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A comment on A new book, Amazon Unbound, reveals Jeff Bezos’ envy of SpaceX. Parent comment

Re:A new book, Amazon Unbound, reveals Jeff Bezos’ envy of S... by freshair on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @01:40PM (#27121032)
Manned suborbital launches are little more than glorified pogo-stick rides. This has been true ever since America tossed Alan Shepard into the air as desperate PR damage control after the Soviets put Yuri Gagarin into orbit.

If nothing else, "New Shepard" is appropriately named.

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Re:A new book, Amazon Unbound, reveals Jeff Bezos’ envy of S... by DennisP on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @07:39AM (#27129131)
Wow that's pretty funny. I never knew Shepard's flight was suborbital. Just verified it on wiki. I guess that was pretty effective PR!

For anyone unaware: getting to orbit is 25 times harder than just getting to space.

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Re:A new book, Amazon Unbound, reveals Jeff Bezos’ envy of S... by Veedrac on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @09:13AM (#27129953)
*In propellant terms, for an equal payload, for a SSTO

These are important qualifiers. Realistically if you tightened up the mass fraction on New Shepard, abandoned reuse, and added a second stage, the technology could probably put a small payload into orbit just fine. I'm not sure what the point would be, since it would ruin all the useful things New Shepard is doing as a pathfinder.

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