Check out their engine. Finally US space travel won't be reliant on 70's era Soviet engines.

https://www.blueorigin.com/technology#engine_stories_1

", in a carefully controlled descent, landed it upright just four and a half feet from the center of its launch pad.""
The way God and Robert Heinlein intended.!

Well...rockets ARE somewhat phallic in appearance, amirite?

I could see obama trying to hide that in his ass.

 

True, but they are trying to land theirs on the way down from an actual operational boost phase after taking the upper stage (and their customer's payload) well on their way into orbit. It's going about mach 10 and hits an apogee of about 85 miles. Mind you that it has very substantial horizontal velocity.  SpaceX is taking a much larger rocket, and bringing it down accurately from a parabolic trajectory that is much higher than the BO rocket's apogee.

The BO rocket basically went straight up and came back down. You can't put these things in the same category. BO didn't accomplish anything - they pulled a stunt that SpaceX could have done several years ago if they weren't... You know... Building that system into a rocket that actually puts payloads in orbit.

The difficulty level of achieving a landing from an operational booster orders of magnitude larger than what BO had to work around, and the margins for error are orders of magnitude smaller. It's not even a comparison.

This is a basically a "Look at me!" stunt by a billionaire with an inferiority complex.  

I'd say this is like a contest between two 13 year old boys to see who can lose their virginity first. One claims to have done it after getting a blowjob, while the other actually got the tip in. On more than one occasion (just the tip though).


Sorry, if they were addressing the differences in difficulty between what each company is trying to do, this wouldn't have even made a headline.

I work in the space industry (no affiliation with either company) and I just have to call a spade a spade on this one.

Cool? Yes. A historic achievement? Technically. Have they actually outdone SpaceX in any way? Not even close!

Sorry for the rant. I was super excited when I read the headline, but then I read the article and was kind of sad about it

In terms of cost? Absolutely. Enough to slash the cost of launching payloads in half, and that's a very conservative estimate.

'Contract' may have been too generous a term.  More like the old DARPA development funding.  I thinks it's labeled 'technology demonstration development' or some such vague phrasing.  The SO works for Boeing and was discussing this the other night...

Better than shrimp on treadmills I guess.

Kharn

Good point.  The fuel to land means reduced payload.  I can see it as a potentially useful when going to another planet, but does the cost of a reusable booster overcome the reduction of payload?  More rockets needed for the same weight...  

It still has the 'cool factor' and could hopefully lead to more technological breakthroughs.

No he doesn't.

We can have them gather around to catch it if it falls over I guess.

 

Refuges need something to do you know

Shoot, even in KSP I don't just shoot for Eeloo right off the bat



 

lol

Let me clarify - I think it's awesome that they were able to do this, but they are representing in a way that exaggerates what they accomplished.

And since you are so knowledgeable about space programs, feel free to educate me

I can't really fault them for that too much. They are trying to look good to potential investors that are needed to keep the ball rolling and paychecks flowing. We can't look at something like NASA and say "well these guys did this so xxxxx company should be at the same level." NASA had a pretty much blank check for years until we landed on the moon and that gave them the ability to get resources and learn fast. Do you think they are going to share what they know with a private company? Of course they aren't. The only way a private company doesn't have to relearn and go through a lot of the same growing pains that NASA did is if they can sway enough NASA engineers that already have access to the knowledge away from their gov jobs. Otherwise they are pretty much starting at square 1 and decades behind the curve. Think of it like trying to reverse engineer an F16 in the 1950s. You know it's possible to do x,y, and z  but exactly how to get to each step is a bit of a learning experience.

Is SpaceX still doing launches? I haven't seen them in the news much since their rocket blew up.

That should put a burr under Space-X's saddle.

Threads like this always make me sad at the pervasive ignorance.

Returning from putting a payload into orbit is a much bigger endeavor than just going straight up 100km.

Kharn

orbital is launching a resupply mission to the ISS on 3 Dec using an Atlas V.  Their rocket blew up at Wallops (?) in the not too distant past.

My recollection is fuzzy but I think they were using Soviet engines and decided to quit using them.   I don't know what their return to flight schedule is nor that for SpaceX.

SpaceX attributed their failure to a structural member failing.  That might be easier to redesign and procure than new engines.  Here is info on the SpaceX failure:

Source

" The company identified a two-foot steel strut that was holding down the helium pressure vessels that snapped due to acceleration force. There was a mere 0.89 seconds between when a problem was noticed and when the explosion happened.

The part that failed was from a supplier, although Musk would not name the company. He did say that company would likely switch suppliers. "

I was wrong about Orbital's Antares rocket engines.   They will be using what I assume are more modern RD-181 engines versus the decades old AJ26 engines.  I wonder what impact the Congressional action on using Russian rocket engines has on the Antares.  There is another commercial rocket that has used Russian engines.

Source

Do you even Algebra bro?

 
FIFY

When is the last time a US engine was used to launch people into orbit? When is the last time NASA launched a person up?

And this.... http://www.space.com/26551-us-military-launches-russian-rocket-engines.html

I know Jeff Bezos can tend to be a lefty loon, but damn, he is quite possibly the most visionary man alive right now.

Even with Amazon, I am continuously amazed at how much they've innovated retail distribution.
If we ever want to see colonies in space. it's going to come from guys like Bezos and not the fed.gov

OK. Still doesn't change the fact that we are still reliant on ancient Soviet shit to launch our people into orbit.

Thanks for espousing your knowledge that there are other companies building stuff.