I meant to post this last night, but I got sidetracked and/or lazy.
Blue Origin is a private space company founded by Jeff Bezos, who is also the founder of amazon.com. Apparently he's a decibillionaire, so he has a lot of money to play around with this. He's working on rockets that take off
and land vertically under engine power. That's right out of old science fiction movies! In the near term, he's planning for suborbital flights, but in the long term he's thinking about orbital missions as well.
Anyway, the latest test vehicle was destroyed last week when they lost control at high altitude and Range Safety shut off the engines, causing it to not so much fly as plummet.
The Blue Origin webpage is
here. I left a comment last night at
this PJM post, to wit:
8. rickl
As it happens, just moments ago I looked at the Blue Origin webpage, thanks to an Instapundit link. There are some nice photos, and video of earlier test flights.
Any time somebody tries to develop new technology and push the envelope of what can be done, there will be failures and setbacks. Everyone working in this field is well aware of that. You analyze the data from the failure, fix the problem, and press on. The text on the Blue Orgin page doesn’t sound like they’re ready to give up. It mentions that they’re already working on their next test vehicle.
Luckily nobody was hurt in this accident. At least a dozen people lost their lives attempting to fly the Atlantic before Lindbergh succeeded. Today’s airline passenger flying in air-conditioned comfort at 30,000 feet knows nothing of their struggles and sacrifice. They’re remembered only by historians and aviation buffs. Of course, unmanned test flights were not an option in the 1920s.
As for SpaceX, they’re 2-for-2 in successful Falcon 9 launches, and they’ve orbited and recovered a bare-bones Dragon capsule. They’ve spent this year preparing for the next flight which will feature a much more capable version of the Dragon. Originally it was supposed to be a longer duration test flight of the Dragon, but due to the success of the first test and the retirement of the Shuttle, if all goes well this second flight, scheduled for November 30, will link up with the ISS. And because of the recent Progress failure, Dragon will be carrying some cargo. What began as the second Dragon test flight may well end up as its first cargo delivery.
September 2, 2011 - 6:58 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
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