
Blue Origin: Images and Videos from Our First Flight - smackfu
https://www.blueorigin.com/news/multimedia/images-and-videos-from-our-first-flight
======
JanSolo
Finally something concrete from these guys! They've been working for over 10
years on this and shown almost nothing.

The capsule looks nice; big curved windows and no RCS thrusters tell us that
this is not an orbital capsule.

The 1st Stage reuse concept is interesting; the ducting near the capsule
connector is quite novel. There are 8 large spoilers that protrude into the
airflow to help slow descent. I wonder if these can be modulated to give some
kind of stability control?

It's interesting to note that although the capsule landed successfully, they
make no mention of what happened to the launcher. I presume that it failed to
land, but I didn't see any smoking wreckage in the background of the capsule
landing video, so maybe it made it down in 1 piece? I'm sure they would have
told us if it had.

Anyway, a good day for the US space industry; Blue Origin finally have
something cool to show and have proved that they're not just purveyors of
vaporware. I'm looking forward to seeing what else they can come up with.

~~~
sqeaky
As as you mentioned RCS thrusters I thought, "but reaction wheels are cheaper
and don't require fuel, for all but the largest vehicles they are not needed",
then I realized this was real life and not Kerbal Space Program.

~~~
wl
RCS is essential for docking.

~~~
sqeaky
Helpful, not essential. If you are willing to use smaller engines or can be
careful with the throttle (and throttle shutoff) on larger engines you can
dock plenty of smaller ships.

I wouldn't want to try it with something with a 180 degree turn time of 30+
seconds.

I wonder if any of this is true in real life? Doesn't a spaghetti rocket just
explode in real life?

~~~
mey
Rocket restart is harder in real life than in KSP. Typically a rocket is
designed to be started a limited number of times, this is where RCS fills the
gap.

~~~
sqeaky
That is fascinating. Why is that the case?

Is it simply easier to build something disposable? Or are there fundamental
restrictions like the inability to stop a solid rocket motor?

~~~
mikeash
In addition to the other replies, there's also the problem of simply igniting
the flame. For example, a Falcon 9 uses kerosene and liquid oxygen, which burn
real nice when ignited, but won't do anything if you just mix them together
and let them sit. Just like lighting a stove, you need something to get the
process going. With a Falcon 9, this is done by injecting a small charge of
two chemicals called TEA and TEB. They're hypergolic with each other, meaning
they ignite on contact. This then starts the combustion of the actual
propellants. The amount of TEA and TEB carried on board is limited, so you can
only restart a certain number of times.

Using hypergolic propellants solves this problem. The trouble is that
hypergolic propellants are inherently dangerous (they'll explode if they come
in contact, that's the whole point) and are typically highly toxic. They're OK
in small quantities, thus they show up in RCS systems, but making an entire
orbital launcher using hypergolic propellants is a massive pain. It has been
done, but the result tends to be more explodey than usual.

~~~
JanSolo
> but making an entire orbital launcher using hypergolic propellants is a
> massive pain.

I think Russia might disagree with you. Wikipedia describes the Proton
launcher as "one of the most successful heavy boosters in the history of
spaceflight."

Proton:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(rocket_family)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_\(rocket_family\))

~~~
mikeash
It can work well, but I bet the folks who have to handle the propellant would
still say it's a massive pain.

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ChuckMcM
Ok, that 307,000' landing looked a bit painful (pretty big whumph at the end
there) of course it hits the ground at 16mph if I did the conversion from 24
fps correctly.

But the really really odd thing for me is listening to the callout in feet and
feet per second rather than meters and meters per second. I've gotten quite
used to velocity in particular being called out in m/s.

I wish they were a bit more open with the progress they were making.

~~~
JanSolo
Their website says that they employ solid landing rockets just before
touchdown, similar to the Soyuz. The 'big whumph' is probably just dust kicked
up by these rockets.

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smackfu
FYI, this particular cute little rocket is aimed at space tourism. Sub-orbital
flights only, to just above the Kármán line.

~~~
jessaustin
_Sub-orbital flights only, to just above the Kármán line._

This seems to be ideal for transport as well? That is, if we're trying to get
from Tokyo to NYC quickly, we never want to actually go into orbit, do we?

~~~
DavidSJ
A suborbital trajectory is an ellipse that intersects the ground, and it will
do so twice within less than half the world's circumference. If you can make
it halfway around the world, you're orbital.

New York to Tokyo is nearly half that circumference, so the energy required is
nearly that of orbit.

~~~
jessaustin
_A suborbital trajectory is an ellipse that intersects the ground, and it will
do so twice within less than half the world 's circumference. If you can make
it halfway around the world, you're orbital._

My experiments with Flappy Space Program contradict this. b^) It is perfectly
possible to miss orbit even after a complete circumnavigation. Trajectories
are shaped like parabolas, not ellipses.

 _New York to Tokyo is nearly half that circumference, so the energy required
is nearly that of orbit._

Well it's more like a quarter, but even if it were half it would take
significantly less energy than orbit.

~~~
DavidSJ
> It is perfectly possible to miss orbit even after a complete
> circumnavigation.

Yes, if you have a source of lift, and you're within the atmosphere, then you
can circumnavigate the globe without reaching orbital velocities. A ballistic
rocket generally has no significant source of lift and spends nearly all of
its time in space.

> Trajectories are shaped like parabolas, not ellipses.

All orbits are conic sections: either an ellipse, hyperbola, or a parabola
(the limiting case between the two). But a parabolic or hyperbolic trajectory
has escape velocity, whereas only an elliptic trajectory is planet-bound. The
apogee of the ellipse is locally approximated well by a parabola, which is why
for _non-orbital_ mechanics ballistic trajectories are often modeled by a
parabola, but all suborbital trajectories are actually ellipses, not
parabolas. If the Earth were flat and the gravity vector were constant, then
they would be actual parabolas.

Orbital mechanics is very counterintuitive. I recommend _Fundamentals of
Astrodynamics_ if you'd like to learn more, or play KSP rather than FSP.

> Well it's more like a quarter

On this you are correct, the map I looked at deceived me. :)

~~~
jessaustin
OK, thanks for the knowledge. Given all that, and the fact that there are
several ICBMs with ranges longer than Tokyo-NYC, I still suspect that the
speed-energy-distance combination will eventually work out for some segment of
the travelling public.

~~~
DavidSJ
Yes, but even one quarter the way around the world turns out to be very close
to orbital energy, because your delta-distance per delta-v increases rapidly
as you increase energy. Nearly all ICBMs are multi-stage rockets for this
reason. Vehicles designed for suborbital tourism like Spaceship Two, Lynx, and
New Shepard aren't traveling more than a couple hundred km without a second
stage.

Math:

Reaching the edge of space requires 100 km altitude, or 1,000,000 m^2/s^2 of
specific energy, which is 1,414 m/s velocity. Redirect that to a 45° angle and
you have 1,000 m/s in both the vertical and horizontal direction, which comes
close to maximizing your distance. That gives you 200 seconds of flight, which
puts you 200 km downrange.

------
javert
Love seeing that American flag on the side of American spacecraft. This is
truly a land of freedom, technological innovation, and unprecedented human
happiness.

A few people alive today have forgotten that, but most people alive today have
never known it.

edit: HN, I just typed a long response to a comment below but can't post it
becuase I'm "submitting too fast." Cut the crap and tell me about that
_before_ I write a long comment.

~~~
ISL
Most Americans take our assets and advantages for granted, as we've not known
anything else.

There are a number of good places to live in the world, and the United States
is one of them.

~~~
kolev
You really think so? I personally think the US is going downhill recently with
the violation of basic human rights (NSA, police brutality, arm-twisting to
please minorities, etc.) Corporate interest (Monsanto, fracking, military
complex, law firms, etc.) is above people's, conflicts are still stirred
around the globe and military aggression is still ongoing. Innocent people are
killed by drones abroad and others labeled as "terrorists" assassinated
without trials. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are allies. UN is often ignored. Cold
War 2.0 is being brewed as 1.0 was fun and profit. As a First World country
with such bold claims, many basics need to be taken care of before this
baseless patriotism.

My hopes were in Ron Paul, but this great American will never be let make the
much-needed changes to truly justify the "democracy" label!

~~~
adventured
Police brutality has gone down significantly over 40 years. The rate at which
police kill black people has dropped by between 50% and 75% over 40 years,
depending on the age group. The rate of police killing all other races, hasn't
changed in 40 years (as in, it hasn't gotten any worse).

What you're seeing are actions by the police that would have previously gone
unreported, or otherwise not been widely exposed to a large population via eg
social media.

Obviously the NSA reference is spot on. As would have been a point about
incarceration and SWAT deployments.

It's also worth noting that the war on drugs is finally beginning to end. That
is an improvement, and will lead to less police brutality almost by default as
pot is fully legalized across the US, and other drugs start to be de-
criminalized in favor of treatment.

Corporations are far more regulated and controlled today than they were as
recently as the 1960s or 1970s. The EPA didn't even exist until 1970. If you
think corporate interests are running rampant today, you really would have
hated the first 150 years of US corporate history.

And of course the US has been militarily aggressive since WW2, with Korea and
Vietnam being larger military actions than Afghanistan and Iraq. Not much has
actually changed there in 70 years.

~~~
kolev
Well, I'm sure there are improvements, but the status quo is not good enough
for me personally - it's 2015. It doesn't serve America best to say "we're
great, there's no better". On the contrary, we should always strive to
improve, and avoid the patriotic circle jerks.

------
iamcreasy
So is this the first time they have release any footage of their rocket? This
looks rather impressive.

I remember Elon Musk ridiculing Jeff Bezos sometime back. The only thing I
knew about Blue Origin by then was they are making a new engine for United
Launch Alliance to replace their Russian RD-180 engine on Delta rockets.

~~~
mikeash
Musk (or rather, SpaceX) has been putting stuff into orbit for paying
customers for some years now, and has made five successful launches so far
this year, which is a pretty much unprecedented launch pace.

Blue Origin, on the other hand, having been around even longer than SpaceX,
just had their first _ever_ test launch, of a sub-orbital rocket.

It's cool that they're doing this, but I wouldn't call it impressive (yet!
maybe it could get there) and certainly doesn't seem to counter Musk's
ridicule.

Edit: just confirming your memory of ridicule:
[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/26/elon-
musk...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/09/26/elon-musk-
unicorns-will-dance-before.html?page=all)

"If [Blue Origin] do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle
qualified to NASA's human rating standards that can dock with the Space
Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate
their needs. Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing
in the flame duct."

~~~
MCRed
You're right that Blue Origin is older than SpaceX, as it was founded in 2000
vs 2002 for SpaceX

However, SpaceX is using off the shelf russian engine designs, if I recall
correctly (possibly off the shelf engines in the early days?[1]) Blue Origin,
on the other hand, seems to be developing its engines from scratch.

SpaceX's strategy certainly should have gotten it to market faster, and has.
Blue Origin's in theory should give it a technology lead (engines designed now
rather than 50+ years ago.)

It appears that in the 2020s we'll see when both companies (I believe) start
launching heavy lift vehicles. SpaceX will have more launches under its belt
then, but maybe Blue Origin will have caught up?

[1] I remember reading a blog post that the Merlin engine was based on a
russian design, but I can't seem to find evidence of that now. Maybe I'm
mistaken.

~~~
mpweiher
>However, SpaceX is using off the shelf russian engine designs, if I recall
correctly (possibly off the shelf engines in the early days?

That was Orbital Sciences with their Antares rocket, which uses refurbished
Soviet-era Kuznetsov NK-33 engines (1960ies to -70ies).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares_(rocket)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antares_\(rocket\))

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slig
Is there a ballpark of how much each flight will cost per person?

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mpweiher
Is it just me or does that rocket just launch like a bat out of hell off the
launchpad? Other launches seem much more...majestic.

Wondering whether that may be a visual illusion, something to do with the
flight profile (light vehicle, lower altitude) or just me.

~~~
curtis
The Blue Origin rocket is unusually short as man-rated rockets go. The only
figures I can find for the dimensions gives the height as 49 feet (15m) [1].
Now compare this to 224 feet (68m) for Falcon 9 [2].

So basically a rocket like the Falcon 9 will appear to be traveling much
slower than a much shorter rocket like the New Shepard for the same reason a
747 on landing approach looks like it is traveling much slower than a 737
traveling at the same speed.

[1]
[http://www.astronautix.com/craft/newepard.htm](http://www.astronautix.com/craft/newepard.htm)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Comparison](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Comparison)

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mrfusion
How does the first stage reuse work?

~~~
seanflyon
It didn't work this time, but it will land vertically under thrust. Here is a
earlier vehicle from the same company:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30)

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nsxwolf
It looks like a penis.

I'm not trolling. I have no judgement about that either way. But it is
strikingly phallic.

~~~
mikeash
Pretty much the entire field of rocketry is unbelievably phallic. I think
you're supposed to just keep quiet about it.

~~~
nsxwolf
Rockets are phallic, but this one is exceptionally so. The proportions are
very similar to a human penis. The payload on top flares out like the glans of
the penis.

I saw a video of it being lifted from a horizontal to a vertical position and
it looked like a penis getting erect [1].

I think if a sex toy was made out of this design, it would be more agreeable
to its users than one modeled after the Saturn V or a Falcon.

[1]
[http://gfycat.com/GorgeousScentedChinchilla](http://gfycat.com/GorgeousScentedChinchilla)

