Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blue Moon

blueorigin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 236 posts

Re: Blue Moon

#221

Post by erikpukinskis »

thomasmarriott wrote: post #108
justinator wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the city I live in doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a "homeless" problem. The planet I live on also doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a climate change problem, a pollution problem, a corrupt political system problem. We've got lots of Hard Problems to solve before we need to go back to the Moon.

Exactly — THE WAY OUT IS UP: https://marriottexpeditions.org/finalmarket

All that does is the widen the same doomed closed system.

The way out is in. It's mutuality and ecology.

There are infinite resources available if we scale down our economies. Billionaires who live gigawatt lives need to be seen as the wastrels they are. We need to learn to respect the ant and the mouse.

Re: Blue Moon

#223

Post by azernik »

dvdbloc wrote: post #147
muricula wrote: post #42

Blue origin can't build a moon rocket by 2024, so maybe they can settle for the lander. Here's the vision I bet they're aiming for: a Spacex rocket, a United Launch Alliance capsule, a Blue Origin lander, and a round of pork barrel in every Congressional district.

Why can’t they use New Glenn?

People are generally quite skeptical of New Glenn, because not only has it not launched, but there's also no public evidence of construction of any non-engine hardware. Might just be that they play it closer to the vest than SpaceX and ULA, but the eternally-slipping timelines for New Shephard do not inspire confidence in their ability to get New Glenn into orbit soon.

Re: Blue Moon

#224

Post by azernik »

drusepth wrote: post #60
TimTheTinker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue Origin is somewhat like the Waymo of space tech. They'll continue plodding methodically, indefinitely. And you can bet their safety/reliability record will be nigh near perfect. Yes, Waymo is the market leader in self-driving technology (unlike Blue Origin). And there's currently no analogue to SpaceX in the self-driving car market. The incredible, complementary leadership duo that Musk and Shotwell present is u…

>And there's currently no analogue to SpaceX in the self-driving car market. Isn't... Tesla analogous to SpaceX in the self-driving car market?

Nope.

SpaceX has a working product that is eating its competitors' lunch (from a nothing company to having almost half the launch market within 10 years).

Tesla doesn't have a self-driving product that works, just standard assisted-driving tech that every other car company already sells, plus dangerously overpromising marketing.

Re: Blue Moon

#225

Post by azernik »

hanoz wrote: post #36

Have I missed a lot of news recently, or is this some strange usage of the present tense that I wasn't previously aware of?

Lots of space technology companies do this, and it's really annoying; e.g. Axiom Space [1] has a "services" page and Planetary Resources [2] has a "products" page, as if these are companies actually selling something. When they actually have, respectively, bupkis and two technology demonstrators in orbit.

[1] https://axiomspace.com/

[2] https://www.planetaryresources.com/

Re: Blue Moon

#226

Post by azernik »

sandworm101 wrote: post #209
HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter if you can reuse something if refurbishing costs as much as building a new one. Space just has a more sensible design with better materials and computers.

And SpaceX is doing a totally different thing. They are not putting anything like the shuttle in orbit (humand+cargo). Shuttle's other big thing was that it returned all of its engines to the ground for reuse. All shuttle threw away was the big orange tank. SpaceX had abandoned that concept, returning only the first stage and dumping the second/third stages into the sea. We will probably never see anything like shutt…

Shuttle also had the insane design decision of requiring human crew to be sent up on every single flight, rather than as an optional payload.

Re: Blue Moon

#228

Post by ForHackernews »

agildehaus wrote: post #25

I'm all for anything that gets us back to the Moon, but this clearly feels underwhelming versus Starship. It'd also be good if they got to orbit prior to marketing these grand plans. Gradatim Ferociter indeed.

You mean the grain silo that blew over?

Re: Blue Moon

#230

Post by Robotbeat »

simonh wrote: post #152
Robotbeat wrote: post #86

I'm honestly underwhelmed. This is not more capability than Apollo (uncrewed variant of whose lander could land about 5 tons). A really high deck making egress difficult. Apparently expendable. Given Blue Origin's resources, they should be shooting far higher. There's a bunch of small companies pursuing expendable lunar landers of similar capabilities. I worry Blue Origin will just crowd them out. A reusable upper st…

It is reusable if it can be refuelled with hydrolox from a surface ISRU installation, while a kicker stage would lock them into a non-reusable architecture. Also a reusable upper stage is a separate problem. I'm always disappointed when I read comments along the lines of 'lets not bother solving this problem, because I have this other favourite problem instead'. So what? That doesn't make this particular problem go a…

No, a crasher stage can do a flip and burn after separation, allowing the crasher stage to put itself back in orbit. And empty stage with only itself as a payload requires just a tiny amount of fuel to do this.

...and this would all be easier to reuse than the descent stage here.

Post reply on HN