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A comment on New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight. Parent comment

Re:New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight by wolf550e on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @08:30AM (#10620559)
As Elon Musk wrote [1]:

  It is, however, important to clear up the difference between "space" and "orbit", as described well by https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

  Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30. The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit.
1 - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/669129655597731841
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Re:New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight by andygates on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @09:03AM (#10620699)
Of course, going slower means less acceleration, which means less high-G discomfort for paying passengers. A vertical hop makes perfect sense for meerkat-mission tourism.
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