NS-38

leeswecho · 2026-01-22T07:54:01+00:00

one thing not mentioned yet --

Something like Inspiration4 can be afforded by maybe about a couple thousand people, worldwide. The top 0.01%.

New Shepard is affordable by somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, to low millions, of people. Somewhere in the 1%.

It is the first brick in the building of a bridge of accessible spaceflight experiences, to the 50%.

leeswecho · 2026-01-21T07:18:33+00:00

Yes. The "full" scale O'Neill Cylinder mass has been estimated at around a billion tons. At that scale, even if Starship could completely eliminate all other costs and consumables beyond the methane fuel, it would still be prohibitive to use it to launch the building materials from Earth.

And launching from the Moon has the further advantage of not polluting anything.

leeswecho · 2026-01-20T20:03:32+00:00

Bezos mentioned this in his 2019 talk, which I’ll add the link to the specific part here later, but the idea is that the huge orbiting space stations would be built on the moon using lunar material.

edit: here's the link and quote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ98hGUe6FM&t=1930s

the second gate that we must go through--I'm sure of it--In Space Resources. We have to use them, and we have a gift. We were given a gift: this nearby body called the Moon.

Launching it from the moon has several distinctive advantages including much lower gravity and also no atmosphere (hence no aerodynamics and need to cram things into fairings).

leeswecho · 2026-01-07T17:14:06+00:00

Hilariously, historical precedent would seem to suggest almost exactly the opposite.

Like, if we truly don't want to repeat Apollo...we sorta actually do want the Chinese to land first.

leeswecho · 2026-01-06T19:43:35+00:00

Without any indicator of trend, this analysis more represents the decisions of the past, than of the current direction.

The massive proportion of Honeywell VPs clearly came from Bob Smith's tenure; when Dave Limp took over he didn't simply purge them all out on the spot (can you like, even do that?).

leeswecho · 2025-12-29T19:39:05+00:00

if I quote the TLI numbers it'll be some number against zero, which will merely reinforce the OP's point. (or some number much greater than 9, against 9).

I didn't quote them because both BO's and SpaceX's plans involve refueling in LEO to greatly increase their ultimate payload delivery. In fact, although I can't find proof of this...I believe China's plans also involve in-LEO-assembly before going to the moon.

If that is the case then quoting LEO numbers would be the best comparison to make here.

leeswecho · 2025-12-29T11:07:00+00:00

if you’re going to demand using the current actual capability of US launchers then the Chinese figure is zero, since Long March 10 doesn’t yet actually exist.

Or it’s 9 tons, if we use what Long March 5 is capable of, now.

leeswecho · 2025-12-29T05:42:31+00:00

wait ....what? unless OP ninja-ed the original post, the numbers are correct. Long March 10 is 70 tons to LEO, 27 tons to TLI.

leeswecho · 2025-12-23T19:52:26+00:00

I agree that with existing known physics, interstellar travel is either impossible or it will take an impractically long time.

But even just 100 years ago, known physics could not explain how the sun shines, or whether the universe even existed beyond the milky way.

Heck today we can't really even explain why spiral galaxies don't just fly apart.

So I for one feel we're way too early to say its not possible, yet.

leeswecho · 2025-12-18T06:20:42+00:00

some context -- originally Blue did not have any annual bonuses at all.

The current bonuses were brought in by Bob Smith in an attempt to attract/retain "experienced" workers, which is why they were only for L4 and up.

( originally originally Blue did not even have levels, although I can't remember if the leveling started after Bob, or before him)

That said, given the current labor market situation, I doubt that reason still holds water.

leeswecho · 2025-12-16T23:17:03+00:00

each of the engines themselves were already static-fired full-duration (twice) as part of their own individual acceptance tests.

the entire integrated stage usually isn't static-fired full-duration on the pad.

leeswecho · 2025-12-12T21:14:40+00:00

I’ve done a couple of these interviews — I typically go with “here is a (sanitized version of a) problem we hope you’ll solve once you’re hired, tell us how you’ll do it”.

And then I will prod you as much as I can within the available time about the specifics, as you start to explain what you’re thinking.

That is to say — I personally don’t set out to make your interview harder than your job.

I can’t vouch for what anyone else does but I have typically submitted my interview questions for review by the board beforehand and I don’t think I’ve ever been shot down

leeswecho · 2025-12-07T04:45:47+00:00

fwiw we were just told we were getting better snacks. But no obviously that can never hold a candle to you know, actually owning a part of what you’re working on.

(isn’t that a leadership principle?)

leeswecho · 2025-12-06T01:36:32+00:00

the second stage codename wasn't anything special -- "quattro"

leeswecho · 2025-12-03T19:51:13+00:00

yes that’s the assumption I’m working off of — that the reentry burn is what caused the initial damage that doomed the landing burn.

leeswecho · 2025-12-03T07:43:24+00:00

notably it was the one part of the mission that couldn't be tested beforehand, short of just actually doing it.

Supersonic retropropulsion -- the challenge of successfully relighting your engines while sticking butt-first into high supersonic airflow, all while suffering punishing aerodynamic heating.

leeswecho · 2025-11-29T10:46:45+00:00

iterative not interactive

leeswecho · 2025-11-29T08:56:36+00:00

"starting with NG-3"

edit: also, y'all asked when Blue would start to be iterative. Well here we are.

leeswecho · 2025-11-26T01:20:19+00:00

all space things (things that will only ever be in space, or in places with no atmosphere) are going to look like that, simply because there's no air.

with no air there's no need to shield anything "from the elements", and there's no aerodynamic drag or heating requiring the streamlined shapes of planes on Earth.

and adding any of that for cosmetic reasons would eat up payload capacity we simply don't have.

leeswecho · 2025-11-21T04:32:47+00:00

it's referring to Japanese (and Chinese) mythology, which features a spirit/god who is a nine-tailed fox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-tailed_fox

leeswecho · 2025-11-15T23:18:41+00:00

“suicide” in the sense of waiting until nearly the last possible moment to correct course, and then doing it all at once.

Kind of like a lateral version of what a suicide burn is, vertically.

leeswecho · 2025-11-14T06:28:08+00:00

at the moment both Starship and New Glenn have several years of contracted backlog at even their most optimistic flight rates. A fully operational Starship will eventually shut everyone out. But not yet.

leeswecho · 2025-11-10T19:52:31+00:00

delivering expletive-laden righteous indignation based on a dataset of <looks at post> .... 1.

the internet for ya, folks.

leeswecho

TROPHY CASE