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Blue Origin first human flight

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Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#291

Post by aylmao »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #95
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question every time space exploration comes up is whether the money and effort is better spent in space or on more terrestrial problems. With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research and development that resulted in spinoffs that are useful on land. With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Also, when it comes to 'hard problem…

>>With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Much of what is developed is in the public domain. Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out. The satellite of industries that develops to support space flight is also not affected by whether the fights they're supporting are private vs government, an…

> Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out.

I'd argue this is, if we're talking about practicality, is just crumbs though.

For example, scratch-resistant lenses were developed at NASA. Proving that it could be done wasn't the important factor that brought it to everyone's homes. What brought it to everyone's homes was the fact that NASA licensed

As another example, single-crystal silicon solar cells were first developed after NASA sponsored a 28-member coalition to develop an unmanned, high altitude aircraft. Private companies don't create coalitions like this and are much less likely to license or waive patents.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Scra...

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#292

Post by quijoteuniv »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #120
detritus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that amuses me is that if SpaceX can make Starship and the Heavy booster work, they could actually come up with a tourism/joyride that would blow these piffling jumps by Branson and Bezos into irrelevance. If you can send 50-100 people on an actual orbiting jaunt, perhaps a night in 'space rocket hotel', rich folk would gladly pay millions, which makes the business case a lot more compelling. Then they'd ju…

That's the dream; affordable space tourism for the masses. If Starship manages to hit the price and performance targets Musk has set for it (~$2 million/launch[1], max of 1000 passengers[2]) you could get a ticket to orbit for around $2000. Throw in some extra for profit margin, a stay at an orbital space hotel, and a few additional expenses, and it might well be possible to take a vacation in space for less than $10…

I hope people have better dreams. That is my dream.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#293

Post by qayxc »

Clewza313 wrote: post #36
marshallbananas wrote: post #8

This felt so underwhelming. I don't know if it's because I've seen SpaceX doing much more complicated missions or it's just not that big of a deal. They got about two minutes of zero G and came down immediately. You can experience that for much longer with a regular plane, for much less money. It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth.

Agree re: being underwhelmed, but in fairness, your typical "vomit comet" parabola flight only gets you about 25 seconds of weightlessness at a time. Although you can repeat this several dozen times per flight pretty easily.

And you are ignoring the 1.8 g part after each parabola - the zero g don't come for free.

The acceleration on New Shepard is much lower and even the max acceleration experienced during landing should be in the same ballpark of very brief period of time only compared to the vomit comet.

This could be a factor for some people.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#294

Post by enraged_camel »

kiba wrote: post #161
enraged_camel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I hate to break it to you but Musk is just as unlikeable. I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. That's not to say that excuses his terrible treatment of other people, but it sure explains it.

I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. I don't think that confirms he has Asperger's. He said it on SNL as a joke.

I don't believe it was a joke? I watched the bit and it certainly didn't come across as one.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#295

Post by pie420 »

agloeregrets wrote: post #258
simonh wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was actually at the Virgin Galactic launch and is good friends with Richard Branson. He was having fun, but not for the reason you suggest.

I'm mostly referring to Jeff, who he has an extremely public feud with.

No he doesnt

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#296

Post by dredmorbius »

BurningFrog wrote: post #118
detritus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that amuses me is that if SpaceX can make Starship and the Heavy booster work, they could actually come up with a tourism/joyride that would blow these piffling jumps by Branson and Bezos into irrelevance. If you can send 50-100 people on an actual orbiting jaunt, perhaps a night in 'space rocket hotel', rich folk would gladly pay millions, which makes the business case a lot more compelling. Then they'd ju…

You can also land on the other side of the planet within... I want to say an hour?

Ballistic free path is 45 minutes. A single LEO is 90 minutes, no place on Earth is more than a half-orbit distant.

A ballistic point-to-point tragectory is an orbit which intersects the surface.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#297

Post by dredmorbius »

daveslash wrote: post #216
ww520 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rocket working correctly is never easy. Just like in IT when things work smoothly, it doesn't look amazing but it takes a tremendous amount of work to get things work correctly and seemingly smooth. A smooth operation is always amazing. The booster landing looks pretty amazing. The capsule landing went without a problem. The deceleration when the braking chutes deployed looks a bit fast, from 205mph to 150mph…

It looked like they were going about 15-16mph when they hit the ground. That looked a bit rough as well. They seem to have done fine, but I can't imagine that it was comfortable.

That's roughly the speed of a Soyuz landing, which has been described as a "low speed car crash".

Retrorockets fire immediately prior to impact to cushion the blow, but it's still a hard jolt.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#298

Post by rtkwe »

5555624 wrote: post #81
marshallbananas wrote: post #8

This felt so underwhelming. I don't know if it's because I've seen SpaceX doing much more complicated missions or it's just not that big of a deal. They got about two minutes of zero G and came down immediately. You can experience that for much longer with a regular plane, for much less money. It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth.

> It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth. So, Alan Shepard would not be the first American in space? Gus Grissom's first flight wouldn't count, either? I'm all for making a distinction between space tourists and astronauts; but, I don't know if orbiting the Earth is the distinction. (Yes, I know Shepard and Grissom orbited the Earth on subsequent space flights; but,those firs…

Personally I think there's a difference when the thing is completely new like when the space race first launched and now when it's decades on and we have continuously occupied the ISS for just over two decades. I might take one of these suborbital hops for fun but mostly because I have doubts it'll be reasonable to do a full orbit in my lifetime.

These are both neat but the billionaire pissing contest nature of it really cheapens it. Blue Origin originally rushed out and crowed about 'beating' SpaceX in (I think) launch and land reusability and now Branson rushing out to beat Bezos to barely cross into space. I'd honestly thought the whole Virgin Galactic thing had been quietly canned years ago because nothing was happening till there was this little race.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#299

Post by jb775 »

daveslash wrote: post #216
ww520 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rocket working correctly is never easy. Just like in IT when things work smoothly, it doesn't look amazing but it takes a tremendous amount of work to get things work correctly and seemingly smooth. A smooth operation is always amazing. The booster landing looks pretty amazing. The capsule landing went without a problem. The deceleration when the braking chutes deployed looks a bit fast, from 205mph to 150mph…

It looked like they were going about 15-16mph when they hit the ground. That looked a bit rough as well. They seem to have done fine, but I can't imagine that it was comfortable.

Bezos mentioned there's a pocket of air that forms a cushion underneath just before it hits, slowing it to 1 mph at impact. The older woman said she didn't even feel it.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#300

Post by radihuq »

kiba wrote: post #161
enraged_camel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I hate to break it to you but Musk is just as unlikeable. I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. That's not to say that excuses his terrible treatment of other people, but it sure explains it.

I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. I don't think that confirms he has Asperger's. He said it on SNL as a joke.

I can't find the exact timestamp but at the beginning of this podcast[0] Jason Calacanis talks about his experience joining Musk backstage at SNL, as well as how that Asperger's joke came to be. If I recall correctly, I think its confirmed, or at least strongly implied, Musk does have Asperger's

EDIT: they start talking about it at the 7:00 mark

[0] https://youtu.be/GE0iWGNXKXw?t=420

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