[AR] Re: Blue Origin beats SpaceX to re-launching a reusable rocket
- From: Craig Remillard <craig.rem@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 21:19:49 -0800
Biplanes in 1914 were mostly curiosities with few practical uses.. It
took the technological ferment of a World War (and the resulting post
war surplus of pilots, aircraft, designers, and manufacturing
capability) to really boost the curve.
Exactly my point, and exactly why I said 1914 instead of 1910 or 1903. The
most important thing at that point was proving the market for airplanes
existed beyond joyrides, one-off prizes, and crazy millionaires. The way to
do that turned out to be selling the technology as militarily useful.
Biplanes in 1914 were just good enough to do it. Sure they changed a lot in
the following 4 years but most of those advances were already well
understood just waiting for someone to pay for them and some crucible in
which to test and winnow them. Same challenge now; hopefully we don't need
a World War to seal the deal this time.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 8:39 PM, Derek Lyons <fairwater@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 8:24 PM, Craig Remillard <craig.rem@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think Elon and/or Gwynne have said publicly that F9 1.1 was designed
from
the start for reuse. Honestly I'm surprised how similar the two vehicles
look. If you think through the evolution of New Shepard to an orbital
booster - increase mass fraction from ~80s to ~90s %, convert to methane
for
volumetric efficiency, increase thrust to lift a second stage, add
crossrange capability and heat shields - the differences largely become
cosmetic. It could just be that this is an obvious local minimum for a
reusable booster in the current low-elasticity market. My hope is we're
looking at biplanes c. 1914.
Biplanes in 1914 were mostly curiosities with few practical uses.. It
took the technological ferment of a World War (and the resulting post
war surplus of pilots, aircraft, designers, and manufacturing
capability) to really boost the curve.
D.
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