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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

#21
It is not clear what "full duration static fire" means, but if the stage was fully fueled, the fuel tank would have contained 1000 tons of methane. The heat of combustion of methane is 55 MJ/kg. TNT equivalent is defined as 4.2 MJ/kg. In terms of heat output (not blast or other effects) this would have been equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT.

The first atomic bomb had yield of 20 kt TNT, of which about half was in heat, and the rest in the blast and radiation.

Depending on how full the rocket tank actually was, the fireball from the rocket explosion was in the same ballpark, or possibly even larger in the size and duration of afterglow compared to that from the Trinity nuclear test.

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

#22
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue Origin is challenging SpaceX - they are not the incumbent. I'm not sure how you can say that SpaceX will increase dominance despite this.

SpaceX will increase the lead from all potential competitors even further.

It's a static fire test. There weren't any payloads inside, this isn't very bad PR.

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

#27

Shame. I would love to see a competitor rein in SpaceX.

> rein in? You don't like going to space? What do you have against progress?

Rein in their margins is probably a better term. I’m a spacex fan but I’m reminded of what happens to every darling leader that crushes competition. It gets complacent, uses shitty tricks to cut out competitors, and raises prices.

I saw this at Google and it’s what will happen to SpaceX (already starting with Starlink pricing) if there isn’t someone to keep the competitive pressure on.

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

#29

It is not clear what "full duration static fire" means, but if the stage was fully fueled, the fuel tank would have contained 1000 tons of methane. The heat of combustion of methane is 55 MJ/kg. TNT equivalent is defined as 4.2 MJ/kg. In terms of heat output (not blast or other effects) this would have been equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT. The first atomic bomb had yield of 20 kt TNT, of which about half was in heat…

the video is available, it's a large explosion, but nowhere near a trinity mushroom cloud

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

#30
I would guess this puts a big dent in NASA's moon plans. I think Blue origin was _just_ selected to be the first moon lander mission. Now they are going to be grounded _again_. They just got off grounded status last week! And this is not even going to mention the significant ground equipment damage they have to deal with.

Very unfortunate all around. I hope BO finds a way to keep the timelines.

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