Blue Origin’s new engine

[Oberon]

I mean, if we're going to be super picky about whether it was a "test" or a "mission", technically all of SpaceX's landings up to this point have been "first stage recovery experiments" - none of them have reflown yet, although that's soon.

BlueOrigin's New Shepard is the first vehicle to take off vertically, ascend to space, and land vertically under its own power. Also the first to repeat this feat with the same vehicle. This is indisputable.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 is the first vehicle to take off vertically, ascend to space, deliver an orbital payload, and return to land vertically under its own power (technically the part that returned is not capable of achieving orbit on its own, but it did take something capable of going the rest of the way to orbit up to space). Falcon 9 went higher and faster. It's also bigger.

So you can argue about which one is more significant in the long run. But you can't really take away the achievement of BO. Chuck Yeager's X1 was a purely experimental plane - but it was the first to go faster than Mach 1 in level flight. Alan Shepard's flight was suborbital, certainly less significant than Glenn's orbital mission - but he was still the first American in space. I feel like the SpaceX fans would argue that if Elon Musk climbed Mt. Everest and set up a hot dog stand on the summit, that would mean that Edmund Hilary wasn't really the first person to climb it.

"And, isn't it time to retire that Model-T Korolev concoction?"

No, because it works, and we don't have anything else yet. The new tech isn't even that much better from a performance standpoint - the NK-33's that Orbital was using on the Antares until one of them blew up are a 40 year old design that actually outperforms the Merlin in both Isp and thrust-to-weight.

Personally I'd be leery to get on a Soyuz at this point, but mostly because it seems like Russian quality control has gone down a lot in the last decade or so. It's still a fundamentally sound design, but they've had a lot of recent failures. Before that though? Absolutely, certainly compared to the shuttle in terms of reliability.

 

[dhbarr]

The important thing to remember is that an eBay payment service is going head to head vs. an Internet bookstore.

What a wacky way to run a space race, but I takes what I can gets

 

[XolveJohn]

Thanks, Oberon. I have what is probably a stupid question. Was reading about the F1, found this great site that also has neat stuff on old missiles and warplanes:

https://heroicrelics.org/info/f-1/f-1-injector.html


The injector plate bugs me, very complex, and took thousands of incremental tests to optimize, guess they did not have CFD software back then. Anyway, would it be possible to use a giant pintle valve injector instead? I know a lot of fuel goes thru it quickly, under high pressure. Just still stuck on the pintle as simplifying solution. Not that I plan on building an F1, or Saturn V at this time. :eyeroll:

 

[boatgeek]

I feel like the SpaceX fans would argue that if Elon Musk climbed Mt. Everest and set up a hot dog stand on the summit, that would mean that Edmund Hilary wasn't really the first person to climb it.


No, because it works, and we don't have anything else yet. The new tech isn't even that much better from a performance standpoint - the NK-33's that Orbital was using on the Antares until one of them blew up are a 40 year old design that actually outperforms the Merlin in both Isp and thrust-to-weight.

I may have to use that line about the hot dog stand. I think that comparing Merlin to other engines purely on Isp and thrust to weight is a little unfair to Merlin. The entire idea of Merlin was that it was a cheaper engine to build and re-use. Just as a point of comparison, you can get a lot better Isp using LH2 as fuel instead of kerosene, but kerosene gives you a cheaper launch even if you have to buy a little more. Since the Merlin is optimized for something other than Isp, it won't beat an engine that is on that measure. To give a silly corollary, is a Corvette a better car than my minivan? It's a lot more fun to drive, but that day you need to move 6 kids...

PS Thanks to Mushtang for being willing to hear alternative points of view, even if you took it back.