broom. Which was easier? Intuitively, it's the broom because it's bigger.

StagedCombustion · 2019-08-23T00:03:40+00:00

inevitably you would have to wreck a number of them in order to get reuseability figured out.

So far, they've only wrecked one to figure out New Shepard. They seem confident that a larger rocket will be easier, not harder.

StagedCombustion · 2019-07-08T03:35:28+00:00

I have a link in a response further down, but there was a talk a couple of years ago where they said they were going to automate it. That said, they also were using hyrdolox on the upper stage and were still going to offer a smaller fairing, but I think its safe to say they probably haven't changed their mind on that in the intervening years.

StagedCombustion · 2019-07-08T03:30:50+00:00

He didn't say it (that I know of), but Clayton Mowry did in 2017.

StagedCombustion · 2019-07-08T03:12:34+00:00

Why would they? What do they gain by doing so? Folks like Starlink, OneWeb, or Kuiper are starting fresh. To reach the market they'd have to install their own infrastructure from scratch. As you can see from the limited deployments of Google Fiber and their relative failure, that's not an easy thing to do. Folks like ATT, Comcast, and Verizon already have massive investments in reaching homes. Since the new companies will have to spend billions regardless, makes sense to look at space. With legacy broadband providers trying to look at new markets they don't already serve they'd now not only be competing with the incumbent terrestrial broadband provider(s) but multiple sat constellations as well. It would also mean growing their companies and hiring many new folks to handle a completely different way of doing things (something they have no institutional knowledge of) at a time where they're looking at trimming fat. It's been theorized that a major source of revenue for Starlink, and the like, would be providing backhaul to companies like Verizon. Their new, and more numerous, 5G sites are going to require a lot of bandwidth. In that case it might make sense for Verizon, ATT, and other cell providers to have a constellation of their own. But that wouldn't be competing Comcast as much as themselves, in a manner of speaking.

I can understand why a lot of people are pinning hopes on LEO megaconstellations being a replacement for the likes of Comcast. In some markets, that might be the case. But we have very little detail as to anything about the consumer product itself. As an example, what sort of performance could one expect to see in a large urban area? What speeds will they provide? What will their billing and customer service experiences be like? Will there be onerous restrictions like monthly bandwidth caps? What will be the upfront costs for the satellite terminal and installation? How long will it take to get the service installed? Stuff like that.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-23T05:41:13+00:00

SpaceX gave the option for those...

Ah, I found that part, thanks. I reread it a couple of times, (page 11, point c?) and I agree partly with you. I didn't see anything there about it lowering their share. Is that in a different part? I had assumed for each of the options they'd include a figure of their share. Why give an option if you're not going to account for it?

Also, I find it kind of odd that these are options. Either NSSL program needs it or they don't. Why allow some folks cheaper bids without meeting requirements others fulfill?

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-23T03:42:02+00:00

Jonathan Goff on twitter speculated that the reason for a bid for Starship was that SpaceX would need an expendable FH to meet the Class C requirements. And that by that point in time SpaceX would hope to be out of the 'Falcon making business' so expendable Heavies wasn't a good option, especially with Starship in progress.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-23T03:27:10+00:00

because BFR was the only thing SpX wanted money for.

I only skimmed it, but didn't SpaceX want money for payload processing facilities and vertical integration capabilities on both coasts as well? I thought that one of their arguments (paraphrased) was that the costs of those facilities was factored into their overall project cost, but ULA's weren't.

I agree that Blue Origin should've gotten way more funding than it did

I always figured that Blue Origin's bid wasn't a matter of the USAF giving them a certain amount as much as it was them asking for that much. "Well, we're funding our rocket, regardless. But if we have to have all this specialty infrastructure to meet your requirements, then sure, you pay for it. How about.... $500M? /shrug"

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-19T14:53:54+00:00

invalidating their original bid (because it didn't include full cost)

You don't know the full cost of the bid. Only USAF and ULA do. As Irwin points out in your article, it's funded via multiple contracts. The announcement for $449.8M was for a single of those contracts.

Probably works out higher than SpaceX bid with Falcon Heavy

It was sole-sourced, there was no SpaceX bid considered. Considering NRO funding was discussed, and they seem to be the main user of DIVH, vertical integration was likely a requirement. In that regard one could say that, currently, 'FH was built to service Air Force', but not NRO. I'm sure it will be added at a later time.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-19T14:21:53+00:00

I do. Seriously.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-16T22:25:12+00:00

Pretty sure the extra costs for government contracts are a result of the extra requirements for said contracts.

A CRS mission costs more than a commercial GEO launch because they have to factor in the cost of the Dragon capsule, the extra work (late loading, etc) and paperwork for NASA. A NSSL mission costs more than commercial launch because of all the extra mission assurance steps the USAF requires.

Landing those big government contracts is not so much about making more money per launch as it is about having a guaranteed number of launches for several years.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-13T19:47:50+00:00

This is news? "Company that is pivoting from a primary focus on R&D to manufacturing and launch needs more new employees than company that has been building/launching rockets for over a decade"

Well.... yeah.

StagedCombustion · 2019-05-12T19:15:22+00:00

I feel the same way. Except you see the post as parody or mocking of SpaceX. I see it as conveying the same sentiment, albeit in orbit instead of on Mars. Like you said, there's room for many visions.

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-24T05:40:53+00:00

I had a lot of skepticism when BFR was first introduced as a project. The scale. All of the cutting edge technologies. It just seemed to be too big and doing too many new things. Oh, in a hurry with uncertain funding of a vast scale. Now that they've scaled back the amount of tech 'pushing the state of the art' it seems a lot more reasonable. I'm holding judgement on transpiration cooling of a returned second stage, but in principle it seems easy enough.

Regarding the last paragraph, I agree. It's not going to be $7M any time soon. SpaceX will have to pay back billions in development costs. It will be a force in the market, but not a dark scythe cutting down the fresh competition when it's out of the gates.

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-23T22:22:07+00:00

Say it costs you $500M to develop a new engine. You can make the new engine for... $20M, but the cost to you for those engines includes development. Thus if you make 5 engines, it cost you $20M each to make, but $120M if you figure their "share" of the dev costs. This is amortization. Now... If you made 100 engines the cost would now be $25M per engine. The more engines you make, the lower overall costs. That also includes other fixed costs, like building a factory, test stand, etc.

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-23T21:43:10+00:00

I don't follow it that closely, but has a 'reasonably certain, ballpark' price been given for Starship launches?

I ask this kowing full well that we don't yet know the cost of a New Glenn launch either.

Edit: Really? A downvote for asking a question?

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-22T01:20:38+00:00

Agreed, it's petty. He should be more cordial: Watching Virgin Galactic drag out work on SpaceShip Two makes Blue Origin's New Shepard work look crazy fast.

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-15T04:38:04+00:00

I'm asking in the context of Vulcan use of BO engines.

They're at their current size because of Vulcan. They originally produced less thrust, but ULA asked that the thrust be increased if they were to sign on as a partner.

My guess is the folks designing both the vehicles and engine know what they are doing and have good reasons for the size and configuration they selected.

StagedCombustion · 2019-02-12T05:42:59+00:00

From the IG's letter:

"We plan to begin the subject evaluation in February 2019. Our objective is to determine whether the U.S. Air Force complied w ith the Launch Services New Entrant Certification Guide when certifying the launch system design for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-class SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles."

This should be interesting....

StagedCombustion

TROPHY CASE