AridzonaShooter: Ramblings

Maybe the Quilter will have the opportunity to fly after all:

From last July:


Subject: DC-X is back and in Private hands!

The Jeff Bezos-funded Blue Origin private spacecraft has been announced:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060705_blue_origin.html

Charles Butler

Which is fascinating. If they start flying DC/X type vehicles, then depending on the size they can inch their way to orbit. Max Hunter always thought that kind of ship would become a Single Stage to Orbit ship with a Gross Liftoff Weight of 600 to 700 thousand pounds. It would take at least 8 engines and the plumbing and control system would have to be developed, but DC/X pretty well proved the concept, at least for sub-orbital, which is what Bezos intends here.

The announcement doesn't give the GLOW but if total thrust is 230,000 pounds then clearly the GLOW has to be in that range; and that's not enough to make orbit with any construction technology I know of. But this is a good start, and is apparently something like a 35% scale model of the 600,000 pound SSX we originally proposed to SDIO in 1988. We believed SSX wouldn't make orbit on early flights but as Max Hunter put it, we could nickel and dime it to full orbital capability.

I am no big fan of peroxide. It has both performance and operations limitations.

From a performance standpoint Hydrogen and LOX are great stuff, but working with hydrogen turns out to be an operational nightmare. It escapes easily (after all, that's one tiny molecule), the tanks have to be large, and it needs fairly extreme cryogenics. Max Hunter always thought propane and LOX would be what we'd finally settle on. There are many proponents for methane and LOX, which has similar characteristics and exhaust velocity. Operationally, methane and propane are considerably easier to work with, and you get some compensation for the lower exhaust velocities with the higher density of the fuel and the smaller tankage.

The Heinlein prize this year goes to Peter Dimandis for his X Prize work. When Bezos gets this flying, he will certainly qualify...

Yesterday's announcement:

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is asking engineers to join his fledgling and secretive private aerospace business, breaking a long silence about his operation in a remote section of West Texas by posting photos and videos on the company's Web site of a test launch of a reusable spacecraft.

"We're working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system," Bezos said on the Web page of his space venture, Blue Origin. "Accomplishing this mission will take a long time, and we're working on it methodically."

The posting, with Bezos' message dated Tuesday, shows a cone-shaped vehicle with four metal legs, reminiscent of the clunky models in 1950s science fiction movies, launching in a cloud of smoke, reaching an altitude of about
285 feet, according to Blue Origin, then landing on its legs.

"Slow and steady is the way to achieve results, and we do not kid ourselves into thinking this will get easier as we go along," Bezos said. "Smaller, more frequent steps drive a faster rate of learning, help us maintain focus, and give each of us an opportunity to see our latest work fly sooner."

He said the development vehicle, named Goddard and launched Nov. 13 from a site in Culberson County, about 120 miles east of El Paso, is the first step in a project that will end with New Shepard, "a vertical takeoff, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a suborbital journey into space."<snip>  Blue Origin: http://www.blueorigin.com

(Both via Pournelle)