Blue Origin Rocket Survived Its In-Flight Escape Test

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Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket survived its first in-flight escape test of a spacecraft, the first of its kind since the days of the Apollo space program. The funny part is that no one really expected the rocket to even survive the trip. Here's a replay of the live webcast from earlier today.
 
good to see there's a second horse in the race with spaceX.. what's interesting though is how similar yet different approaches both companies are taking to how the booster returns and lands.
 
at 1:09:00 they mention some 'retro thrust' on the bottom of the capsule to slow down the capsule even more upon landing and then when it lands they don't turn on nor do they even mention them after it touches down. Plus, I'm having doubts about the landing only being 1-2 mph. Also noticed they used three parachutes this time instead of two. Also, still looked like a giant vibrator lifting off the ground and the capsule popping off looked like the rocket had an orgasm.
 
Very nice, although 16mph touchdown for the capsule sound kinda rough...

i remember in the spacex threads it was mentioned that they had to do these test above the sea , what has changes since and why isnt spacex doing these test on land also?
 
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
 
nysmo said:
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
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Rockets take off over the ocean to avoid killing people with any potential debris. If you want to recover the spent rocket stages for re-use you need to land them on an ocean platform.

The launch escape system on the old Saturn V Moon rockets would have subjected the crew to 14-17g's for 5 seconds. Better than being incinerated, I guess.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Rockets take off over the ocean to avoid killing people with any potential debris. If you want to recover the spent rocket stages for re-use you need to land them on an ocean platform.

The launch escape system on the old Saturn V Moon rockets would have subjected the crew to 14-17g's for 5 seconds. Better than being incinerated, I guess.
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Well this rocket isnt landing on an ocean platform. I guess maybe because it didnt achieve orbit so they had clear airspace to work with?
 
nysmo said:
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
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They land on sea because you need less fuel, because the rocket is already over the sea.. This rocket didn't go nearly as far as needed when launching satellites to orbit.
 
Superb work! Bravo.

Loved how the main rocket didn't even flinch when the capsule took off.

"No biggie dude!"
 
nysmo said:
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
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To comment on the footage, they have done some testing of their capsule. One is of the capsule hovering firing the Super Draco engines. Another is of a pad abort test where the capsule fires the engines to escape a faulty rocket.

 
nysmo said:
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
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Blue Origin is basically only going up to the edge of space and then back down. It's also still just in the testing stages. SpaceX's Falcon 9 is in full production and actually boosting real payloads into orbit, which is a lot harder.

If the payload is light enough, the Falcon 9 first stage *can* return to the launch pad (and they've done it).
 
I was going to say, prior to the above poster, that generally it depends on the altitude of the test/insertion. If you are going into orbit or high altitude, you launch over water to reduce the possibility of human casualties. A low altitude test like this one is fine over some empty desert.
 
I'm pretty sure I've built these vehicles in Kerbal Space Program, I'm asserting prior art.
 
ob1 said:
I was going to say, prior to the above poster, that generally it depends on the altitude of the test/insertion. If you are going into orbit or high altitude, you launch over water to reduce the possibility of human casualties. A low altitude test like this one is fine over some empty desert.
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yeah it basically goes straight up and comes straight back down. while it doesn't reach the altitudes that spacex does its still cool to see the innovation. A lot of the guys i work with like to bad-mouth the reusable rockets because of how much it costs to inspect/re-certify them. But really if you think about it, I'm sure aircraft manufacturers went through the same process before they figured out airframe lifespan and maintenance schedules.
 
nysmo said:
Ok that landing was pretty sick. Surprise that flying dildo uses only a single engine. Why cant spacex ever release footage like this? And why the fuck are they always trying to land at sea? Also that capsule ejection looks painful as fuck, thats gotta be like a 20g blastoff or something lol.
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From the guys I've talked to on this, the only thing more painful than a pad abort would be NOT conducting a pad abort when you need to.
 
nysmo said:
Why cant spacex ever release footage like this?
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You mean like this?

As for why SpaceX usually lands out at sea, others have already mentioned that the Falcon 9 boosts payloads into orbit. To do this, you need incredible horizontal velocity, and the Atlantic ocean gives you a lot of room to gain that velocity without risking anybody's lives or property since nobody is below the flight path.

New Shepard, in comparison, is a suborbital rocket that takes a nearly vertical flight path to the 'edge' of space, and comes virtually straight back down.

The two are on completely different levels of complexity. This is not to disparage Blue Origin, it's still absolutely amazing what they've accomplished, and this test was a big deal—but SpaceX is attempting, and has succeeded 6 (or 7, I've lost count) times, something vastly more difficult.

Here are a few pictures to help highlight the differences between Blue Origin and SpaceX:

g2VIKVC.jpg

0dfTIVg.jpg
16892430560_f87dff78c0_o_1.jpg


Just to head off any nay-sayers, yes, the second image is actually two different images stitched together from a surf-cam. The two images are of course of a cruise ship leaving port and a Falcon 9 returning to port, but on two different days. There's a little bit of forced perspective, but not much, and it's still a pretty decent size comparison.
 
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Great Tiger said:
at 1:09:00 they mention some 'retro thrust' on the bottom of the capsule to slow down the capsule even more upon landing and then when it lands they don't turn on nor do they even mention them after it touches down. Plus, I'm having doubts about the landing only being 1-2 mph. Also noticed they used three parachutes this time instead of two.
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T_A said:
Very nice, although 16mph touchdown for the capsule sound kinda rough...
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I was assuming the large amount of dust during the landing was not caused by the capsule hitting at 16mph, but instead by a quick burst of thrust that brought the speed signficantly down just before hitting. If you slow it down it looks like the dust starts coming out a few frames before the capsule actually stops moving (before the capsule actually hits ground). However, I really don't know, that was just my guess.
 
I know you can not lift anything of that weight at one mile per hour... and if you listen to how high they say it is you get a much better idea of how fast it was moving... the booster is at 85 thousand feet... 5 thousand feet in a mile.... 17 miles up... in one quart of an hour.... maybe fifteen minutes... but 44 seconds it is seventy thousand foot pounds of thrust on an object where the whole thing weighs 80,000 pounds... at about one minute it is at 30,000 where it pops the hatch off. that is six miles per minute or 6 miles per second x 60 or 360 miles per minute then 360 miles x 60 is 21,600 miles per hour... our about mach 31... I think they need to figure out a better way to tell how fast it is going... so when they calculate the sheering mass they don't get five miles per hour when it twenty thousand miles per hour. Interesting rocket though.
 
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