News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Launching and landing rockets: A comparison between Blue Origin and SpaceX. Parent comment

Re:Launching and landing rockets: A comparison between Blue ... by lutefisk on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @11:58AM (#10784225)
Potential energy is not energy that you can give to a payload unless you want to have it fall 100km back to earth.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launching and landing rockets: A comparison between Blue ... by jzila on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @12:01PM (#10784245)
Sure, but it's energy that a rocket needs to impart nevertheless.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launching and landing rockets: A comparison between Blue ... by gfodor on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @12:44PM (#10784483)
The point was that the measurement is what it can impart on a payload (presumably one going UP.) So your point doesn't seem relevant.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Launching and landing rockets: A comparison between Blue ... by jzila on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @01:55PM (#10784908)
I think the point was to illustrate the difference in energy requirements for the rocket to impart to the payload.

That said, re-reading Elon's article, he did explicitly say _kinetic_ energy in the 120GJ figure, in which case 0 is the right number for New Shepard at 100km.

[ Parent | on HN ]