New Glenn

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SpaceFlight Now is live. I think the Blue Origin stream is supposed to start at ~1 hour before the current T-0. So...a little over 19 minutes from now.
 
Yeah, the rah-rah hype is not great, and some of the shots of enthusiastic crowds seem contrived. I’m still looking forward to the flight if it comes soon. It keeps getting bumped out, and I want to go to bed!
 
Dang, they just added ANOTHER 20 minutes...

I'm almost thinking they don't WANT people to see this thing go...
 
I have Spaceflight Now's feed on the Mac here (so up on the big screen in the living room) and my iPad is on the Blue Origin feed. I turn it down when they do the rah-rah stuff.

On the other hand, I have a former student of mine, who got her rocketry start with a BMS School Rocket (the little one) in middle school, who is a test engineer at Blue Origin in Kent, WA, after graduating from Perdue. So, I have a little tiny piece of that rah-rah that is personal.
 
Ugh, they just added another 25 minutes. Going to bed... if they get it off, I'll see the video tomorrow.
 
I can't say I'm surprised at the scrub. It's a first launch attempt. I'm glad I didn't try to see it.

I would be very interested in their reason for launching in the middle of the night, given that they shouldn't have a specific launch window they need to hit.

I also am very interested in seeing another rocket of this scale come online. I wonder if New Glenn could launch a probe to Uranus and/or Neptune without needing a lot of gravity assist.
 
It would depend on the mass of the probe.
We could do it with a cube sat if you where on a falcon heavy…
Yeah, I know. When trying to figure this out, I figure 5-6 metric tons. Roughly the same as Cassini.
then probably not, if it had a ion engine that could burn for a significant amount of the trip then possibly.
 
Yeah, I know. When trying to figure this out, I figure 5-6 metric tons. Roughly the same as Cassini.
The use of cheap re-usable rockets will have interesting impacts on future deep space probes. In the past, with high launch costs, the optimal thing to do was to launch single, "gold-plated," expensive missions. In the future, with low launch costs, it will be feasible to launch many low cost probes. Each probe may be small, cheap, and, be launched into a direct non-gravity assist trajectory.
 
The use of cheap re-usable rockets will have interesting impacts on future deep space probes. In the past, with high launch costs, the optimal thing to do was to launch single, "gold-plated," expensive missions. In the future, with low launch costs, it will be feasible to launch many low cost probes. Each probe may be small, cheap, and, be launched into a direct non-gravity assist trajectory.
Interesting point. I can see it being possible. I guess we'll see what happens over the next few decades.
 
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