Blue Origin Announces Big 'New Glenn' Rocket for Satellite & Crew Launches

It's pretty obvious at this point that the second stage is an afterthought for SpaceX

>without an apparently reusable second stage (am I wrong about that)?
I believe they're going directly to a reusable first stage, and then they'll evolve the upper stages toward reusability, like SpaceX has evolved their first stage toward reusability.

Like they're going to sell 30 ton launches to LEO and 8 ton launches to GTO on this thing, when it could do 70 tons and 30 tons, respectively, and use the rest of the capacity on recovery attempts.

No, just compensating.

>So they can add 35 tons to the second stage in heat shielding, fins, and landing propellant

Would you really need anything close to that? Assuming full aerobraking, the terminal velocity of an empty second/third stage would be pretty low.

But sure maybe for their first rocket the most important thing is making sure it works.

>Would you really need anything close to that?
It would only be roughly doubling the depleted mass of the totally expendable version.

Heat shielding weighs something. Landing gear weighs something. Propellant for landing has mass. Some means of steering is necessary.

They haven't really gone to space, they've gone high altitude and landed it again using a totally different vehicle & totally different engine & totally different fuel from what will be needed in this New Glenn rocket.

Would anything have been easier for SpaceX if they had built a bigger grasshopper rocket and gone higher? Obviously not.

>They haven't really gone to space
They haven't gone to *orbit*. They absolutely have gone to space.

They lifted off, went to space, and staged. That's all a first stage does, and upper stages are much easier than first stages.

I don't accept 100 km as space

Alright, so you reject LEO as space and everyone thinks you're a retard. Good for you.

I'm all for new rocket designs, but what the hell is with BO's naming scheme? Sure, honor early astronauts by using their names, but it makes for a goofy sounding rocket.

'New Glenn'. Sheeit.

LEO is 160+ km
Lets use that

They should call the two modules of New Shepard Cheech and Chong, because they get high. Their next vehicle should be called Sanic because it's gotta go fast to get to orbit.

Let's say it starts at the exosphere (500 km) so we can say the shuttle and ISS didn't go to space at all.

Well Bezo's is a hillary supporter so ofc he doesn't quite "get it"

Under noones definition would 100 km altitude be LEO

So how could it be considered space?

>tfw the 3-stage version will have the throw-weight to put a manned capsule or lunar lander around the moon
Moon colony soon lads

With this alongside BFR, FH and SLS, the US is set to dominate space travel this century.

>Under noones definition would going around the Earth at an altitude where level lifting flight at suborbital velocity is impossible be LEO
>How could the Kármán line be considered space?
Maybe you should shut the fuck up and do even a few minutes of reading on your own, instead of guessing that the things you want to believe are true and seeing if you can win an argument by asserting them.

You seem to believe that Blue Origin producing some shitty suborbital rocket, which crosses some arbitrary "space' line for the SOLE purpose of harassing elon musk on twitter, gives them an advantage towards producing a TOTALLY different vehicle.

Using different engines, using 7 engines vs 1, using a different fuel, with orders of magnitude more thrust, etc

Does building a hobby rocket qualify you for reusable orbital vehicles? I don't think so.

>I was just pretending to be retarded all along!
So fucking transparent.

Still salty about that rocket exploding on the pad, reddit?

Blue Origin has had less landing failures than SpaceX has had launch failures.

blue origin has 0 launches so far
and their rocket is still on the drawing board
And their engine is less finished than the Raptor

>And their engine is less finished than the Raptor
haha

Raptor doesn't have a full scale prototype being tested until 2018

?
they shipped a full scale raptor engine for testing back in august

>full scale
nope

It's 1/3 or 1/4 scale, the size of a merlin

says who?

Well for one thing BO isn't in the public eye in the same way SpaceX is.
Also BO just had one of their rockets explode on the launch pad

What?

Arianespace and ULA are finished at this point

this is a paper rocket at this point

I bet SpaceX will have their BFR before this thing flies
t b h

>market leader finished because of concept art
(You)

>this is a paper rocket at this point
>concept art
so is Ariane 6
so is Vulcan

those are by companies that have made a rocket before, not a company starting from scratch

Soon.

I dnno, whats a reusable upper stage going to look like?
Reentry ass first or face first?

...

HOLY FUCK SPACEX BTFO
I would love to see Elon's face now.
For years he thought he'd create the next biggest rocket and than BOOM, all his dreams...

his rocket is gonna be way bigger

He's revealing his enormous penis performance enhancer in literally 2 weeks m8

I am reading Bezos his biography. You wouldn't believe what I am going to tell you know but Space Exploration was his goal from the beginning. The only reason why he created Amazon was to accumulate the necessary capital. He kept it to himself but those around him passed the information through. He was a huge fan of Star Trek. Also Blue Origin is older than SpaceX. You should really read his biography. That guy has ambitions you couldn't believe. Now Bezos has a networth $60 Billion, $50 billion more than Elon Musk, and his companies are doing fantastic. He'll be one of the most influential people of the 21st century, and Blue Origin will be much larger than SpaceX. Bezos his approach is different, but in the end more successful.

Donald Trump is going to break up amazon with anti-trust lawsuits m8
Bezos will be in prison for supporting Hillary
He ain't doing shit

If Bezos supports Hillary I will vote for her.

Also Elon Musk too supports Hillary, and most other top CEO's.

Trump will bring instability.

I expect Elon Musk is a closet trumper who stays "neutral" in public.
He has certainly not endorsed Hillary.

I believe the same thing, but it would be terrible for him to come out, either way, it doesn't really matter.

Excellent, nothing fosters innovation like competition. And its good to see one billionaire focused on mars and another focused on the moon.

le up vote

>What happened to plans of making the medium-size rocket first?
Maybe their involvement with Vulcan is a substitute in their mind?

>so is Ariane 6
The boosters of Ariane 6 will be basically a longer version of the first stage of the Vega rocket which will also be used for upgrades of Vega itself. The Vulcain 2.1 engine is a rather unspectecular upgrade of the existing engine. The Vinci engine had its first test firing back in 2005. There's not much to develop with Ariane 6. The big saving of ~40% will come mainly from streamlining the production by reducing the number of participants in the manufacturing process. Ariane 6 is much more than a paper rocket.

I really wonder where that rocket-size came from. All released data indicates a rocket the same hight and a bit wider than the Saturn V, not twice the size

>People who oppose my politics will go to prison, waah!
You call yourself an American?

Where's he going to go first?

>I really wonder where that rocket-size came from.
Probably from the payload claims.

>All released data indicates a rocket the same hight and a bit wider than the Saturn V, not twice the size
I'm pretty sure they've been talking about a 15 meter diameter stage, making it double the cross-sectional area.

It's supposed to have about double the payload to LEO, while being fully reusable in a way that costs two thirds of payload. Furthermore, it'll use lower-specific-impulse methane fuel rather than hydrogen for the upper stage (it'll get higher specific impulse on the first stage, but it counts less there).

All in all, you've got to expect it to be six times as massive. The propellant is denser, but the volume still needs a major increase.

>>People who oppose my politics will go to prison, waah!
>You call yourself an American?
Democrats dominated American politics for most of the 20th century with the spoils system: the wealth of the country made spoils of battle for the political allies of the election victors. The Republicans finally got back in the game by learning to play the same way.

An outsider candidate running on a reform platform can and should go around after a victory prosecuting everyone who involved themselves in such corrupt dealings.

I don't think the BFR will suffer that much payload loss.

He's not neutral though. He donated money to Hillary's campaign.

bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-16/elon-musk-helps-california-rank-no-1-for-hillary-clinton-fundraising

Reusability is expensive. The shuttle weighed 2000 tons, with a LEO payload of about 26 tons, 13 per 1000, Saturn V weighed 3000 tons, with a LEO payload of about 140 tons, 47 per 1000. Two thirds of the payload per unit GLOW lost, with splashdown boosters, a drop tank, and engines and heat shielding pushed balls-to-the-walls for lightness until they weren't really reusable.

There's no getting around flyback reusability costing at least a third of the performance compared to an expendable stage of the same sophistication, or orbital recovery with propulsive landing costing half the performance to LEO. It is, in fact, extremely impressive if you can keep the losses so low while recovering full stages in good working order.

the shuttle is a bad example because the DoD wanted several features (like high crew capacity and the ability to steal a satellite) that decreased performance

im kind of a Musk fanboy, but im glad there's some kind of a space race going on

>the ability to steal a satellite
Never demonstrated, probably didn't work, and since they never actually carried a heavy payload from orbit down to Earth, the shuttle derived many advantages from the larger wings without the load they were supposed to carry, including lower peak heating per unit area and a gentler landing glide.

>high crew capacity
Not real expensive when you've just got a little more space in the can for them, and not even ejector seats.

You can maybe add a couple of tons to the performance for a theoretical shuttle that didn't include these features, it would still have delivered in the neighborhood of a third of the payload/GLOW of Saturn V.

>There's no getting around flyback reusability costing at least a third of the performance compared to an expendable stage of the same sophistication
But there IS getting around it, with a lighter dry mass, not needing a 20 second burn during reentry, with some drag flaps to cause lower terminal velocity.

We have no idea how much weight it will take to make a 2nd stage reusable. Theres never been an attempt yet.

Of course fully reusable with only 1/3rd the payload is still a massive improvement but I expect they'll do better than that.

>a lighter dry mass
Would benefit an expendable just as much.

>not needing a 20 second burn during reentry
Increased aerodynamic features and head shielding needed, adding mass.

>drag flaps
Added mass.

The braking burn is a really good system that I don't think they'll give up on any time soon. You're running at least some of the engine cooling systems, you've got very powerful active control of vehicle orientation, you're using cheap propellant instead of costly aerospace hardware Effectively, you're just doing a burn with the engines you need anyway, and using the atmosphere to get a huge efficiency increase to your engine.

Anyway, the boostback burn is more costly than the braking burn.

>We have no idea how much weight it will take to make a 2nd stage reusable. Theres never been an attempt yet.
We've done lots of orbital re-entry vehicles. The costs are not that mysterious.

>Would benefit an expendable just as much.
No it wouldn't. Not in the same way at all.

>Increased aerodynamic features and head shielding needed, adding mass.
Well they already have the Dragon capsule, so they are making PICA in house, and you aren't decelerating from orbital velocity anyways.
You are always going to be getting better result per unit weight by aerobraking than by propulsive braking, all the weight savings translate into reduced fuel reserve needed for RTLS.

>Anyway, the boostback burn is more costly than the braking burn.
The boost back has to accelerate all the fuel needed for a braking burn, so it all adds up. I also wonder how much horizontal gliding could be achieved, and whether that would be worth it.

>We've done lots of orbital re-entry vehicles. The costs are not that mysterious.
Noone has done a reusable second stage. Obviously the second stage would not use a long braking burn. The heat shield on the shuttle was under 15% of the weight of the vehicle.
Falcon 9 second stage has a dry mass of 4 tons, with a payload of 22+ tons. Even doubling that mass would not half payload.

>they still charge 2billions for it

>>Would benefit an expendable just as much.
>No it wouldn't. Not in the same way at all.
In exactly the same way: it means more mass of fuel can be on the upper stage, if it's boosted to the same speed and altitude.

>You are always going to be getting better result per unit weight by aerobraking than by propulsive braking
That's not a safe assumption to make. For passive aerodynamic stability, you need the whole returning stage to be the correct shape with the correct mass distribution. For active aerodynamic stability, you need propulsion.

And always remember that there is also a landing burn and landing gear, the requirements of which depend on the empty mass of the stage. Propellant expended in the braking burn is mass that doesn't need to be landed.

>The heat shield on the shuttle was under 15% of the weight of the vehicle.
The heat shield on the shuttle was exceptionally light and delicate, and it had to deal with reduced peak heating due to the vehicle's high lift-to-drag ratio.

What about orbital maneuvering and the power and thermal management systems to keep the vehicle active in orbit until there's a window to hit the landing zone? What about steering and landing? What about protecting the huge, delicate vacuum nozzle?

>Falcon 9 second stage has a dry mass of 4 tons, with a payload of 22+ tons
More like 13 tons in flyback mode. Got to assume a reusable upper stage is doing more of the work of going to orbit.

OP here. Honestly surprised at how civil this thread has been. Even the BO vs SX parts have been decent. Was actually expecting a massive shitstorm desu

well its a paper rocket that won't launch for 4+ years
what else is there to say

It's obvious that autistic reddit spacex fan hasn't been in this thread yet.

ahem:
Never was from reddit, BTW.

So, what kind of flight profile would something like New Glenn use?
Are we talking SpaceX-like, with a boost-back and parabolic flight, or are they thinking of "straight up-straight down" like with the New Shepard? You need a certain lateral speed to achieve orbit, right?

...

He's not talking about the whole thing, he's talking about the reusable first stage. Even a straight-up boost can take care of over half the job of getting to orbit.

They've been pretty specific about doing a downrange landing:
mainenginecutoff.com/blog/2016/09/blue-origin-launch-site-and-recovery
>After a successful launch the first stage would return to the Earth for recovery in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 750 nautical miles downrange in the Atlantic Ocean, east of and well off the Carolina coast, and any payload or capsule would land under parachute at a yet to be determined land site in Texas.

>Even a straight-up boost can take care of over half the job of getting to orbit.
No.

And to answer the other guy's question, it will probably be drone ship landing only, likely won't even RTLS

whats the point in rocket engines when ufos exist

its all a spook

Dunno. Why don't you build a ufo?

>>Even a straight-up boost can take care of over half the job of getting to orbit.
>No.
Getting to space is most of the problem. The Falcon 9 lower stage goes to less than 2 km/s in flyback mode, but it has 9 of the 10 needed engines and around 85% of the overall mass. That leaves around 6 km/s for the upper stage, but it's comparatively small and simple.

Orbital velocity in LEO is under 8 km/s, but the practical delta-v requirement to get to orbit is close to 10 km/s. A straight-up boost can take care of all your altitude needs, your gravity losses, your aerodynamic concerns, and most of your thrust requirement. A straight-up booster would easily be more than half the mass and cost of the complete vehicle.

Even just getting to the stratosphere and supersonic is a good quarter or third of the challenge. Getting off the ground is terrible. You need more thrust than at any other time, and the engines are working at minimum efficiency due to the high air pressure.

the vast majority of the energy imparted on the payload is in the form of horizontal velocity

Good parrots make terrible analysts.

>Getting to space is most of the problem.

Getting to space is easy, getting to orbital velocity is hard.

Where do you idiots even hear this stuff?

Pretending to be retarded on the internet got old in 1998.

I just fucking explained, in some detail, why getting to space is more than half the cost and difficulty in a trip to orbit.

I think he's conflating difficulty of engineering with deltaV requirement.

However, the Falcon 9 first stage is what is required to get the Falcon 9 second stage into a suborbital trajectory; a much, much smaller rocket with simpler engines and a far worse fuel mass fraction can get to the same altitude and speed with far less engineering effort. This is because the suborbital-only rocket only has to lift itself, without the dead weight of a second stage. It can start with a higher TWR as a result, which also makes things easier.

Essentially, building a suborbital rocket is difficult, building a two stage orbital rocket is very difficult, and building the second stage to that two stage rocket is not so difficult. However, the second stage is useless on its own, so we only consider the full system in its entirety.

An analogy; Swimming a kilometer is hard. Swimming a kilometer dragging a bike with you is really hard. Biking five kilometers is not so hard. There's the difference between your suborbital, first stage, and second stage rockets.

>The Falcon 9 lower stage goes to less than 2 km/s in flyback mode
2 km/s horizontal velocity... but it's been fighting gravity & air the whole time, also has another 2 km/s vertical velocity.
The first stage is doing plenty of work. And it's where most of the difficulty is in building a rocket.

>2 km/s horizontal velocity
>also has another 2 km/s vertical velocity.
No and no. 2 km/s total speed, not nearly 3 km/s at a 45 degree angle.