Blue Origin Releases First Photos of Vehicle in Flight

[Wanderlust]

The NewSpace corp from test few its new secret spacecraft last month. The first flight was successful but on the second flight it blew up. Failures are to be expected, much like in the early days with NASA and SpaceX's first few failures

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/09/02/blue-origin-confirms-crash-releases-first-photos-of-vehicle-in-flight/

“Three months ago, we successfully flew our second test vehicle in a short hop mission, and then last week we lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet. A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle. Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we’re signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job. We’re already working on our next development vehicle.

Gradatim Ferociter!

 

[sojourner]

Interesting design.

 

[Dukhat]

As Johnny from the Airplane! movies would say, "It looks like a giant Tylenol!"

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The thing's freaking enormous!

I heard a while ago that their ship was based on the DC-X vertical takeoff and landing rocket, but this actually looks like an improved design.

 

[sojourner]

The thing's freaking enormous!

I heard a while ago that their ship was based on the DC-X vertical takeoff and landing rocket, but this actually looks like an improved design.

I couldn't see any good indicator of size. Is there a photo that shows something to give it scale?

 

[FPAlpha]

It's a Dildo with a friggin' rocket engine!

That said.. go private space business. I want to enter orbit in my lifetime dammit!

 

[Dac]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4suxQVUAQ[/yt]

 

[Amaris]

The thing's freaking enormous!

I heard a while ago that their ship was based on the DC-X vertical takeoff and landing rocket, but this actually looks like an improved design.

I couldn't see any good indicator of size. Is there a photo that shows something to give it scale?

This photo gives a rough idea:

You can see the light cart off to the side in the upper left corner. Not the best comparison, but an idea.

 

[Wanderlust]

Big Future ahead of us!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

For some reason, I half expect to read "Property of Homer Simpson" written on the side. Not sure why the stabilizer fins look to be on backwards. I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

 

[Supernuke]

Definitely a very.... different design.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Looks about the same size as Delta Clipper / DC-X. Hopefully they have redundant landing leg extenders.

I saw elsewhere that this test craft may be a booster for something else, so the cylindrical fairing to mate up with next item in the stack along with the dome shaped aeroshell make some sense to me.

The original Blue Origin flight test craft, New Shepard, was more DC-X-ish in appearance, but more squatty and stout than its conceptual predecessor.

If this new craft is indeed a booster, I wonder if they've given up on the SSTO concept?

 

[Wanderlust]

Mabe, perhaps the first stage will boos up another stage, then land again.

 

[sojourner]

Looks about the same size as Delta Clipper / DC-X. Hopefully they have redundant landing leg extenders.

I saw elsewhere that this test craft may be a booster for something else, so the cylindrical fairing to mate up with next item in the stack along with the dome shaped aeroshell make some sense to me.

The original Blue Origin flight test craft, New Shepard, was more DC-X-ish in appearance, but more squatty and stout than its conceptual predecessor.

If this new craft is indeed a booster, I wonder if they've given up on the SSTO concept?

From what I have seen of their plans, SSTO is a long range goal. First they are going for a reusable booster.

 

[AJBryant]

Man, I miss the DC-X.

I think it was Ellison who said "Finally we have a spacecraft that will let us fly the way God and Heinlein intended."

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Niven, Pournelle & Flynn's Phoenix from Fallen Angels was cut from much the same cloth; a 60 foot tall inverted ice cream cone.

What... you haven't read it? Here, quick!
http://www.baen.com/library/067172052x/067172052X.htm

Courtesy of the Baen Free Library.


Amusingly, they also correctly prognosticated the last name of the Mojave Space Wizard. Well, not for Blue Origin, but still...

 

[sojourner]

Mojave Space Wizard?? is this some kind of obscure reference to Burt Rutan? If so, I wouldn't call it "prognosticating". He was already a well known aeronautical engineer at the time the book was written.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Looks about the same size as Delta Clipper / DC-X. Hopefully they have redundant landing leg extenders.

I saw elsewhere that this test craft may be a booster for something else, so the cylindrical fairing to mate up with next item in the stack along with the dome shaped aeroshell make some sense to me.

The original Blue Origin flight test craft, New Shepard, was more DC-X-ish in appearance, but more squatty and stout than its conceptual predecessor.

If this new craft is indeed a booster, I wonder if they've given up on the SSTO concept?

DC-X was supposed to have been an SSTO. The only reason for the conical appearance was the need to attract funds from the military who needed "abort once around" capability for some reason (the same bullshit that lead to the shuttle's excessively-huge wings). New Shepard isn't flying for the military so they've given it a shape optimized for it's basic mission role.

As I understand it, the idea is to send the ship rocketing up at incredibly high speed on a sub-orbital trajectory. A capsule or other small spacecraft ejects at the top of the arc and pushes away using its own rockets; some of these will be sub-orbital capsules, but they plan to make an orbital version too. Like the Delta-Clipper, the whole idea is to EVENTUALLY develop it into an SSTO as proof of concept flights give them more data.