Blue Moon • Hacker News Board

Re: Blue Moon

#201

Post by nickik » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #111

hodder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Elon Musk, Bezos has a tendency to set more accurate timelines. This is not to say that Space X’s achievements are not incredible. They are. It is just that Elon Musk projection timelines are pretty much always bunk, while Jeff Bezos seems to be better at projecting achievement timelines. Again, what Space X and Blue Origin have achieved are incredible, and yes Space X has an entirely different set of technolo…

Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done. Bezos still hasn't done anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004 (and that carried people, unlike their current rocket). Their little hopper rocket is leagues away from a proper orbital vehicle. Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos. That's not to mention all the blatant patent trolli…

> Bezos still hasn't done anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004

This is such absurdly reductionist take. Its a whole different level, just having something that can reach space compared to a reliable reusable rocket that can fly real costumers.

There is a reason SpaceShipOne was never used in production, its a tech demo.

> Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos.

They do have a timeline and they have actual costumers already signed.

And furthermore we have seen highly advanced engines, the BE-4 tested. That is a huge achievement.

> People give way too much praise to Bezos.

You are giving way to little. Do you know how few advanced rocket engines like that have been designed in the US? Not since the Space Shuttle. It might also very likely be the first ever methane engine to reach orbit.

Re: Blue Moon

#202

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Fri, May 10, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

rubinelli wrote: post #200

maccam94 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but rocket launch costs are orders of magnitude higher than the cost of fuel to launch payloads. Once we nail down reusability, then we'll see space access become much more affordable. And once we have ships that only operate in space, we'll be able to carry much more fuel along (aerodynamics and structural strength are much less important).

I remember when the Shuttle program was scrapped that the consensus was that reusable vehicles didn't offer the economy they promised, so what has changed since then?

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.

Re: Blue Moon

#203

Post by nickik » Fri, May 10, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #18

thrden wrote: post #7

If this is a lander what will they use to deliver the lander to lunar orbit? I'll admit I don't follow this sort of news very closely, but it seems quite exciting.

They'll launch this paper lander on their paper rocket (New Glenn). Nothing exciting here because there's no hardware being built yet.

BE-4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyn2gOimRfM

First new staged rocket engine developed in the US since the Space Shuttle (or at least at the same time with the SpaceX Raptor).

They also have gigantic production facility that is already built in Florida. Do you think its just an empty warehouse?

Re: Blue Moon

#204

Post by nradov » Fri, May 10, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #198

nradov wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's not how it works at all. Autopilots are generally incapable of coping with unexpected system failures or spacecraft damage. This is the real world, not Star Trek.

To take a real world example, Falcon 9 is completely autonomous during flight - the controllers on the ground can trigger an abort, and perhaps change the flight plan from a range of preselected options, but they're not going to attempt to take over the rocket and switch it to manual mode or something. They observe, they don't intervene during a normal flight, and if something does go wrong, they're not going to be a…

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Falcon 9 is just another unmanned booster. Unmanned boosters have always been automated.

Manned spacecraft so far have always allowed the pilots to take over a significant degree of manual control. This new generation of private manned capsules will be no different.

Re: Blue Moon

#205

Post by nradov » Fri, May 10, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #180

moccachino wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put that number into perspective, the 2015 US Military budget was --4 trillion-- 600 billion dollars [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

Still. 2 years of military spending, in a peaceful world, for near-unlimited free power forever. Kind of puts it in perspective.

Even under the most optimistic estimates, fusion power will be nowhere near free. Those plants will be tremendously expensive to build and operate. Meanwhile solar power + storage gets cheaper every year...

Re: Blue Moon

#206

Post by rheffern » Fri, May 10, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #143

maccam94 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but rocket launch costs are orders of magnitude higher than the cost of fuel to launch payloads. Once we nail down reusability, then we'll see space access become much more affordable. And once we have ships that only operate in space, we'll be able to carry much more fuel along (aerodynamics and structural strength are much less important).

The problem is that, no matter how cheap your fuel is, you have to build a launcher that can lift off while carrying all that fuel. It's expensive to make a pressure vessel that strong and light and large, engines that powerful, etc. If launch gets cheap enough given current launcher sizes, you can get into in-orbit assembly, but that requires immense investment into robotics or a lot of spending to support (machine-…

Not to toot my own horn too much on here, but I've written a fair bit about these issues going forward: http://heffern.net/rob/index.php/2018/08/25/note-1-kismayo-s...

The current NASA spending is ~$22,000/kg to get into orbit. Elon and NASA both see that getting down to ~$200/kg by 2070, only 50 years away.

When we're talking about $200/kg, the launch site's location relative to the equator will become a BIG deal. You'll see a ~4% difference in cost per kilogram (wildy estimated here) if you are more than 17 km off the equator. That means if you wnat to launch your 160kg-self more than 17km from the equator, it'll be an extra ~$1400.

For a lot of reasons that my posts explain much better, buying certain Somalian real estate is a VERY good move right now. Granted you have to be muslim to do so.

Re: Blue Moon

#207

Post by pier25 » Fri, May 10, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #84

pier25 wrote: post #15

Astronauts train for years before going to space. Do these space tourism companies pretend that anyone with enough cash can do it?

Pilots train for years too. Does it mean plane passengers have to as well?

Not all astronauts are pilots

Re: Blue Moon

#208

Post by Symmetry » Fri, May 10, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

apendleton wrote: post #51

https://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7 has a bit more information about the new engine, since there's basically none in the article. Looks like a small, restartable, low-thrust LH2/LOX engine meant for in-space use.

They say it's an expander cycle, given the ISP I assume a closed cycle expander rather than the open cycle expander they're using as the BE-3U.

Re: Blue Moon

#209

Post by sandworm101 » Fri, May 10, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #202

rubinelli wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when the Shuttle program was scrapped that the consensus was that reusable vehicles didn't offer the economy they promised, so what has changed since then?

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 shuttle again.

Re: Blue Moon

#210

Post by lorenzorhoades » Fri, May 10, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

patagonia wrote: post #189

golergka wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty What. Amazon as a company have created enormous value for all of its clients, created thousands of jobs and value for it's trading partners. It's one of the forces that work to eradicate poverty in modern world, not the other way around.

Yes, it has created value for its customers and investors. It has also generated enormous externalities. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, and the point is one of the main points of my argument. The other being, this is just uninspired and unoriginal. It’s a presentation by an ex-hedge fund guy on a profit play, that feels more like my know-it-all uncle lecturing the family during Thanksgiving about how we…

Thats capitalism... And due to capitalism Amazon has launched on of the most efficient infrastructures in the world. Their warehouses and logistics systems are state of the art. Launching a Space Company is a GREAT THING. It puts pressure on SpaceX, as competition has proven over the years to be the father of invention and innovation. Of course with growth comes externalities such as a increase global footprint. However, these things are judged in a silo. Without Amazon, there would not only most likely be another "Amazon", but in the unlikely scenario that it is not aggregated long term with one centralized company, a vast meriad of mom and pop shops would have a much larger footprint and be much less efficient. I hate all the anti-corporate tendencies that have been prevailing on hacker news lately.