HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Well, Blue Origin donated to Blue Origins' Club for the Future [1]. This was probably for the first flight only though.

I haven't found a public financial or integrated report about it though, so I can't vouch how these funds are spent and if this is a charity as in what most of us consider a charity.

[1]: https://www.blueorigin.com/news/club-for-the-future-selects-...

Blue Origin competed for a Human Landing System ("HLS") [0] contract. SpaceX won a contract and Blue Origin did not. Then Blue Origin complained at the GAO and the complaint was rejected. Management is acting like sore losers ever since. They have released graphics badmouthing SpaceX' Starship [1] and are suing NASA now [2]. The prevailing view is that this behaviour is not just sanctioned by CEO Bob Smith but by Jeff Bezos himself.

Search for Blue Origin, HLS and/or GAO for the rest of the story. The coverage by Ars Technica's Eric Berger is usually a good source, you might want to skim the list of his articles [3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_...

[1] https://www.blueorigin.com/assets/blue-origin-hls-national-t...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-takes...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/

Edit: thanks verdverm, I added some links and restructured the post

⬐ verdverm

They have, since the GAO decision, released two jerky info graphics and have most recently sued NASA.

Guess they haven't thought about the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds you" recently

⬐ hinkley

How many people have come off looking good by suing NASA?

Seems like the Venn Diagram of that includes families of astronauts killed on missions, people who had stuff land on their house, and <checks notes> no, that's about it.

⬐ iso1210

Didn't Austrailia sue NASA for littering with skylab?

⬐ hinkley

Is that the 'stuff landing on your house' scenario or are you thinking of a different incident?

⬐ perilunar

Sort of. The local government area where the debris landed (Esperance, in Western Australia) fined NASA $400 for littering.

⬐ Aeronwen

Which NASA stiffed them on.

⬐ nickik

SpaceX sued NASA (or at least complained) and won. NASA wanted to award a contract to Space plane Kistler and this was prevented and the contract competed. This however was the GAO and they already rejected Blue complaint.

SpaceX also sued Air Force and won that too.

⬐ verdverm

I'd add that NASASpaceFlight does a great job of covering this in their weekend round tables.

Great place to keep up with all things space related.

In particular, they reflect what most of us are feeling w.r.t. recent BO executive moves vs the engineers hard work and passion

⬐ krrishd

Ah, thanks.

⬐ resolve-ev

They have even drawn the dimensions of Starship wrong in the graphic.(The length from the hatch should be almost 4 times as long not 3) https://drive.google.com/file/d/11PzZvWXOlV09B4wI9jPA_yRp5N9...

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/open-letter-to-administrator...

> "Blue Origin will [...] waiv[e] all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2B to get the program back on track right now. This offer is not a deferral, but is an outright and permanent waiver [...]"

I dunno, sounds like "no payments until you're locked into our system". I know I wouldn't take that bait if I was a federal contract reviewer.

From a meta point, it's as though Blue Origin doesn't know how bidding contracts works; you put your best foot forward first, you don't sweeten the deal after the contract is awarded.

Certainly they are making a decent PR play in the news though.

⬐ lupire

They are probably doing both. Bezos knows how to bribe government.

Interesting they didn’t also include Blue Origin in the mix: https://www.blueorigin.com/

In my opinion, we should see crewed sub-orbital flights from them within the year, and possibly crewed orbital flights in the 4-8 year time frame... where those crewed orbital flights may have capacity to go all the way to the moon.

⬐ 51Cards

I keep wondering if Blue Origin has something up their sleeve. New Shepard has a great track record but only for sub-orbital hops so far and hasn't yet carried human passengers after 12 successful flights. The New Glen concept looks interesting but it has been in the works for a long time with nothing visible yet. They do also have a great engine in development with customers for it. Several years back Blue Origin used to friendly troll SpaceX on who was leading who but now it's not even talked about. I'll be curious to see how complete New Glen is when they roll it out as more competition, more better.

⬐ valuearb

BO was founded before SpaceX, has spent far more than SpaceX and has accomplished squat.

The BE-4 has been “sold” to customers but started development before Raptor, and is far behind it in technology and accomplishments. We won’t see a BE-4 flight before next year, if even that soon.

⬐ itsoktocry

>has accomplished squat

Accomplished squat? They're building rockets and engines, mostly out of the public eye, with private money. How is that nothing? Because it isn't the exact path SpaceX is taking?

BO wants to land on the moon by 2024. Let's see what happens.

⬐ adventured

> mostly out of the public eye, with private money.

While I agree with the sentiment of your comment, BO is also developing with public money. It's true that their funding has largely been private, it's not exclusively so however.

"Blue Origin will receive up to $500 million from the United States Air Force over the period 2019 - 2024 if they are a finalist in the Launch Services Agreement competition, of which they have received at least $181 million so far."

"Blue Origin has also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#Funding

⬐ tenpies

Keep in mind the worst part of SpaceX: Elon Musk fanatics. If it's not aboard a SpaceX rocket, they would prefer that humanity be stuck on the planet forever. In their minds no other company is legitimate. If Musk has even as much as mumbled an idea in passing, it will 100% be done and done soon, probably by Tesla. No other company can do it. No other CEO has the intelligence.

⬐ 51Cards

I'm not a BO hater by any means but I find that timeline to be virtually impossible. On the most basic level the craft they would need to use hasn't even seen the light of day, let alone accomplished any orbital flights.

Something like the moon is a very iterative process. You need orbital flight capabilities, second and perhaps third stage capabilities, life support, launch abort systems, landing and take off from the moon, EVA gear and provable safe earth re-entry... just to name the few key ones off the top of my head. All are huge challenges and you have to solve them step by step with multiple test at each level.

The year 2024 is 4 years away. At BO's current test rate of 2-3 flights a year, and with a rocket that hasn't come out of the factory yet I can't possibly see how it could happen. I look forward to what they will accomplish but they have a very very long way to go.

Edit: adding that BO did recently win a contract to develop a lander only for the Moon and this is much more feasable. But it would still be docking with NASA's Orion for the actual trip there and back.

⬐ icelancer

>> BO was founded before SpaceX, has spent far more than SpaceX and has accomplished squat.

Oh, that's not true. They've filed a lot of litigation in that timeline!

⬐ robszumski

This might have been punishment for them being too secretive. The press can only talk about your plans if they have enough information.

⬐ valuearb

The press can only talk about your accomplishments if you actually have some.

⬐ itsoktocry

>The press can only talk about your accomplishments if you actually have some.

Why is it that Elon Musk fans claim to be about these overarching, prohumanity missions ("Accelerating the transition to renewable energy! Enabling people to live on other planets!"), but then spend half their time hating on competitors with common goals?

⬐ icelancer

Because along the way, Elon actually gets things done.

⬐ icelancer

NASA has scrubbed multiple bids/projects from Blue Origin. They regularly fail testing.

⬐ mzkply

They're not building an orbital capsule...

⬐ valuearb

BO has been testing New Shepherd for four years with little visible progress, hoping for crewed flights this year is audacious. It’s unclear whether New Shepherd will even be continued based on all the other projects on their plate, and the likely limited demand for their minimal joyrides.

And calling them sub-orbital is being generous. Mercury suborbital flights flew much higher and faster, and actually covered hundreds of miles in a parabolic arc. By comparison New Shepherd is a toy, a very expensive trampoline.

⬐ JumpCrisscross

> with little visible progress

They've been making a lot of progress. The BE-4 engine is under development. And their orbital rocket and lunar lander were announced within the last few years.

It's a slow-and-steady approach, sure, but they're making tangible progress.

⬐ whatshisface

I think the slow-and-steady branding is kind of funny when the competition appears to be fast-and-steady.

⬐ valuearb

Press releases aren’t progress.

Work on the New Glenn started in 2012. It was publicly announced in 2016. It’s still at least a year from flight.

Work on the BE-4 started in 2011. It’s first public planned release date was 2017, it’s at least 4 years late.

⬐ mr_toad

Raptor engine development started in 2009. It took ten years for one to actually fly.

⬐ valuearb

The Raptor was a tiny project at SpaceX, behind the Merlin, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy in investment in its first years, and commercial crew in later years.

BE-4 is the #1 project at BO, which is funding R&D at $1B a year.

⬐ dwaltrip

New Shepherd crosses the Karman line. It travels into space. I don’t know why you are insinuating otherwise. Obviously, it is quite far from orbiting but it is a legitimate, albeit brief, trip to space.

That being said, I agree with you that their progress has been pretty damn slow. They do 1-2 test flights per year...

As for demand, doesn’t Virgin Galactic, who will offer something very similar, have a customer list with hundreds of people who have prepaid? Demand might be much higher than you are suggesting.

⬐ derekp7

To me, sub orbital is a "trip to space" in the same way as a non-stop flight from New York to LA is a "trip to Kansas" since you fly over it and other states in between.

You aren't going "to" some place unless you can actually stay there for a period of time. But that is just my personal view.

Another way of looking at it -- if the earth didn't have an atmosphere, would you be going "to space" by jumping on a trampoline? (ignoring the fact that we evolved to live in an atmosphere, of course).

⬐ dwaltrip

Well, space tourists are likely going more for the 100km view and the zero-g experience, which is present for a few minutes on a sub-orbital trip. Given that you can't get this experience anywhere else, a few minutes is better than nothing.

The exiting of the atmosphere is part of the view [1], but it works in concert with the altitude. Trampolines, as far as I am aware, are incapable of propelling one to an altitude that provides such incredible views :)

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1...

https://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7 has a bit more information about the new engine, since there's basically none in the article. Looks like a small, restartable, low-thrust LH2/LOX engine meant for in-space use.

⬐ Symmetry

They say it's an expander cycle, given the ISP I assume a closed cycle expander rather than the open cycle expander they're using as the BE-3U.

SpaceX, UAL, Ariane and Blue Origin are all doing launches today. We really need a global manifest with updated real-time links to livestreams ;)

GPS III SV01 Mission

https://www.spacex.com/webcast

New Shepard NS-10

https://www.blueorigin.com/

CSO-1

http://www.arianespace.com/mission/ariane-flight-vs20/

Delta-IV NROL-71

https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/delta-iv-nrol-71

⬐ jesseb

I use spaceflightnow[0] to keep track of launches. Not always 100% up to date but usually updated pretty frequently, good enough for me.

[0] https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

⬐ dr_orpheus

I have been impressed with how up-to-date Spaceflight Now is. I work in the satellite industry and once Spaceflight Now had an updated launch schedule before we actually got word from SpaceX that our launch was delayed.

⬐ jesseb

Yeah they do an incredible job, seem to have things before certain official channels do as you mentioned. The company I'm employed with works with Iridium, so I like keeping track of how the NEXT deployment is going.

⬐ Pfhreak

Three of the launches have been scrubbed already.

⬐ C4K3

Besides the links given, Wikipedia is also very good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_spaceflight

Click the links on the right to get lists for specific years, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_spaceflight

⬐ jemaddux

https://everydayastronaut.com/prelaunch-previews/ will give you the countdowns to the launches. No links to previews though.

⬐ toufka

And India's ISRO's GSLV is up for launch as well.

⬐ Klathmon

I use this website/app which is very well maintained, and even includes an API if you want to use it!

https://spacelaunchnow.me/

It includes locations, payload information, launch company and rocket, links to livestreams, notifications for launch updates, and more.

This test fired the emergency abort motor. Normally, the rocket peaks at around 3Gs:

https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard > Accelerating at more than 3 Gs to faster than Mach 3...

The capsule experiences ~3 mins of freefall/microgravity/“weightlessness” - in fact, they’ve already flown payloads that depend on this.

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/news/first-commercial-payloa...

⬐ hackujin

I can experience that jumping out of a plane and for way longer than 3 minutes.

⬐ losvedir

I think you misunderstand weightlessness. The Blue Origin capsule got to about 75 miles altitude and low earth orbit starts about 100 miles, while Earth's surface is about 4,000 miles from the center of gravity. In other words, the force due to gravity is essentially the same for all of these. Weightlessness is falling, that's it.

⬐ sctb

It's time to stop with the dismissals in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ rory096

No, you can't. You'll feel the force of air resistance (drag) as soon as you exit the plane, increasing until you hit terminal velocity and 1g.

You can come work for us at Blue Origin! My team members do a lot of web development and we're recruiting heavily right now. We hire everyone as Software Engineers, but there are a variety of specializations people come in with and focus on -- web development included.

https://www.blueorigin.com/careers

⬐ rajeshp1986

Hey Matt!,

That's great to hear. I have heard that space companies like BlueOrigin, spacex are not allowed to hire H1B's or non-american citizens. Is that true?

⬐ thematt

I can't speak for other companies but at Blue we are regulated by ITAR, which means candidates must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (current Green Card holder).

⬐ NetOpWibby

Do you accept remote (East Coast)?

⬐ thematt

We don't have remote software engineers currently (maybe in the future).

⬐ NetOpWibby

Ah okay, that's unfortunate.

⬐ cwkoss

I understand there are likely business reasons behind this, but kind of funny that a 'space company' doesn't have any remote workers.

"We can communicate with a rocket hurtling through space, but we need you to come into the office"

⬐ program247365

Nice!

⬐ djellybeans

That's pretty great to hear. I'd like to know what your web development team is doing for the purposes of your company. Incidentally I have been been through the hiring process with Bezos' more familiar company before. What is the hiring process like on the technical level at your company?

⬐ thematt

The web development that happens is typically for:

* Systems that analyze flight or test data

* Systems that enable manufacturing, supply chain, or other supporting business activities

* Systems that are considered to be "customer experience" related

* Infrastructure systems that support the other software engineering teams

Our hiring process is straightforward. The dev teams review resumes for a fit based on experience and skillset. Next comes a phone screen where we'll ask a series of basic programming questions. If you're in the Seattle area we skip the phone screen and invite you in for a tour and ask you the same questions in-person. Next we do a full interview, which occurs on-site at our headquarters and typically lasts most of the day. You'll interview with multiple software engineers from different teams. The questions you get asked will be deeply technical and are usually real world problems we have had to solve.

⬐ djellybeans

Most of my more recent experience has been in web agencies, and SaaS. For SaaS in particular CPQ software to help business clients quote product prices for many arbitrary configurations. I don't have as much experience with infrastructure in the large scale, however. I also had a short contract job as a game developer so maybe that can be useful for applications that require real-time performance.

I live in the Midwest. I know that with Amazon they had offered me a paid round-trip flight from my city to go to their final round interview. I declined only for personal things to handle at the time. If I ever get to that point with Blue Origin, would that company be able to do the same?

⬐ thematt

Absolutely, we pay for travel expenses to come interview with us.

Blue Origin | Seattle, WA | www.blueorigin.com

Software Engineers, Software Engineering Managers and Technical Product Managers

Blue Origin is developing technologies to enable private human access to space at dramatically lower cost and increased reliability. To accommodate our rapid growth we have multiple openings for software engineers, software engineering managers and technical product managers who will build software for rockets and rocket scientists.

Some of our dev stack and technologies: Java, Python, Javascript, Cassandra, MongoDB, Neo4J, MySQL, AWS

Here is an AMA we did on reddit which can answer some questions for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4wb6up/we_are_blue_or...

Apply directly at https://www.blueorigin.com/careers

⬐ tanima1

could you please provide some email id of recruiter where I could send my resume

⬐ Terr_

I don't suppose there are any HN-centric tips for getting past a surprising "do not currently have a position open for your skill sets" phase?

⬐ diggernet

T+2:41: "Phil, also as a reminder, we also have that retro-thrust system on the bottom of the crew capsule to make sure that the touchdown is even smoother for our astronauts."

T+2:54: "Just as a reminder, that's also going to kick up quite a bit of dust out here in Texas."

T+3:08: "It's going to come down at just about 3 miles an hour by the time it touches down."

T+4:15: Capsule smacks into the desert at 16mph, with no sign of retro-thrust or dust kick up before impact.

⬐ JshWright

I don't know the specifics of when the Blue Origin capsule's rockets fire, but for the Soyuz capsule it's 70cm above the ground. The time between the rockets firing and impact with the ground is far too fast to see in real time.

The dust cloud that gets kicked up is kicked up by the rockets firing, not the capsule slamming into the ground (which is the point the commentators were trying to make).

⬐ funkysquid

That's what I thought as well, but watching some other videos on their site, they say the boost happens in "the last second" https://youtu.be/xYYTuZCjZcE?t=2m34s. Any sign of thrust before landing really isn't visible in that video either. So unless they've never actually fired it successfully and we just don't know what it looks like, it's possible that it's just so close to touchdown that we can't distinguish the thrust from the landing.

I'm assuming that decelerating by 13mph over < 1s is still quite a bit better than by 15mph instantly? But I really don't know.

⬐ hanoz

I'm sure there's no deceleration at all at the beginning of the last second, there's no slackening of the lines for example, but it does look as if there's some sort of thrust brake in the last tenth of a second or so, somewhat in lieu of a crumple zone I suppose.

http://rowvid.com/?v=bqUIX3Z4r3k&t=4232&s=0.25

⬐ diggernet

Thanks. I always forget about RowVid...

In frame-by-frame, you can see that the capsule is still descending when the first dust appears. To my eye, seems to be about 1/3 to 1/2 second later that the capsule stops. So, ok, retro-thrust. (But still giving quite a jolt to the poor meat-bags.)

⬐ BFatts

I thought 20mph was maximum survivable rate of decent?

⬐ diggernet

I suppose that a last-instant firing is a plausible explanation, and would greatly reduce physical damage to the capsule. But then the talk of a "gentle" 3mph touchdown is conveniently ignoring the 16->13 deceleration a split second before. As you say, it's likely preferable to 15->0, but I suspect not a whole lot more pleasant to experience. The astronauts would probably not even notice the actual touchdown an instant later.

⬐ phire

The goal is to stretch out the deceleration. Instead of going from 16 to 0 instantly (probably more like 1/10th of a second when you count the capsule deforming), it's going from 16 to 0 over a much larger fraction of a second.

It's probably the difference between running full speed into a brick wall and running full speed into a large foam pad.

The foam pad decelerates you in less than a second, but it's a whole lot more comfortable than the brick wall.

⬐ greglindahl

Note that in previous videos of landings, there was just a biggish last-second dust cloud -- people on HN guessed that there was no retro-thrust and that it landed hard, when actually there was retro-thrust and a nominal landing.

⬐ g3cko

Yeah, I was curious about that part too...

⬐ InclinedPlane

Seriously? You don't think that it could happen faster than you could see it with your eyes easily? Go watch a Soyuz capsule touchdown, same deal. Also, it's very hard to spot the retro-rocket firing unless you pause the video and go frame by frame. The New Shepard retro fire is even harder to spot. Which is why they tell you about it.

Here are some shots from the video:

First puff of dust from under the capsule: http://i.imgur.com/u055Gjs.jpg

Fully settled: http://i.imgur.com/u53t96Q.jpg

Between the first and second images, the capsule settles about 1/4 of its height. This is because the first image occurs when the capsule is still that high of the ground, and firing its retro thruster.

⬐ reddog

This is its 5th launch and I love the way the logos and lettering on the outside of the rocket has not been retouched/repainted after the previous launches. You can see it's used space ship.

⬐ david-given

The actual launch is at 1h06 into the recorded video (there were several holds).

⬐ joshontheweb

Really cool to watch! I didn't know the plan ahead of time and thought the thing blew up when the escape capsule fired. So cool to feel like a space race is warming up.

⬐ xanadohnt

"Space race is warming up" - You verbalized perfectly what I've been feeling lately. So exciting!

⬐ pinewurst

Both landings successful, though the capsule didn't seem quite as stable as the booster at separation burn time.

⬐ Frompo

Yeah, that tumbling didn't look like it was intended.

⬐ 6d6b73

Still better than the alternative.

⬐ trothamel

I'm not sure about Blue Origin, but the Apollo abort system intentionally introduced a tumble into the capsule as part of the abort process. The reason for this is that it was stable in two positions - nose first, and heat shield first. Only the latter was survivable on reentry.

It was more stable in the heat shield first position, so by introducing a tumble, they were able to avoid nose-first and ensure an abort followed by reentry was something that could be survived.

I don't know if Blue Origin is doing the same thing - but it's not impossible this was something they might have wanted.

⬐ RealityVoid

Though this is not a reentry. You would not get the same heating effects when aborting a launch, during reentry you'd get all that lateral speed you need to decelerate from. Not the case during abort.

⬐ ceejayoz

I believe they stated that the capsule intentionally fires off-center to get away from the booster laterally.

⬐ lmm

Glad to see a live video. Blue Origin had previously had a reputation of being extremely secretive - hopefully SpaceX has demonstrated the advantages of making things a bit more public, which ultimately benefits everyone.

⬐ robryan

It was probably about not getting too much attention before they knew the thing wasn't going to blow up or crash.

Now that it is shown to be reliable they likely want as much attention as they can get.

⬐ agumonkey

How many times did they mention "first reusable ...", it felt like jabs at Elon Musk.

⬐ yessql

They should be proud of that for sure, but they just go up really high, vs. putting a payload into orbit. It's got to be an order if magnitude easier for BO. Look at how long the booster hovers and corrects it way down so gently. SpaceX just can't carry that much extra fuel to land like that.

⬐ agumonkey

Yeah,spacex had similar hover landing long ago, the trick is handling the suicide burn. BO is grabbing attention.

⬐ MertsA

The Falcon 9 also can't throttle low enough to be able to hover when empty. It could do it with extra fuel but that's only because the extra fuel would add more mass, it would have to land before it became light enough that it starts accelerating upwards again.

⬐ hamitron

Might want to do something about that booster being on fire after landing.

⬐ ceejayoz

SpaceX's Falcon does the same thing - paint on the landing legs burns a little after the landing. In fact, it's deliberately ablative (https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/24rnci/are_the_land...).

⬐ ISL

There's been a launch delay, so there are still ~8 minutes to go before launch!

⬐ Frompo

Too late now!

⬐ 6d6b73

Looks like SpaceX will have some catching up to do. Bezos seems to be getting ahead of Musk.

⬐ api

They haven't orbited anything yet, so not exactly. But it looks like the gap is narrower than some thought.

Musk said he hoped to ignite a new space race. He might have one.

⬐ None

None

⬐ babyrainbow

I am not sure Musk has ignited anything. Weren't these competing companies already on this track?

⬐ None

None

⬐ ozzy6009

Not quite yet, orbital missions are much higher energy than lobbing something to space. Specific energy of New Shepard booster at apogee: ~1000 KJ/kg Specific energy of Falcon 9 booster at MECO: 2500 - 3400 KJ/kg

⬐ raamdev

Yeah, and Falcon 9 is several times the size of New Shepard. There are several nice graphics here that explain the differences between Falcon 9 and New Shepard: http://space.stackexchange.com/a/13188

⬐ coob

The Dragon Launch Escape System was successfully tested in May last year.

It is Blue Origin who are catching up.

⬐ mariusz79

But not on a rocket that flew five times.

⬐ None

None

⬐ sfeng

This is a much simpler rocket than the Falcon 9. For one, it's suborbital. Its flights are so much simpler than the full orbital injections and hypersonic reentries the Falcon flies.

A quick list of things Blue Origin hasn't done yet:

- Sent anything to orbit (much less paying cargo)

- Sent anything to geosyncronous orbit

- Landed a ship coming back from orbit

- Docked with the ISS

⬐ ceejayoz

Dragon hasn't done an in-flight test with a firing booster, though. They're each ahead and behind the other in different ways. What SpaceX is doing is for the most part more challenging, but I don't mind some competitiveness if it gets everyone pushing for greatness.

⬐ JanSolo

Crew capsule and booster both went up, seperated, came down and landed nominally. In fact, they made it look easy; everything worked as they predicted and there were no suprises.

A couple of points of interest:

1. The Crew Capsule pitched around quite a lot after it left the booster. This would have been quite 'exciting' for any passengers but was easily survivable. SpaceX had a similar problem in their Dragon LES test a while back. Indeed, the BO Capsule looked much more stable under parachutes than the Dragon did.

2. The commentators mentioned that the booster had flown and landed 5 times and would be retired to a museum. 5 times!? There was so little drama in the launch and landing that I expect they could probably launch it another 5 times with few problems. This is what a reliable system looks like. Good job!

3. The gantry tower at the West Texas launch site had what looked like walkways for accessing the Crew capsule. Does that mean crewed tests are imminent? Very exciting!

This is a fantastic result for Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin team; I'm hoping that their new orbital booster is as reliable. If it is, SpaceX and ULA will have some real domestic competition. At last!

⬐ jessriedel

Hi-jacking top comment to point out that the actual launch is at 1h:06m.

⬐ ceejayoz

1. I'd be interested if they have instrumented crash dummies inside for this sort of thing. I'd imagine they'd get some whiplash, but that's a lot better than blown up.

3. Not necessarily. Their first flight had the same tower. Presumably for engineering access to it when it's stood up. https://youtu.be/rEdk-XNoZpA?t=17s

⬐ jdietrich

If you're properly restrained, you can survive absolutely massive g-forces. John Stapp survived 46g on a rocket sled; Indycar and Formula 1 drivers regularly walk away from >100g crashes. Assuming they're using a proven seat and restraint design, the capsule's own sensors should provide satisfactory data on survivability.

⬐ fbender

Just to put some perspective on this, you are likely unable to survive >9g when experiencing it for more than a few moments, definitely so if you lack proper training for high Gs (there's a few techniques that help to avoid harm). The higher the G forces, the smaller the acceptable time scale is. In a crash, you will only experience such forces for a few milliseconds. Well-trained fighter pilots can handle ~9Gs for a few seconds. Apollo reentry had like 6Gs for ~50sec (take with a grain of salt, very rough numbers), which is brutal but manageable.

And – no matter what the designers/operators say – in a roller coaster, you will never experience more than 1.5Gs for more than a fraction of a second. If you ever thought you experienced G-forces comparable to a rocket launch, you haven't, unless you had the chance to test/train in a centrifuge.

⬐ sp332

The booster was not rated to survive this emergency situation, and it was entirely possible that it would crash and explode during this test. I'm very happy that it survived to be retired!

⬐ nixos

> This is what a reliable system looks like.

Unlike SpaceX, BO doesn't publicize things as they happen, so it could have been the third attempt also.

Though having more money to play before launching commercial sats helps

⬐ sfeng

To be fair, reporters were on site and they were broadcasting a live stream.

⬐ Symmetry

They used to be like that but over the last year they've switched to announcing all their flights in advance and live streaming them.

⬐ takk309

In reference to your first comment, the Soyuz capsules pitch and roll a large amount too. With the crew capsule here, as long as the passengers are still alive at touch down it gets counted as a win. After all, would you care all that much about discomfort if it meant getting you away from an exploding rocket?

I've read a number of stories on this announcement now, 7 BE-4 engines[1]? If wikipedia is accurate[2] that suggests seven BE-4's produce 16,800 kN vs 7,605 kN from nine Merlin engines[3]. Twice the thrust should be interesting to watch. Also the comment about LNG not resulting in soot (carbon deposits) is interesting as it speaks to the re-usability aspects. All of the landed F9 boosters are covered in soot.

And the last interesting question will be how dynamic is the throttle capability. I am amazed at the 'net 0' games that SpaceX has to play to bring the booster to a net zero vertical velocity with an engine that can't reduce its throttle low enough to operate in a mode that produces less thrust than the mass of the booster and remaining fuel. 10% of a BE-4 is like 100% of a Merlin 1D.

All that sums up to a new entry in the field that has chosen many different options, hence it will provide a lot of new information about choices that work or don't work well. Can't wait to see it flying!

[1] https://www.blueorigin.com/be4

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)

This isn't a "who is hiring?" thread obviously, but if anyone wants to be a part of our team we are always looking for folks who share our passion for space, especially those who happen to build software too!

https://www.blueorigin.com/careers

Needless to say, there are tons of interesting problems to solve and opportunities to make a huge impact.

⬐ erikb

You try to push the world to the next level but only hire in the US?

There must be a lot of stuff that you need which is not really limited by US law and that people could work on from their home countries. Examples just in software engineering: Cloud infrastructure, user interfaces, communication platforms, open source projects that are 90% of where you needed them to be to use them, BSP layers for embedded systems you want to use.

⬐ josh2600

They likely will have ITAR hardware in the same workspace as the software guys to minimize logistical overhead. Foreign nationals can't see any ITAR stuff.

⬐ Mvandenbergh

Slight nitpick - US permanent residents (green card holders) can see ITAR stuff even though they're foreign nationals.

⬐ arethuza

"Foreign nationals can't see any ITAR stuff."

If only it was that simple - in a former job I designed systems for a non-US multinational that did ITAR work and it was incredibly painful to work out the rules for who could or could not see particular items of data.

⬐ yomly

Who would want aliens working on their spaceship, after all...

⬐ a_imho

I understand there could be regulations, but these things not add up for me.

>Applicants must be a United States citizen ... >We hold all information confidential and are an equal opportunity employer.

[1]Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, protects applicants and employees from discrimination in hiring, promotion, discharge, pay, fringe benefits, job training, classification, referral, and other aspects of employment, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), or national origin.

[1]http://www1.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/eeoc_self_print_poster...

⬐ rhplus

It's not the civil rights act, but the immigration reform act that would be relevant here:

"Employers should not ask whether or not a job applicant is a United States citizen before making an offer of employment... the law prohibits employers from hiring only U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents unless required to do so by law, regulation or government contract" [1]

However, from the job listings, it sounds like that all employees would have access to regulated information, thus exempting them from the prohibition:

"...U.S. citizen, permanent resident alien or otherwise able to review all export-controlled technical information."

[1] http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/inquiries_citizenship.cfm

⬐ ikurei

IANAL, but national origin and citizenship are two different things.

⬐ vonmoltke

Yes. There are legitimate reasons for companies operating in certain sectors to require US citizenship. In fact, non-citizens are not even allowed in the facilities of some companies. Still, the myth persists that citizenship is always a prohibited requirement.

⬐ infinite8s

The civil right act only holds for American citizens and green-card holders.

⬐ a_imho

Thanks, it makes sense.

⬐ ap22213

Well considering that US space tech is like 30 years ahead of most other countries, e.g. China, it makes sense. I mean they steal everything else, gotta keep some things secret.

⬐ ceejayoz

Let's not be too proud of ourselves... the Chinese can at least get humans into space on their own right now.

⬐ ap22213

Which the US did in 1961...

The Chinese do silly things like blow up satellites (causing space debris), to show their might - things that the US had done 30 years ago.

Whereas, the US has systems that can track and predict all space debris of sizes greater than 1/2 inch.

It's just orders of magnitude more advanced.

⬐ sbierwagen

One might note that a year after the Chinese anti-satellite missile test, the US did the same exact thing, also producing orbital debris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost

⬐ ap22213

This suggests that no debris was created:

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/u-s-navy-missile-...

⬐ Symmetry

Plenty of debris was created, it was just in a low and decaying orbit so it was mostly gone in a few days. By contrast most of the debris from the Chinese test will still be there in 2030 unless someone goes out and cleans it up.

On the other hand the argument was about China's technical abilities and intercepting something in a higher orbit with a faster closing velocity is harder to do than the US's anti-satellite test. The Chinese proved they could destroy surveillance satellites and the US didn't really show that they could do the same.

⬐ arethuza

I would suspect that a lot of what they do would probably be covered by ITAR. If that is the case then the compliance burden is probably going to be a lot easier to meet if everyone is US based.

⬐ jMyles

Serious question: can applicants be assured that the project won't be used to kill people? One can never be too sure when government grants are paying the bills.

⬐ Symmetry

Nobody has wanted to use cryogenic liquid fueled rockets to kill people since rockets that weren't like that were invented. It takes hours to get one ready to fire which might have been worthwhile[1] for the first ICBMs in the era before satellite surveillance but any modern military would be crazy to use one.

But if you're worried about launching military communication satellites, well, they probably will be at some point.

[1] Not my view of what's worthwhile of course.

⬐ askafriend

Whatever assurances they can give you today cannot be generalized to tomorrow.

⬐ jMyles

Well, something like a, "look at the ethical guidelines in our bylaws" might be helpful, even amidst inability to predict the future.

⬐ InclinedPlane

Probably a bad bet. Blue Origin intends to build an orbital launcher, and they will almost certainly end up launching military satellites, including those which directly aid combat operations. That might be too much across the line for some people.

⬐ venomsnake

Rest assured - any form of technological progress will be used to kill people eventually. "Now we are all sons of a bitches."

It is the world's nature.

⬐ mkramlich

George Clinton quote? rang a bell. won't google, more natural.

⬐ wiz21c

'cmon its aprivate company, its Bezos, its capitalistic. So at any point in time, if one has to choose between death of some and company survival, you'll hear : "sorry, but this year finacial results are not in line with investors' expectations; we must, although we're not happy with it, broaden our scope to military applications in order to avoid many layoffs"... Standard 20th century business procedure...

⬐ gaze

It will almost certainly be used to kill people... eventually.

⬐ outworlder

Getting a "Won't be" assurance is probably going to be next to impossible. Anything could happen in such an unspecified amount of time. A "isn't currently intended to" would likely be easier to get.

That said, with so many viable missile platforms, why would Blue Origin be used for that?

⬐ jMyles

> That said, with so many viable missile platforms, why would Blue Origin be used for that?

I know very little about the vertical. As a matter of principle, I typically avoid gigs that involve government funding. However, this one is more interesting than most.

⬐ None

None

⬐ pzb

How do you do that? Where do you draw the line? Basically every company I've worked for has, at some point and to varying levels, taken government funding. It could be buying off the shelf products in the same manner as every other customer, it could be the company creating a modified product for the government, or it could be taking funding in the form of R&D tax credits.

⬐ jMyles

> It could be buying off the shelf products in the same manner as every other customer

What do you mean?

The only company I've worked for for any length of time that was funded in part by government funds was WNYC, which was a blast!

Public Radio to me is one of those times where the broken clock happens to show the right time of day. Sure, it's government funding, but the content we created was really stellar.

I mean, on some higher political level, there's always the "you use the roads" argument, but I'm talking about having to report to someone in the government about how their funding is being used. That's what I object to.

⬐ mrb

"...opportunities to make a huge impact"

Hopefully, not a literal impact :)

⬐ Terr_

My impression is that unless you're a C++ developer doing avionics, all the development jobs are back in "cost center" areas. Do you think that's accurate?

I considered applying a few months ago but my current employer (large conglom-o-corp that ate my old company) has made me nervous about being walled-off as a code-monkey.

⬐ Scea91

There definitely is a space for vast amount of kinds of interesting software engineering and research jobs.

⬐ jxm262

I also had that same impression. I mentioned these thoughts in another thread here on HN (regarding SpaceX) and one of the engineers chimed in saying they have many positions across different areas. I still think it would be cool to join something like this, but would prefer to work on some lower level stuff. I'm currently a Full Stack web developer.

Is there a path to from my current position to something more systems related? Has anyone made this transition before?

⬐ softawre

No, it is currently impossible to learn how to do C++/systems programming, the knowledge doesn't exist!

Are you serious? People come to be systems programmers with no programming experience, obviously with some web/server experience will be even more suited to learn it.

⬐ robin_reala

Presumably ‘anyone’ is ‘anyone that’s a US citizen’?

⬐ None

None

⬐ BrandonMarc

Tempting. Are your working hours more reasonable than SpaceX? With a family to love, 70-hour weeks just don't fit well.

⬐ victor9000

I do not envy those who place their quality of life in the middle of a pissing contest between Bezos and Musk.

⬐ toomuchtodo

Progress is not cheap, nor easy on the soul.

⬐ kzhahou

Progress demands not one tear his soul asunder! As the sweat of a man can be stretched far, so too can the Company above increase their efforts of hiring.

⬐ hyperbovine

I'm happy to let somebody else do the spending.

⬐ gaze

Yeah but... to a degree, right? Many amazing things have been accomplished by people not working themselves to death. If the workforce convinces itself that people are expendable then I suppose people are expendable! I however choose to fight this attitude. Frightened, stressed people work hastefully and make mistakes... somehow the worst thing imaginable for a space exploration company, right?

⬐ jzwinck

Many truly incredible things were built at some cost in human lives. I recently watched a documentary which said large tunneling projects expected to lose one man per X miles dug, a few decades ago.

I'm not saying you should be willing to die for your work. But historically someone always seems to be. Not least of all in the space business.

⬐ scrollaway

The truly incredible things tend to be created/discovered by the most passionate. This means you'll have selection bias on the people who have a tendency to "work themselves to death" for the cause they're passionate about. It does not mean that you have to work yourself to death to arrive there.

⬐ saiya-jin

I presume this topic is less about dying for your work, rather about screwing up your relationships, marriage, ending childhood of your kids with divorce and similar.

Reality of an engineering employee even for such a company is, success means bringing tiny increase ineffectiveness, weight reduction etc. into super complex system. No truly world changing discoveries. If you are alone, do whatever you want with your life. But once you go for family, working 70-hour weeks is plain stupid, selfish or just extremely bad deal. No work is worth making decisions that you will regret for the rest of your life.

⬐ gaze

I agree. I think I'd just add that I really believe that the climate of fear that seems to exist in these super high pressure companies creates the wrong incentives. Would we be okay with a bridge building company being a super high stress environment? I think it's somehow more obvious why this is a bad idea. The problem then is that you're fundamentally making a time-quality tradeoff. If you're okay with this, you're saying you're willing to risk the lives of the people you're sending into space a little more to get ahead in the race. I suppose this will always be true, but where do you wanna be on the curve?

I've had many different kinds of managers. I've had the type that encouraged me to slow down and think carefully about what I'm doing at every step, and I've had the kind that keeps a watchful eye and is always asking "Why isn't this done yet?" Under the latter I started grinding my teeth at night and started engineering things in a fairly brittle way... but my rote productivity was higher than it had ever been. Managerial styles are all engineering decisions just as any other are.

⬐ agumonkey

This makes Steve Jobs 'tyrannic' glow a little pale all of a sudden.

⬐ gaze

It's disgusting. I think it's given people in high places excuses TO be assholes.

⬐ agumonkey

I'm not for it, but ultimately nature wins, if someones thinks taking incommensurate amount of pain for a goal no one will change his/her mind.

⬐ jahaja

Are you really completely oblivious to the working conditions of workers at those times? I think the workers were as passionate about their work as the capitalist was for worker welfare and safety expenses.

Sorry but this comment and some child comments are truly shocking for me in their historical ignorance.

⬐ None

None

⬐ Wingman4l7

Well, to use our last space race as an example: several engineers who worked on Apollo said during interviews that they strongly suspected the consistently long hours they and many others worked directly contributed to later divorces. (My source is the excellent series Moon Machines, for those curious; I believe it was the Navigation episode.)

⬐ gaze

Well we all know that Bezos is known for his healthy and reasonable approach to work-life balance.

⬐ spyspy

I'm surprised The Times was even invited for the tour.

Intention or not...

"The BE-4 is our fourth-generation liquid rocket engine, made to take us into orbital space and beyond. Using the latest design and manufacturing techniques, it’s made for both commercial and government missions."

https://www.blueorigin.com/technology#engine_stories_2

Here is an animated video that shows what space tourism will be like. You will be in space for a few minutes. the view of the world from space will be amazing. plus you will be weightless. not sure how long you will be up there or the cost but it looks awesome.

https://www.blueorigin.com/astronaut-experience#youtube-YJhy...

This graphic aptly shows the differences in complexity between the two flight plans, but it doesn't show the biggest difference between the two rockets. When the Falcon 9, enters space at the height of 100 km, it is traveling at 5000 km/h with 125 metric tons of payload[0]. Blue Origin's New Shepard, the best I can tell was traveling at ~0 km/h at that height, as it reached apogee at the height of 100.5 km and began falling back to Earth.

According to Musk[0], a first stage of a rocket is judged by the energy it can impart to its payload at the standardized height of 100 km. Merely getting to 100 km is the easy part. The Falcon 9 is able to deliver 120 giga-joules to its payload at the height of 100 km, while performing a return to launch site landing. While it appears the New Shepard had ~0 joules left at 100 km.

[0] - http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/12/21/background-tonights-la...

[1] - https://www.blueorigin.com/news/news/blue-origin-makes-histo...

⬐ benjaminl

As @jzila pointed out this didn’t include the potential energy, with that included, the energy comparison becomes more stark.

The Falcon 9 v1.1 weights 557.6 tons and the number floating around for New Shepard is 40 tons. So that would give 496 gigajoules of potential energy for the Falcon 9 and 36 gigajoules of energy for New Shepard.

For a total of energy of 616 gigajoules for the Falcon 9 and 36 gigajoules for the New Shepard.

⬐ kamilszybalski

Amazing, thanks for that explanation.

⬐ jzila

Potential energy is energy, so it's not quite correct that New Shepard had 0 joules at 100km. At 100km and 0 velocity it'll have about 1 gigajoule of energy per metric ton of mass.

⬐ lutefisk

Potential energy is not energy that you can give to a payload unless you want to have it fall 100km back to earth.

⬐ jzila

Sure, but it's energy that a rocket needs to impart nevertheless.

⬐ gfodor

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.

⬐ jzila

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.

⬐ matt2000

This really made the difference clear to me, thanks for the write up.

From what the website says, one of their main goals is a commercial "astronaut experience". In that case, they're only aiming for 100km. [1]

This flight confirms they have achieved that goal, correct?

[1] https://www.blueorigin.com/astronaut-experience

⬐ phkahler

>> From what the website says, one of their main goals is a commercial "astronaut experience". In that case, they're only aiming for 100km.

But SpaceShipOne achieved that back in 2004.

⬐ Tloewald

And in a more energy-efficient and elegant manner.

⬐ wiremine

True, although Virgin Galactic haven't commercialized it either, correct?

⬐ robotresearcher

Not least because the vehicle was destroyed, killing the pilot.

> They just did a perfect demonstration of that flight.

Did you see how hard the capsule landed? Look at around the 1:39 mark on the video: https://www.blueorigin.com/gallery#youtube9pillaOxGCo

⬐ greglindahl

Doesn't look hard to me -- are you being confused by the big cloud of dust? That's mostly caused by the last-second retrorocket.

⬐ mod

The near-instant deceleration would feel rougly the same, regardless of whether it was caused by retrorocket or earth, wouldn't it?

⬐ semi-extrinsic

Consider an airbag. It "only" increases the time for the deceleration of your upper body to O(0.1) seconds. The reason it's so effective is because O(0.1) is O(100) times larger the deceleration time without an airbag, making the acceleration O(100) times less.

⬐ takeda

The reason why an airbag is effective is prevents your head from traveling long distance so you don't break your neck. It's still painful and still can break your nose.

If they had retrorocket on the capsule, I suspect it failed.

⬐ mikeash

The purpose of an air bag is to keep your head from smashing into the steering wheel or dashboard at 70MPH because the car stopped but your head kept going.

The air bag decelerates you to zero over a (relatively) much greater time, meaning much lower forces on your face, brain, etc.

Soyuz lands with a retrorocket and it looks exactly like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2X2kaqYatI

You don't need a long burn to cushion a drop like this. A fraction of a second will suffice.

Is this what happens when an Engineering company decides to go to space? The video (https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blog/historic-rocket-landing...) of the booster coming down like a freight train, igniting, arresting velocity and correcting for yaw, then landing on a dime was absolutely uncanny. This thing reeks of technical competence and flawless execution.

⬐ Symmetry

The New Shepard is just getting up to space rather than all the way to orbit. If you'll recall SpaceS's Grasshopper was just as uncanny in it's landings. Now, the New Shepard has a harder job since it's going to space so it's much more impressive than Grasshopper that they succeeded. But by the same token a Falcon 9 first stage has much thinner mass fractions to work with and has to deal with horizontal velocity so landing one of those is much more impressive still.

⬐ HCIdivision17

This illustrates the almost unfathomable scope involved here. Each accomplishment is at least an order of magnitude or more harder than the last, and each one is truly impressive on their own. Yet each shadows the last!

Pretty cool times for space; I'm stoked for what comes next!

⬐ alanctgardner3

What part of sending things to space isn't "Engineering"? Are you implying SpaceX, ULA, et al. are just winging it sending things to the ISS?

The booster couldn't make a soft landing due to a failure in the hydraulics system.

> “Of course one of our goals is reusability, and unfortunately we didn’t get to recover the propulsion module because we lost pressure in our hydraulic system on descent,” Jeff Bezos wrote in a blog post. “Fortunately, we’ve already been in work for some time on an improved hydraulic system. Also, assembly of propulsion module serial numbers 2 and 3 is already underway – we’ll be ready to fly again soon.”

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2015/04/30/jeff-bezos-...

And here's the aforementioned blog post, from Blue Origin's own website. It presents a little more information about the flight:

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blog/first-developmental-tes...