The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Space => Topic started by: kevindavis007 on April 10, 2017, 11:22:17 pm
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Jeff Bezos' private spaceflight company Blue Origin is working on a lunar cargo delivery surface, which could be used to support human settlements on the surface of the moon or in orbit. While the program was just announced last month, the company has already spent years developing the necessary technology.
Wednesday (April 5), here at the 33rd annual Space Symposium, Blue Origin President Robert Meyerson said the lunar delivery program, called Blue Moon, will "directly leverage" the technology used in the company's New Shepard reusable rocket system. The company is marketing the suborbital rocket primarily for space tourism.
"Blue Moon directly leverages our New Shepard proven vertical takeoff and vertical landing technology, combined with our extensive liquid propulsion capabilities to reduce development time and risk," Meyerson said.
Meyerson didn't provide any more details about the lunar landing system, but a story published March 2 in The Washington Post (which Bezos purchased in 2014) said that the Blue Moon vehicle would land on the lunar surface similar to how the New Shepard reusable rocket booster lands in a vertical position after flight. The article also said the Blue Moon system could carry "as much as 10,000 pounds of material."
The New Shepard suborbital rockets have yet to fly customer payloads, but test flights have shown that the rockets can land vertically, and that the boosters can be reused for subsequent flights.
Blue Origin representatives have said that reusable rockets will lower the cost of access to space, and the company plans to make a reusable first-stage booster for its upcoming orbital rocket, New Glenn.
"Reusability is the holy grail of rocketry," Meyerson said.
Apparently, it could also help establish human colonies on the moon.
Read More: http://www.isn-news.net/2017/04/blue-origins-reusable-rockets-will-help.html
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"Reusability is the holy grail of rocketry," Meyerson said.
Except for the external fuel tank, the shuttle was 100% reusable. It was hardly the holy grail of rocketry. If the cost of refurbishing for the next flight approaches the cost of new hardware, there really isn't any point to "reusable."
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"When asked whether Blue Moon might fly humans to the lunar surface, Meyerson said the system was being designed only for cargo."
Kinda short sighted, don't you think?
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Except for the external fuel tank, the shuttle was 100% reusable. It was hardly the holy grail of rocketry. If the cost of refurbishing for the next flight approaches the cost of new hardware, there really isn't any point to "reusable."
Yup. It's the engines that take the effort -- and on a man-rated launch vehicle you probably want to put in the effort.
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"When asked whether Blue Moon might fly humans to the lunar surface, Meyerson said the system was being designed only for cargo."
Kinda short sighted, don't you think?
Just to start with, the reliability requirements for cargo launchers are a lot less stringent than for man-rated launchers. Not a lot of marginal profit on a man-rated launcher.
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"When asked whether Blue Moon might fly humans to the lunar surface, Meyerson said the system was being designed only for cargo."
Kinda short sighted, don't you think?
Not really. Better to hone your propulsion skills on stuff that you can accidentally blow up without having to shut down your entire operation and going back to square one when one does blow up.
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Except for the external fuel tank, the shuttle was 100% reusable. It was hardly the holy grail of rocketry. If the cost of refurbishing for the next flight approaches the cost of new hardware, there really isn't any point to "reusable."
We'll see Vic. If you go to Encyclopedia Atronautica (http://www.astronautix.com/), there are entries where NASA or the old aerospace companies did studies on making the old boosters they used to use (Saturn 5 most prominent). Shuttle funding and the general decrease in funding for NASA back in the late 60's and early 70's allowed those studies to rot in the archives. We now have better technology to try this for real. Maybe it will work. Musk has proven it can be done for a satellite launcher.
it won't be a huge game changer, but it could make things incrementally cheaper. I wish there was the same combination of private capital and federal support for the nuke plant biz. There are some good ideas out there that might really work well, but they have to be pursued just like the light water reactors were. you have to start small, and gradually build bigger over a couple of decades to see if it will work.
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Y'all should look up "Sea Dragon" sometime.
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Y'all should look up "Sea Dragon" sometime.
I have looked at that idea. Thinking big was not a problem back in the day.......