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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 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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