Blue Origin is cool but it's certainly not astonishing to me that a billionaire is able to send a rocket on a suborbital trajectory and recover it. It's certainly more than I've ever done by a long shot, but it's not a very interesting achievement unless you're interested in five-minute space tourism. I don't think BO's achievement here has many implications for space travel.
I wonder its implications for terrestrial travel, though? We are in a post-Concord era, after all, but suborbital flight could get you to any point on the planet pretty quickly if the price is right.
Re:Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
by thomashabets2 on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @05:47AM
(#10782806)
This may be interesting to you: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/01/why-were...
Re:Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
by erikpukinskis on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @05:04PM
(#10785961)
It's amazing in 10 years we've gone from an X-prize to do exactly that to "not interesting".
Comparing apples (going up then down) to oranges (getting into orbit). Pretty awesome to see these guys putting their cash towards this! Hope a rivalry heats up and I can goto Mars for $3.50.
3.50? But then you'll get ancient cryptids asking you for rocket fare.
You're right, both achievements are huge.
That said, I'm not too sure I understand the line "the kinetic energy transfer at a 100 km reference altitude is what matters"...
What is the "kinetic energy transfer at 100km" ? Why not say that what matters is the "kinetic energy transfer", period? It doesn't make any sense to me to put it the former way.
Did you get that, Jeff?
The truth is, they have both achieved an astonishing amount.