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Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

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Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#261

Post by maaaaattttt »

userbinator wrote: post #164
areoform wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've talked about this a few times before but – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726133 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47726078 - to repeat myself; It's because we're a very primitive species, and the forces involved here are genuinely new. It's physically not possible at our current level of technology to make this "safer" due to the distances and energies involved. I will let John Young explain it his…

and the forces involved here are genuinely new I remember growing up with things proudly advertised as "space-age technology"... which largely meant the 1950s and 1960s, and of course it's what got us to the moon, multiple times. Yet more than a half a century later, new rockets just don't seem that impressive in comparison.

The contrast in my opinion comes more from the fact that 50 years prior to the space age people rode horses as a standard mean of transportation (more or less). It’s underwhelming to not see the line going from horse to rocket continue on the same path 50 years later.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#262

Post by dlcarrier »

perlgeek wrote: post #162
baq wrote: post #161

On the scale of bad 1-10 where 10 is the absolutely worst case this is a 12 easily . (Elon’s strategy of blowing up smaller versions of their rockets more or less deliberately doesn’t sound so insane in the light of this.)

I'd say on a scale of bad 1-10, 9 and 10 are reserved for incidents that cause loss of human life. YMMV.

The Plainly Difficult channel on YouTube reserves 1 and 2 for incidents that don't cause loss of human life.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#263

Post by AdamN »

steve1977 wrote: post #233
GMoromisato wrote: post #133

This is a crushing setback for Blue Origin. I feel for the engineers. They have been the underdogs for so long, but with the recent successful recovery of the New Glenn booster, it finally seemed like they had some bragging rights. Now they're looking at a year minimum before they get back to a regular launch rhythm. The question now is: What went wrong? If they're lucky, it's just a stupid mistake. Maybe an incorrec…

I'm not sure if I would call the vanity project of one of the richest people on earth an "underdog". Btw, "If they're lucky, it's just a stupid mistake" is actually interesting. If you're at that stage and spending so much money, I would consider making stupid mistakes to be catastrophic.

Sort of - if it's determined that somebody bypassed a safety control they can just make the control firmer and fire that person and move onto other things. If it's some fundamental flaw in the engine design that could set them back months/years.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#264

Post by gregoriol »

regnerba wrote: post #224
WalterBright wrote: post #209

> A source indicated that one of the lightning towers may not be salvageable, and that the transporter-erector may also be damaged beyond repair. My first thought is why wasn't the t-e moved away before launch?

It was a static fire, not a launch. Also means that payload was not lost as out wasn’t yet integrated

Katy Perry was not lost, the world can go on

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#265

Post by Throwawayhahzoh »

tristanj wrote: post #204

SpaceX Starship also exploded during a static fire test on June 18, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-starship-upper-stage-exp...

That was at the separate upper stage test stand. SpaceX built and mounted a temporary replacement on the main test and launch stand.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#267

Post by hgoel »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #229
hgoel wrote: post #37

Ouch, losing the rocket is unfortunate, but the damage to the launch infrastructure is going to easily mean over a year of repairs. I hope they're going to take this as an opportunity to update the infrastructure from lessons learned from the flights so far, and to be able to support some of their future ambitions (e.g. Jarvis).

It's an understandable but wrong attitude. If you don't have high profile failures like this, you aren't taking enough R&D risk. It's a fiercely ambitious industry and these launch attempts amount to what literally are moon shots. The race is on between various companies and countries as to who gets there first. Boeing is pretty much out of the race at this point. Just too busy navel gazing and lobbying. There's a bi…

High profile failures that take out launch infrastructure are undesirable because the cost to that is much much higher than just losing the rocket. It means having all of your R&D and production pipelines stalled for at least months, usually years, while the rest of that fiercely ambitious industry races ahead.

This was routine pre-launch testing, not a launch attempt.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#268

Post by infinitewars »

xethos wrote: post #248
GMoromisato wrote: post #133

This is a crushing setback for Blue Origin. I feel for the engineers. They have been the underdogs for so long, but with the recent successful recovery of the New Glenn booster, it finally seemed like they had some bragging rights. Now they're looking at a year minimum before they get back to a regular launch rhythm. The question now is: What went wrong? If they're lucky, it's just a stupid mistake. Maybe an incorrec…

> They even requested access to a ULA building to see if a sniper could have taken a shot at the rocket. > It turned out to be an exotic failure: liquid oxygen had gotten caught inside a buckled liner I gotta say, suspecting "Rival company hired a sniper" before "Dealing with liquid oxygen is very fucking hard and incredibly flammable" feels very Elon

The real concern was Russia, given SpaceX has always been a MIC project, now publicly manifest as "Golden Dome" .. a program which undermines M.A.D. and obviously greatly incentives sabotage. There just happened to be a ULA building nearby that was in range and investigated as a possible vector of attack.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#269

Post by hgoel »

avmich wrote: post #154
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fair criticism. I’m just never remembering anyone thinking BO was the safer option.

Can't we, at worst, use Apollo-level suits - maybe actial suits? - for small Moon walks?

As mentioned, Apollo suits are neither safe, nor in working condition now. Even the EVA suits on the ISS (which are only usable for space walks) are decades old and just barely being kept going.

The US simply hasn't been able to bring new spacesuits into use for a long time, every single time, the costs and timelines have spiraled. Probably because a lot of the knowledge has been lost to old age, and the new guys need some time to relearn those lessons and improve on them.

Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test

#270

Post by LunicLynx »

locknitpicker wrote: post #207
wahern wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crushing only because their cadence is so slow compared to SpaceX. Their process seems much closer to the highly risk averse methodology of traditional incumbents than to SpaceX's style. Failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rockets are ridiculously complex. Slow-and-steady wins the race makes sense for many individual components, depending on how well understood the problem domain is, and your ability to rigor…

> Crushing only because their cadence is so slow compared to SpaceX. Their process seems much closer to the highly risk averse methodology of traditional incumbents than to SpaceX's style. Failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a silly perspective. Some reports suggest SpaceX's 1-year budget is around 20 times the yearly budget of Blue Origin. Of course SpaceX can afford to blow up rocket after rocket. T…

Is this a broken down budget you are talking about?

I don’t know the numbers but that spacex has more money moving around does not seem surprising. Launching 100s of rockets per year is not free?

Also did you do an accumulation over their existence? Blue had two orbital launches so far.

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