[HN Gopher] Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its tit...
___________________________________________________________________
Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its titanic New Glenn
rocket
Author : johnneville
Score : 345 points
Date : 2025-01-16 08:17 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Webcast of the launch @ T-20 seconds -
| https://youtu.be/KXysNxbGdCg?t=6859
| nabla9 wrote:
| Everything nowadays comes packaged with excessive emote track.
|
| People in the internet don't enjoy rocket launch with roaring
| sounds unless there is laugh track over it that validates that
| the launch is awesome and simulates social connection.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| You don't say. SpaceX used to have "technical" launch streams
| with just launch status updates, but even they no longer do
| that :-/
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Didnt they get caught when a launch went badly but their
| narrator keep reading from the script, reporting events
| that clearly were not happening? I would watch a technical
| stream, but i can read a canned script myself.
| synarchefriend wrote:
| No, that never happened.
| imglorp wrote:
| There was an F9 loss early in the program where the
| presenter was overcome by emotion. I would love to find
| an archive of all the launches including that one.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I distinctly recall that occurring. The event was 28
| January 1986, and whilst I didn't watch it live, I did
| catch it within a few hours.
|
| Though that wasn't a SpaceX launch.
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_d
| isas...>
|
| The launch broadcast narration continued for several
| seconds following the vehicle explosion reporting either
| telemetry or programmed flight path information before
| breaking script with the infamous announcement "There's
| obviously been a major malfunction". Various reports I've
| seen are that the previous commentary was based on
| telemetry rather than watching video.
| cybrox wrote:
| Unintentional remedy: with Starlink now giving them HD
| video coverage for the whole flight, I doubt they would
| be able to do this convincingly anymore. (Assuming they
| ever did. I do not know about any such launch)
| fransje26 wrote:
| Is there a footage without the hysterical screeching?
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Worst part of any SpaceX live stream.
| boringg wrote:
| Yeah that excessive cheering and laughing really diminished
| it for me. Everything apparently needs an added hype
| team/track. What a world we live in.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Most news stories on tv are presented as being "Breaking
| News!" It's absolutely bonkers some of the things they'll
| push that way.
| thebigman433 wrote:
| Its a feed of the Blue Origin staff, who have been working
| towards this for years and years - makes sense that they
| would be pretty excited considering the level of success
| this was.
|
| You dont have to consider everything you dont like to be a
| negative on the world
| StefanBatory wrote:
| "I'm unhappy, so I'll force everyone else to be unhappy
| too" :/
| modeless wrote:
| Those are the real emotions of the people at Blue Origin
| watching the launch. They've been working toward this moment
| for _24 years_. Should they censor themselves because their
| "excessive" emotions offend you? Or maybe they should hire
| newscasters to do an disinterested presentation up to your
| standards, instead of employees who actually worked on it?
| jakubmazanec wrote:
| But you hear no crying or shouting during e.g. Moon landing
| [1]. TBH I expect "disinterested" behavior from
| professionals in such situations.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/xc1SzgGhMKc
| modeless wrote:
| That's not a video of live broadcast TV coverage. It's a
| recording of the operational communcations (which you
| could hear in the BO livestream and it didn't have crying
| or shouting). Actual TV broadcasts at the time did show
| some actual emotions including laughter and possibly even
| tears, despite being from professional newscasters rather
| than employees:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMF58ZP681A
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >Everything nowadays comes packaged with excessive emote
| track.
|
| You may have never done anything that warrants an emotional
| response.
|
| Some of us have.
|
| We enjoy seeing others express the joy we ourselves have felt
| at the end of a long, winding, process.
| numpad0 wrote:
| SpaceX started it. NASA launches before it didn't have any of
| it.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| All of them can't shut up and just let us watch the launch
| without listening to their bs like "...aand lift off for
| Orion space mission off Cape Canaveral which is a huge leap
| for humanity"
| bluenose69 wrote:
| As has been noted by others, the emoting is a distraction. I
| could only watch this for a few seconds.
|
| Another thing: why are they reporting speed in miles per hour,
| and altitude in feet? Surely anybody interested in space is
| familiar with SI units.
| Tankenstein wrote:
| Just a guess, but aerospace generally works with feet for
| altitude and knots/mph for airspeed, internationally. I'm
| doing a PPL in Europe and we, like everybody, use feet and
| knots/mph. I believe this is because the US have been on the
| forefront of aerospace regulation (a set of rules called the
| chicago convention is the basis of all air law) and aircraft
| manufacturing.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Can confirm, all aviation worldwide deals in feet and
| knots. It's also because it's much easier to do
| calculations on the fly (literally) - in your head. Metric
| is precise and logical but harder to use in stressful
| situations.
| curl-up wrote:
| Can you please give some real-world example of why it's
| easier to do calculations? Not disputing what you say,
| just hard for me to imagine why it would be so.
| HPsquared wrote:
| 1 knot is about 100 ft/min which is very convenient for
| descent at a specific glide slope (i.e. for 100 knots
| ground speed at 5% slope you want 500 ft/min descent
| rate). Standard is 3deg which is about 5%.
|
| Knots are also handy for navigation as 1 nautical mile
| equals 1 minute of latitude. And of course a knot is 1
| nautical mile per hour. So if you're doing 300 knots,
| that's 5 degrees of latitude per hour.
|
| The units fit together nicely as a system.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| This sums it up. Metric is nice and clean tenths, but the
| real world is seldomly easily expressed in clean tenths.
|
| Another example: The feet is cleanly divisible in thirds,
| quarters, and twelfths, which is greatly appreciated in
| industry and particularly construction.
|
| Also to be bluntly mundane, almost everyone can just look
| down and have a rough measure of a foot which is good
| enough for daily use.
|
| Also, the "sterility" of metric doesn't do it any
| sentimental favours. Japan loves measuring size/volume in
| Tokyo Domes, for example.
| NotEvil wrote:
| Not really, I have no idea what a foot is. But I can just
| look at yhe tiles and know they are 1*1 meter
| Dalewyn wrote:
| If you're an amputee I truly am sorry for you and hope
| the handicap hasn't disrupted your life too much.
|
| Jokes(...?) aside though, your absolute deference to
| precision is an example of why metric flies over people's
| heads. Feets, Tokyo Domes, arguably even nautical miles
| and so on are _relatable_ at a human level unlike metric
| which is _too_ nice and clean.
| notahacker wrote:
| This sort of argument is odd to someone in a country
| which uses both, where a yard is intuitively "a bit
| smaller than a metre", a pint corresponds to a pint glass
| or "about half a litre" rather than anything meaningful
| and I'm aware that a rod and a furlong are things but
| have absolutely no idea what they correspond to. A foot
| is comfortably bigger than the average foot size, and an
| inch really isn't an easier unit to approximate than a
| centimeter
| avmich wrote:
| The SI was specially aimed to reduce such meaningless
| discussions, yet we steel have big endians and little
| endians comparisons, long after the dust settled.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Now I'm wondering if right-to-left languages (e.g.
| funnily enough, Arabic) write the least significant
| digits at the left or the right.
|
| EDIT: numbers in those languages are the same way as in
| English, the "ones" are at the right. Kinda strange!
| Thlom wrote:
| One meter is about one long step for an adult. To
| approximate the length of a field, you just walk along it
| with big steps and count. It will not be correct, but
| pretty close. A cm is a little bit smaller than the width
| of your index finger. It's all bout what you are used to.
| Metric doesn't "fly over people's head" where metric is
| the standard way to measure things, but inches, feet,
| gallons, pounds, miles fly over our head because we are
| not used to it so don't have any frame of reference.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Who cares? It's what the indicator says, I don't need to
| visualize feet to do calculations and talk to the tower
| about them.
|
| If you can see a 1x1m tile from the cockpit, you're dead.
| HPsquared wrote:
| A foot is about 1 sheet of metric A4 paper :)
| avmich wrote:
| A meter is _exactly_ square root of area of A0 paper.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yes and a blank 80 gsm A4 sheet weighs exactly 5g, if you
| need a weight reference!
| jaggederest wrote:
| I suspect that the math is even easier using meters,
| meters, and meters per second than nautical miles, feet,
| and knots. I'll eat my hat if you can tell me the
| conversion from feet or inches to nautical miles without
| looking it up
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Well if what they say is true then 100ft/min = 1 nautical
| mile/60min, so one nautical mile is 6000ft. Or I guess I
| missed the about so not exactly.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's within about 1%
| Ringz wrote:
| The calculation in the metric system would not
| necessarily be more complicated, but it would be
| different because the reference points in the metric
| system are not directly aligned with the geography of the
| Earth.
|
| "1 knot is about 100 ft/min which is very convenient for
| descent at a specific glide slope (i.e. for 100 knots
| ground speed at 5% slope you want 500 ft/min descent
| rate). Standard is 3deg which is about 5%."
|
| You are right. It's an easy calculation. But I would say
| its easy because its historically based on imperial
| units. Its easy to think about easy calculations like
| this in metric units like:
|
| A 5% slope means descending 1 meter vertically for every
| 20 meters horizontally.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The gradient thing would work if ground speed and
| vertical speed were both in m/s, but km/h is more common
| in metric for a ground speed. You don't usually think in
| terms of hours during a climb/descent!
|
| Glide slope of 3.6% would fit nicely though. Then, 100
| km/h ground speed goes with vertical speed 1 m/s.
|
| Metric navigation would use the fact 90 degrees of
| latitude is 10,000 km.
| rmu09 wrote:
| who is flying exactly north/south?
| plantain wrote:
| Certainly not "worldwide". China uses metres.
| Recreational aircraft in Europe often use metres (almost
| all sailplanes).
| Tankenstein wrote:
| Thank you, I wasn't aware of China using metres. It turns
| out Russia uses them as well, confusingly below the
| transition level.
| throw5959 wrote:
| No glider I have ever stepped in used metres. It doesn't
| make any sense, the tower wants to hear feet and knots
| and will communicate using that.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Metric is precise and logical but harder to use in
| stressful situations."
|
| That fully depends on your cultural background. Feet,
| miles etc. are so foreign to me that I would be unable to
| calculate with them under stress.
|
| But I am not a pilot nor a navigator, so...
| throw5959 wrote:
| No, it doesn't. I'm European, never used imperial before
| I became a pilot, and it's easier. Check it out, the
| formulas are much simpler to do in your head. Intuition
| doesn't matter, all that matters is that I can do the
| calculations quickly so I know I'm within parameter
| limits.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm curious which ones you find easier? There or a few
| thermodynamics equations that are much more practical in
| SAE. This is because the many units are often developed
| out of within discipline experiment, whereas metric tries
| to use fundamental units across disciplines.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Take a look into a pilot handbook, they are all written
| down there.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You can be just as precise with either system.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Not for aerospace no
|
| And knots are not mph, they're "nautical miles per hour"
| which are a different measure (1nm is 1.8km, not 1.6km as
| the regular mile")
| Tankenstein wrote:
| Sorry, not a native speaker, I was under the impression
| that aerospace means air and space. I guess i meant
| aviation.
|
| I didn't imply knots are mph, I used the slash to signify
| "or". They are completely different units, but both are
| used. Sometimes the airspeed indicator even has two
| scales, one for kt and one for mph.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Glad to hear it wasn't just me being grumpy, I also found it
| immensely annoying and distracting.
| Tepix wrote:
| Perhaps it's considered more patriotic to reject scientific
| units?
|
| I don't understand why they reserve 6 digits for the speed in
| mph either. Are they expecting it to go beyond 99,999 mph?
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Do they also report the speed of light as Walmart parking
| lots per standard commercial tv break duration?
|
| Edit: as an Amazon product it would probably use Amazon(tm)
| cardboard box unit as the length metric and standardized
| warehouse drone toilet break as duration.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| You're trying to break free of Earth's gravity well, so
| you might as well use Freedom Units.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Do you count them as Freedoms per second or is time
| included in a Freedom?
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Definitely should be football fields or school buses to make
| it comprehensible for the average viewer. Or "2 times the
| speed of a bullet"
| justin66 wrote:
| > Another thing: why are they reporting speed in miles per
| hour, and altitude in feet? Surely anybody interested in
| space is familiar with SI units.
|
| The audience that matters most to them is Americans, and
| they're happy to accommodate even those who are less
| interested in space.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Who cares what units they use? Anyone who is interested in
| space will have some knowledge of both kinds of units, and
| can do conversions if they need to.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Have to agree with others that the horrible laughing ruins what
| should be a monumentous occasion for the company and humanity.
| jve wrote:
| Think about it. The fruit of their hard work over all those
| years while enduring people pointing fingers and memes at
| them... and now their powerful rocket roars, rumbles and
| lifts... Ofcourse it is emotional. And looks like me
| personally enjoy it. Perhaps that is taken from spacex stream
| where you see people cheering on achieving significant
| milestones... just gives you some of it.
|
| Perhaps that audio could have been only when showing people
| cheering or what, but anyways, I'm surprised BO even set up
| that much of a show for external viewers.
|
| SpaceX obviously has spoiled us. Just think of what we could
| see before SX. Some visualization on how rocket fly?
| notahacker wrote:
| Personally I like the contrast between the laugh of joy and
| relief and background cheers from the team that have spent
| the past few years building it, and the calm technical
| announcements coming from somebody who probably feels the
| same way...
| seszett wrote:
| > Just think of what we could see before SX. Some
| visualization on how rocket fly?
|
| What do you mean? Rocket launches have been filmed for
| ages, and without the laugh track, see that random launch
| of Ariane 4 in 1988 for example, that includes an on-board
| view (the replay does include some clapping from spectators
| though):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_E4naQgTl0
|
| You could already see them on live TV at the time. The
| Space X launches today certainly have better quality but
| it's not like launches were impossible to watch in the
| past.
| atq2119 wrote:
| As a non-USian looking in, it seemed fairly average and non-
| horrible to me? I find it interesting to find several
| comments like this one here so prominently compared to the
| discussion thread about SpaceX launches.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Why is that interesting?
| elteto wrote:
| It's just people looking for something to crap on. God
| forbid those engineers celebrate years of their own work.
| ipdashc wrote:
| Yeah, I have seen some pretty annoying ones (on the spaceX
| streams) where they really make the cheering too loud, and
| from these comments I expected similar, but that... Really
| wasn't that bad at all. Just someone being excited. C'mon
| guys
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Don't make fun of the way someone laughs. It'll sour
| someone's spontaneous joy, to think that every time they
| laugh, someone finds it annoying.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| True. When I was in 9th grade, shortly before I was due to
| get braces, my teeth were quite crooked, and someone
| pointed out (in front of a lot of my friends) that they
| thought it looked grotesque when I laughed or smiled. It
| had a lasting negative effect on me, even after the braces
| came off and I had a great smile.
| xeromal wrote:
| Great point to always consider people's humanity when doing
| something.
| sho_hn wrote:
| This is such a bizarre comment for me. If you strip that
| "momentous occasion for humanity" from its human component,
| then how is it a worthwhile historical document?
| perihelions wrote:
| Dupe of / More details & discussion here,
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42721882 ( _" Blue Origin
| New Glenn Mission NG-1 (video) (blueorigin.com)"_, 55 comments)
| bell-cot wrote:
| I might say "More details & discussion here", vs. "Dupe of".
| For those who don't want to burn time watching video, the Ars
| story is an excellent summary.
| seydor wrote:
| I don't understand why making excuses for their failure, 10 years
| after spaceX started reusing their rockets. There are so many
| competitors now and china is doing quite well, that we don't need
| participation trophies.
| Tepix wrote:
| Reaching orbit on the first try is a big deal. I think it
| deserves recognition and celebration.
|
| Noone has ever managed to nail the landing of an orbital class
| booster on the first try.
| jve wrote:
| > Noone
|
| Name another company that even landed orbital class booster
| on whatever try.
|
| 10 years ago it was an impossible feat many were laughing at.
| cma wrote:
| The space shuttle achieved reusable booster landing in the
| 80s with parachutes and water.
|
| Delta clipper controlled burn relanding in the 90s but not
| scaled to orbital class.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Solid engine booster isn't in the same category of
| complexity as liquid engine booster, though.
| cma wrote:
| Sure, just saying it wasn't an impossible feat.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Nobody with any sense for how rockets work should be
| impressed with parachuting and refurbing SRB tubes.
| Landing a proper rocket stage the real way is an
| impressive feat of robotics and engine engineering. The
| shuttle SRB thing was a wasteful farce meant to pay lip
| service to the loftier goals set by earlier Shuttle
| proposals (such as real flyback boosters.)
|
| A far better example, although still not exactly the same
| sort of thing, would be landing the SSMEs with every
| orbiter landing. They obviously required refurbishment
| (as all Falcon 9 Merlin engines do too) and the
| propellant tanks were expended, but the engineering that
| went into the SSMEs is a much better example of precedent
| to Falcon 9 than dropping spent SRBs on parachutes.
|
| SLS/Artemis is actually using some of the specific SSMEs
| that have flown before on Shuttles. Veteran engines, but
| they will be discarded this time, no more refurbing. What
| a damn shame.
| baq wrote:
| Shame for nostalgia reasons perhaps, these engines were
| made out of unicorn tears and the price tag reflected
| that. The new gen methalox engines are much saner
| economically.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I don't understand why you're drawing attention to their
| failure, it doesn't mean anything. Failure by anyone on the
| first time of anything is understandable.
|
| But I'm interested to know what the extensive competition for
| domestic heavy lift rockets consists of, especially reusable
| ones with a low cost. SpaceX of course, but Boeing is out to
| lunch.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > extensive competition for domestic heavy lift rockets
| consists of
|
| New Glenn, Vulcan and Falcon Heavy/Starship.
|
| There'll be a Chinese option shortly for those that are truly
| launcher-agnostic.
| fsloth wrote:
| "Many" competitors? I thought that in this vehicle category
| (large&affordable) Space X was the only competitor?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Blue Origin changed CEOs two years ago and since then it
| started to pull forward.
|
| They may have failures during flights, but they aren't a
| failure as a company.
| fregonics wrote:
| This. I used to be very skeptical of anything Blue Origin.
| But after the CEO change they appear to have changed their
| attitude for the better.
|
| They are not on SpaceX level, but they are growing recently
| and I think this test, even with the many problems or things
| I didn't like (SpaceX spoiled us), it was positive.
| moritonal wrote:
| Didn't we laude SpaceX for failing fast and moving forward?
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I'm about as big a SpaceX fanboy as possible, and still find
| this a remarkable achievement.
|
| You simply can't sim your way to a successful landing because
| there's too many unknown unknowns. Note on this launch it seems
| they even fubared the thrust:weight ratio a bit right off the
| pad, and that's normal.
|
| This stuff is hard to do, and them getting to orbit in one shot
| is a great indicator of where they might be headed.
|
| I'd love to see a competent competitor to SpaceX because
| that'll just get us to Mars (and beyond) that much faster.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > ... they even fubared the thrust:weight ration a bit ...
|
| Fubared, or carefully nerfed? With so tiny a payload, I can
| see both engineering data collection and range safety reasons
| to barely crawl their first launch off the pad.
| stetrain wrote:
| SpaceX have had much worse recent failures on launches of their
| new generation rocket.
|
| Blue Origin have moved glacially slow by comparison, but they
| achieved their primary goal with this launch (get to orbit) and
| failed a secondary goal (land the booster).
|
| If this were a SpaceX launch of a brand new rocket we'd be
| calling this a success and noting how they'd almost certainly
| achieve the secondary goal soon.
|
| I think the question is how well and quickly Blue Origin can
| iterate to achieve first stage reuse. It took SpaceX quite a
| long time with a lot of lessons learned to reach the maturity
| they have now with Falcon 9 landings and re-launches.
| vFunct wrote:
| I wish the cameras used film like NASA did for Saturn V. The
| digital cameras used on these launches basically show a white
| blob with no detail due to digital cameras having such low
| dynamic range compared to film. And this is made worse with the
| night launches that Blue Origin are doing.
|
| In Saturn V launches you could see see detail in the bright flame
| structures along with background detail.
|
| Maybe some of the upcoming digital cameras chips will have higher
| dynamic range eventually. I know Nikon has a paper talking about
| stacked sensors that are trading off high frame rate for high
| dynamic range: https://youtu.be/jcc1CvqCTeU?si=DuIu4BK48iZTlyB2
| trhway wrote:
| > talking about stacked sensors
|
| why not just stacked cameras with a range of filters? modern
| cameras cost and weight nothing (and that rocket puts 45 ton
| into LEO)
| ArnoVW wrote:
| those engineering cameras were not your regular run-of-the mill
| cameras neither.
|
| NASA published a 45 min documentary of the 10-15 engineering
| cameras of an STS launch., with comments on the engineering
| aspets of the launch procedure.
|
| Very beautiful, relaxing, has an almost meditative quality.
| Highly recommend it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwqZ4qAUkE
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Yeah and Shuttle cost a fortune per launch.
|
| Views are distinctly secondary to an affordable launch
| program.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And the cost of the camera program was paid back a hundred
| times as that footage was used to diagnose, correct and
| improve countless systems. Accident investigations would
| have taken ten times as long without that footage.
| nickff wrote:
| I absolutely love that beautiful film footage,
| particularly well-exhibited in one of my favorite
| documentaries, the spectacular "When We Left Earth" (a
| lovely and lengthy series). That said...
|
| Modern rockets have the ability to stream a great deal
| more data, including live camera streams, than the
| Mercury/Gemini/Apollo or Space Shuttle could. This
| increased real-time data bandwidth is probably much more
| valuable than high-dynamic-range cameras were.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Telemetry only records what you deem interesting prior to
| flight. When something goes really wrong, it probably
| came from something you were not expecting, like foam
| insulation. Cameras recorded everything visible, even the
| stuff you don't think important.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I'd assume that BO _has_ plenty of high-res /high-contrast-
| range imagery - that's just too useful for engineering
| analysis, post-launch.
|
| What they release to the public is a separate issue.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The digital cameras used on these launches basically show a
| white blob with no detail due to digital cameras having such
| low dynamic range compared to film._
|
| Film negatives have a dynamic range of between 12 to 15 stops,
| but a whole bunch can be lost when transferred to optical print
| (perhaps less if digitally scanned).
|
| The Arri ALEXA Mini LF has 14.5 stops of dynamic range, and the
| ALEXA 35 has 17 (Table 2):
|
| *
| https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/295460/e10ff8a5b3abf26c33...
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > a whole bunch can be lost when transferred to optical print
|
| I'm not sure if by "optical print"[0] you mean a film
| developing process (like C41), but the info is not lost and
| stays on the film. The developer job is to fine tune the
| parameters to print the infos you're seeking, and that
| include adjusting white and black points thresholds (range).
| You can also do several print if you want to extract more
| infos, and print it so large you see the _grain shapes_! If
| there's is something lost it's when the picture is taken,
| after that it's up to you to exploit it the way you need.
|
| It's very similar to a numeric device capturing RAWs and the
| developer finishing the picture on a software like Camera
| Raw, or what some modern phone does automatically for you.
|
| 0 not English native, perhaps this is a synonym of
| developement?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I'm not sure if by "optical print"[0] you mean a film
| developing process (like C41), but the info is not lost and
| stays on the film._
|
| You have a negative, which you develop.
|
| For photos you then have to transfer that to paper. For
| cinema you want to distribute it, so you have to take the
| originally captured image(s) and make copies to distribute.
|
| In both cases, because it's an analog process, and so
| things will degrade.
|
| Of course if you scan the negative then further copies
| after are easy to duplicate.
| zipy124 wrote:
| I believe it's possible to get higher than that, this work by
| kodak for examples shows 20!! stops on film[1]. I seem to
| remember reading somewhere that for example Kodak TMax 100
| can be pushed up to 18 stops, maybe higher. The limitation is
| not usually the film itself but the development process' used
| I think?
|
| Its also crucial to note at what SNR they use for their
| cutoff when stating their dynamic range in stops, in addition
| to their tone curve.
|
| I'm only a hobbyist though, perhaps someone else can
| enlighten me further.
|
| Digital is mostly limited by bits, since a 14 bit image with
| a linear tone curve will have at most 14 stops of info right?
| So we won't expect to see values pushing higher until camera
| manufacturers leave behind 14 bit as a standard and go
| higher, as in the arri cameras. They use a 16 bit sensor, and
| squeeze the last stop out by using a more gradual tone curve
| in their shadows. This means technically the shadow stops
| contain less information than the highlight stops, thus
| meaning not all stops are equal I believe (quite confusing).
|
| [1]: "Assessing the Quality of Motion Picture Systems from
| Scene-to-Digital Data" in the February/March 2002 issue of
| the SMPTE Journal (Volume 111, No. 2, pp. 85-96).
| mapt wrote:
| What we're doing here to get higher SNR, generally, is
| growing the CMOS sensors larger and larger. The limitation
| is ultimately either depth of field or IC manufacturing
| issues. A hypothetical meter-wide sensor could be
| manufactured to combine with a catadioptric lense of
| extreme cost, but you'd expect most of a scene to be bokeh,
| like in macro or microscope lenses.
|
| In reality there are limits imposed by manufacturing. At
| the extreme, we have wafer-scale sensors used in, eg,
| night-time wildlife videography -
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11497922/ . Anything larger
| than that is typically a not-perfectly-contiguous array of
| smaller chips.
|
| You can also cryocool the camera, at the expense of weight,
| versatility, and complexity. Most astrophotography is
| collected with cryocooled CCD or cryocooled CMOS sensors.
| This helps much more with long exposures than it does with
| video, but it does help.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > The limitation is not usually the film itself but the
| development process' used
|
| I respectfully doubt that, development process is a
| combinaison of techniques that lets you do many thinks with
| your row data and the line between that and special effects
| is quite blurry (joke intended).
|
| One way to make HDR-like with films and cheap-not-advanced
| material is to do a several development of the same film to
| the same paper, with different exposures parameters. That
| way you combine different ranges of the image (eg stop 1-4
| + stop 4-10 + stop 10-18) to produce you final image. This
| is a great craft workship.
|
| The only limit is the chemistry of the films used (giving
| grains at almost nano scale), multiplied by the size of the
| film.
|
| Side note: development is basically a picture of a picture
| (usually) done with different chemicals and photographic
| setup.
| yourapostasy wrote:
| 20 stops dynamic range is about the human eye's range.
| Achieving that for digital capture and display would be
| mind blowing.
| jmpman wrote:
| I still don't understand how vision only self driving
| cars are viable without also having 20 stops of dynamic
| range.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I'm amazed that they only have one camera. A cheap
| solution to dynamic range would be to have two cameras,
| one for bright, high resolution, and one for low light,
| low resolution.
| touisteur wrote:
| I thought that was what HDR was at first in my young
| naive days: for the same sensor put several ADCs in
| parallel with overlapping ranges and auto-switch to the
| non-saturated one...
| vFunct wrote:
| I actually used to design image sensor chips. The dynamic
| range is due to the electron well size. Each pixel has a
| diode that stores typically between 10,000-100,000
| electrons in them. When the shutter is open, each photon
| that arrives pushes out an electron across the diode. When
| the shutter closes, sensors count how many electrons
| remain. This is how they calculate how much light each
| pixel received.
|
| The well size itself is usually a function of the pixel
| size. A larger pixel means a larger diode that can store
| more electrons, and hence a larger range of light that can
| be measured - dynamic range.
| mediaman wrote:
| So there's a tradeoff between image resolution and
| dynamic range, for a given sensor size?
| vFunct wrote:
| Sorta. If you subdivide an area into more pixels you get
| lower dynamic range for each pixel, but you can average
| across multiple pixels to gain back the some of the
| dynamic range.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Dumb question, but if it's super windy, does that make
| the photos brighter?
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Digital is mostly limited by bits, since a 14 bit image
| with a linear tone curve will have at most 14 stops of info
| right?_
|
| Bit depth [?] dynamic range.
|
| The dynaic range is about the highest and lowest value that
| can be measure ("stops" are a ratio per log_2, db are a
| ratio per log_10):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Human_percept
| ion
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range#Photography
|
| The bits are about the gradation with-in that range. You
| can have 12-stop image recorded using a 10-bit, 12-bit,
| 14-bit, or 16-bit format.
|
| And at least when it comes to film, it is not a linear
| curve, at least when you get to the darkest and lightest
| parts. That's why there's an old saying "expose for the
| shadows, develop for the highlights"
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlnt5yFArWo
|
| * https://www.kimhildebrand.com/how-to-use-the-zone-system/
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_System
| tambourine_man wrote:
| It could be an exposure issue. Film has a response curve with a
| big "shoulder" in the highest values. It makes it really hard
| to blow out highlights.
|
| Digital sensors have a linear response to light, so if the
| highlights are a bit over a threshold, they are gone.
|
| If you're willing to tolerate more noise and shoot RAW, you
| could underexpose, perhaps by as much as 4 stops, and apply a
| strong curve in post. It would pretty much guarantee no blown
| out highlights.
|
| Most people find luminance noise aesthetically pleasing up to a
| point and digital is already much cleaner than film ever was,
| so it's a worthy trade off, if you ask me. But "Expose To The
| Left/Right" is a heated topic among photographers.
| shagie wrote:
| Spitballing, but a HDR digital camera could be designed with
| a beamsplitter similar to that of the 3CCD (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-CCD_camera ) designs that
| projects to an assembly with only a sensor behind it, another
| to an assembly that has a 4 stop neutral density and sensor,
| and another to an assembly that has an 8 stop neutral density
| and and sensor.
|
| This way it wouldn't suffer from any parallax issues and
| sensor images should then also line up to allow it to be
| reconstructed from the multiple sources.
|
| That said... HDR images can be "bland" with it being washed
| out. It would probably take a bit more post processing work
| to get the image both high dynamic range and providing the
| dynamism of what those old Saturn V launches showed.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I think what you need is a plain old half-silvered beam
| splitter, not the 3CCD prism. The dichroic prism uses
| combinations of coatings to separate RGB into different
| optical paths. You don't need that.
| shagie wrote:
| Half silvered would work too. I was using the 3CCD prism
| as an example of splitting an image into multiple parts
| and avoiding issues with parallax. If you stacked cameras
| on top of each other with their own lenses, you'd
| inevitably get slightly different focal lengths, focal
| distances, and camera positions.
|
| Aside with the dichotic filter... there was a neat trick
| that was lost (and refound) with a sodium 589nm dichromic
| (notch) prism. https://youtu.be/UQuIVsNzqDk
| lm28469 wrote:
| I don't think it's a technical issue, they probably just don't
| care, we lost a bit of the magic and ideals we had back then
| stouset wrote:
| I think the last thing you could probably say about the teams
| involved in this is that they don't care.
| lm28469 wrote:
| We must not have seen the same footage, they even had rain
| drops on the lens, that was an amateur move in the 60s, in
| 2025 it should be a crime lol
|
| Like, what the fuck is this ? https://imgur.com/6sVSXGd Did
| they strap an iphone 12 on the launchpad and leave it on
| auto settings ? The flood light is aimed straight at the
| lens too...
|
| This is an amateur shot from 5 years ago: https://www.reddi
| t.com/r/space/comments/coppj8/a_dramatic_cl...
|
| I'm telling you, they didn't care one bit about that video,
| it looks like absolute ass
| mulmen wrote:
| The detailed Apollo shots were not live. The Blue Origin
| frame is from a live video feed. The ULA picture is a
| post-processed still photo.
| powderpig wrote:
| You should check out the Artemis I engineering footage.
| CarVac wrote:
| Even on film, if you expose for the rocket you don't get any
| flame detail.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#/media/File:Apollo_11...
| hackeraccount wrote:
| This is footage hours after the event. It's no doubt been
| stomped on for streaming and other reasons. I wouldn't give up
| on something better being out there for a little while yet.
| johnp314 wrote:
| What am I missing? I can sit in my den and watch SpaceX and now
| Blue Origin launches, in real time see the telemetry data, see
| stage separation, reentry burns, etc, etc. As for Saturn V, to
| quote the Byrds "I was so much older then..." but I don't
| recall any of that. Doesn't film require taking the exposed
| product to a lab for after the fact processing? While the Blue
| Origin images this morning were not nearly as good as the
| SpaceX, to me the images are absolutely incredible. I am a
| serious amateur photographer and I do still shoot film on
| occasion but I see little dynamic range differences now in
| 2025.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Just a reminder that Blue Origin was founded almost 24 years ago,
| nearly 2 years before SpaceX was.
|
| And it's hard to find out how much money Blue Origin has burnt
| but it seems to be largely supported by Bezos who years ago
| pledged to fund it to the tune of $1 billion a year. Allegedly BO
| has >11K employees and payroll alone is estimated to exceed $2B a
| year with little revenue to pay for it. Bezos may well be
| $10-20B+ in the hole.
|
| Now consider the market for the New Glenn. It seems to have a
| payload capacity around 3x that of Falcon 9 and 2/3 that of
| Falcon Heavy. As we know, there's not a lot of demand for Falcon
| Heavy, there having been 11 launches (compared to 439 for Falcon
| 9). SpaceX also has created demand through Starlink.
|
| For anyone launching a satellite, the Falcon 9 has an impressive
| track record. It's unclear how much SpaceX saves by reusing first
| stage boosters but it certainly increases their potential launch
| cadence and there were close to 150 launches in 2024 alone.
|
| So I'm happy to see competition in this field but it's unclear to
| me what market there is for New Glenn (or even Starship for that
| matter, but that's a separate story) but Falcon 9 seems to have
| saturated the launch market. It's really the Boeing 747 of launch
| vehicles. For those unfamiliar, the 747 was such a competitive
| advantage and cash cow for Boeing for quite literally decades.
| That's how dominant the Falcon 9 is.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Bezos may well be $10-20B+ in the hole.
|
| Which puts it about the level of my ski season pass in his
| budget. A hobby scale expenditure.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| you spent 10% of your NW on a ski season pass?
| kentm wrote:
| Good point but money has diminishing marginal utility so I
| wouldn't be surprised if Bezos sees it that way.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I would prefer not to add up 25 years (BO founded in 2000)
| worth of passes, travel, equipment and lessons. That would
| be an uncomfortable result.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| It's going to replace ULA as the secondary option for DoD
| launches. That's a multi-billion dollar contract.
|
| It'll put price pressure on SpaceX who have been able to charge
| increasingly large amounts without the competition from ULA
| recently.
| Perceval wrote:
| SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin will all three be on Space
| Force's National Security Space Launch Phase III Lane 2 IDIQ.
|
| Blue Origin won't replace ULA on that contract, but will
| compete head to head with SpaceX and ULA to win launch task
| orders.
| adolph wrote:
| I think the parent comment refers to ULA being on life
| support. The new contracts won't be as flush as the company
| was designed to need, and there won't be 3x launch cadence.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/08/investing-in-space-how-
| banke...
|
| Here is a deeper history/analysis of ULA and how they were
| propped up by maintenance fees to retain launch capacity
| even when there were no payloads.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyxLAezc9k0
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > Just a reminder that Blue Origin was founded almost 24 years
| ago, nearly 2 years before SpaceX was.
|
| And Ford Motor Companies was founded in 1903 and still hasn't
| gotten above the Karman line. Wow, they're a massive failure as
| a company.
|
| Blue wasn't aiming for an orbital rocket for years.
| imeron wrote:
| So what they were aiming for in the last 24 years if not to
| get into space?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| In part, being a ULA supplier so _they_ could get to space.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Blue Origin's goal has been to move heavy industry into
| space, to realize the vision of Gerard O'Neill. For its
| first 5 years it was a think tank, trying to figure out the
| best way to get there. Neal Stephenson was one of the
| employees, and you can see echoes of their work in his
| writing.
|
| Only after 5 years did they transition to becoming a rocket
| company, having decided that lowering the cost of access to
| space was the most important first step to realizing
| O'Neill's vision.
|
| And they were right, it's just that SpaceX realized the
| same thing at about the same time and were much more
| successful at it.
|
| Going from 0 to a large oxygen rich staged combustion
| engine and a heavy class rocket in 19 years is actually
| pretty good by industry standards. SpaceX is the exception,
| not Blue Origin.
| arijun wrote:
| Didn't BO have a change in leadership in 2023 precisely
| because they were slow compared to SpaceX?
|
| Edit: New Glenn was announced in 2016, compared to Starship's
| 2019, and they're approaching the finish line at around the
| same time. And I would say Starship was a far more ambitious
| project.
| Dr4kn wrote:
| New Glenn has a payload size that is comparable to that of
| starship.
|
| Falcon Heavy can launch much heavier stuff than 9, but it uses
| the same fairing. If you want to launch things that can't fit
| into Falcon 9s fairing, then your only options are SLS, New
| Glenn and in a few years Starship.
|
| Especially Space Station Parts and Spy satellites can be quite
| huge. So there is an established and growing market for larger
| payloads
| gangstead wrote:
| The extended Falcon fairing was spotted recently on one of
| the Falcon launches at the Cape. They are designing that for
| DoD payloads I think but it's advertised as available for
| payloads. It's not any wider but it is 18.7 m tall instead of
| 13.2m. Source: [Falcon User
| Guide](https://www.spacex.com/media/falcon-users-
| guide-2021-09.pdf)
| nprateem wrote:
| In a fair market this'd be bad news for SpaceX, but from next
| week he'll have nothing to worry about for at least the next 4
| years/until donnie dies.
| thehappypm wrote:
| > As we know, there's not a lot of demand for Falcon Heavy
|
| Citation needed
| jmyeet wrote:
| There have been 11 Falcon Heavy launches (as I said in my
| comment) in the almost 6 years since the first flight
| (February 2018), roughly 2 per year. There were almost 150
| Falcon 9 launches in 2024 alone.
|
| What else would you call this than "not a lot of demand"?
| thehappypm wrote:
| Why are you conflating demand with launch cadence?
|
| Falcon Heavy is in R&D mode, which is why there have been
| fewer launches. That has no bearing on the demand for it.
| stetrain wrote:
| I think you may be confusing Starship and Falcon Heavy.
| Falcon Heavy is a production launch vehicle that has
| launched payloads for NASA, DoD, etc. at this point.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| And if Starship succeeds, a complete dead end.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Falcon Heavy has done far too few launches to accurately
| predict the demand.
| stetrain wrote:
| It does as many launches as customers buy. If more
| customers bought Falcon Heavy launches SpaceX would
| launch more.
|
| It's been launching operational payloads for 6 years now.
| gangstead wrote:
| They may be supply constrained as well. Only one of the 3
| Falcon launch pads can support Falcon Heavy and it must
| be reconfigured to go between regular and Falcon launches
| so each Heavy launch restricts Falcon launches for a week
| or two on either side. The second launch site at
| Vandenberg is being built right now and will support both
| regular and Heavy launches as well. For every other
| launch company reserving a launch site for a month for
| one launch wouldn't be a problem but for SpaceX that will
| prevent scheduling of 4-6 other Falcon launches.
|
| SpaceX might be pricing Heavy launches high enough to
| dampen demand until they can support more launches.
| krisoft wrote:
| Because there is not enough demand. If there would be
| more demand there would be more launches. Because why
| not?
|
| (Are you sure that you are talking about Falcon Heavy?
| The heavy launcher which is basically 3 Falcon 9 boosters
| bungee corded together[1]. First launched in 2018. And
| not Starship which first launched successfully in 2024?)
|
| 1: Not really. Just a joke. Before someone nitpicks
| chasd00 wrote:
| I'm a pretty hardcore SpaceX fan but hats off to the BlueOrigin
| team. Orbit on the first try is no small feat. Congrats!
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Why do people feel the need to add qualifiers like "I'm a
| pretty hardcore SpaceX fan but...". Are you so attached to some
| company that it was hard for you to congratulate people on an
| accomplishment? It seems strange.
| avmich wrote:
| There's such a thing as sports watching, when you're
| associating yourself with a team and are glad and sad
| together with them. I guess something like this could happen
| elsewhere...
| mousetree wrote:
| If you don't praise Elon Musk he will say bad things about
| you on Twitter
| kentm wrote:
| Still love the car!
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Because of the popularity of the 'I'm no Elon fan' preamble
| on HN.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Let's flip it: Why do _you_ care? Does it really bother you
| that much?
|
| P.S. Wait a second, why do I care about why do you care? Oh
| god...
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Stop! You'll get us in an infinite feedback loop!
| chasd00 wrote:
| It was just a reflex and a sports team rivalry is a good
| analogy. In other forums on the inet there's definitely a
| team spacex vs team blueorigin feeling. Think about American
| college football, imagine someone at UT congratulating A&M
| for scoring a touchdown. That would require finesse in some
| crowds :)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Why do people feel the need to
|
| Whenever it's used, it applies to the comment using it as
| well as the comment it's referring to.
| BariumBlue wrote:
| It's a way to add emphasis on "They did a good job". We could
| translate it as
|
| "I'm somewhat biased against BlueOrigin, but BlueOrigin
| managed to overcome my personal bias with how impressive
| their launch was".
|
| It's similar to saying "I normally don't like country music,
| but that was a good song". In that sentence the intended
| message isn't "I don't like country music", instead it's "I
| liked that song"
| thehappypm wrote:
| Does anyone have a good sense for the actual purpose of reusing
| rockets?
|
| Call me skeptical of the actual cost savings. You now need
| systems in place to catch them, the rockets need more components
| and fuel and such to control descent, the rocket then need to be
| refurbished back to launch-ready after going through hellacious
| stress. It seems like it'd be cheaper, lighter, and simpler on
| the whole to just make a new one. But I would love to learn more.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Rocket engines are very complex machinery that's difficult and
| expensive to make. Reusing the rocket allows you to reuse the
| engine.
|
| SpaceX has also managed to show that reused hardware can be
| more reliable than brand new hardware. You run the hardware
| through a number of tests before launch, but there is no better
| test than an actual launch. Satellites still cost a lot more
| than rockets, so reliability is a big deal
| Symmetry wrote:
| A NASA planetary probe or a NRO spysat cost more than an
| order of magnitude more than launch but your run of the mill
| comm sat is only a bit more expensive than a SpaceX launch.
| twic wrote:
| I do wonder if there's a way to reuse engines without reusing
| whole rockets, that could wind up cheaper. Pop the engine out
| of the rocket with some small fuel tanks, spin round and do a
| retro burn, then ... somehow land. I have not worked out all
| the details.
| stetrain wrote:
| ULA calls this "SMART reuse" but has not yet successfully
| achieved it with their Vulcan rocket.
|
| https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_240
| 0...
|
| In some ways this is simpler, but in others it is more
| complex since you need a way to catch the engines before
| they dunk in the salt water. A rocket booster that is
| already set up with avionics, engines, and fuel can guide
| and land itself without needing a precise helicopter catch
| etc.
| arijun wrote:
| I'm not sure how leaving the rest of the booster would make
| a propulsive landing easier. It seems like more complexity
| than just leaving some fuel in the tank, for less benefit.
| But ULA's Vulcan (which incidentally uses the same BE-4
| engine as New Glenn) plans on using a helicopter to catch
| it's engines as they parachute down [1]
|
| [1] https://www.planetary.org/space-images/smart
| stephenhumphrey wrote:
| As Diane Rehm once lamented on her radio show about two
| decades ago, as she was interviewing some cutting-edge
| engineer about his work, "why does it have to be so
| haaaard?!?"
| voidUpdate wrote:
| This concept is generally known as "Stage-and-a-half", and
| it was used on the Atlas rockets
| logifail wrote:
| There is an older (2015) discussion on this at
| https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37390.0
| jve wrote:
| By that logic there should be launchers of similar capabilities
| cheaper than F9... which there aren't.
|
| Reason 2: Enables increased launch cadence.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| This was the argument a decade ago when SpaceX was the only one
| seriously talking about reuse. Given SpaceX is now responsible
| for the vast majoriy of mass to orbit it is hard to argue with
| the results, and now everyone serious is investing in reuse.
| thehappypm wrote:
| this is survivorship bias. SpaceX made a choice, and it
| succeeded; but SpaceX also made a million other design
| choices. Reusability could well be sub-optimal.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| Your argument seems logical but the conclusion is wild, and
| I'm pretty sure extremely wrong. What other design choices,
| SpaceX made have been more significant for capturing 70% of
| all rocket launches in the world?
|
| Reusing seems like the obvious and biggest design decision
| that led to their success
| ggreer wrote:
| For SpaceX to keep up their current launch cadence without
| reusability, they would need to build a new Falcon 9
| booster every 2-3 days instead of every two months. It
| would also require an 8x increase in their build rate of
| Merlin engines.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Note that SpaceX's whole schtick at the beginning was to
| specifically go for a very cheap single use rocket. All of
| their design decisions were based around making the Flacon
| 1 and later the Falcon 9 easy to mass produce. This was the
| prevailing philosophy after the Space Shuttle's reusability
| failed to bring down launch costs. SpaceX tried that and
| they failed to achieve the cost savings they wanted. That's
| when they pivoted to reusability, which did work,
| propelling them from well branded newcomer to dominant
| player in the launch market.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| It's true that in principle, you need a stronger rocket (the
| whole rocket, not just the motor) and a bunch of extra
| infrastructure to be able to reuse.
|
| However, without being able to recover a rocket, it's actually
| quite difficult to figure out just how much corners you can
| cut, while remaining reliable. Since blowing up revenue payload
| is an awful way to optimize this, I think this means that
| disposal rockets will be inefficient in a different way - there
| will be excess safety margin in the wrong areas.
|
| Reliable re-use also changes the operating model of the
| company. Since each rocket in stock represents many customers
| over time, you don't need to be nearly as stressed about
| exactly matching your manufacturing pipeline to predicted
| demand. This likely also enables generally faster turn around
| time (as in from cheque signed to launch).
|
| Finally, as it turns out, it's not unreasonable to expect a
| rocket to be reused like 20+ times. I think you're point would
| be reasonable if it turned out that reusing a rocket more than
| ~3-5 times was difficult. But like... it's REALLY hard to do
| disposal anything better than something that can be reused 20+
| times.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Rocket engines are very expensive, and the whole rocket is
| fairly expensive in traditional construction methods. The cost
| of the rocket engines dominates the others.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Pretty unusual for a new space company to make orbit on their
| first launch. Generally par for the course in established
| companies is 2 failures in the first 10 launches so lets see how
| they do.
|
| The stage didn't land successfully but I'd have been very
| surprised if they got _that_ on the first try.
|
| NG's launch price is supposedly only about 50% higher than a
| Falcon 9 with a lot more payload weight and volume. Hopefully
| this will result in SpaceX cutting their price, they've got a lot
| of room to do so before hitting their launch costs.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The new space company is over twenty years old. For such a long
| development time I figured they actually had a reasonable
| chance of nailing the booster landing. I bet they'll do it next
| time.
| trothamel wrote:
| It also helps that they fairly routinely land boosters (with
| New Shepard), which means they've likely worked out the
| 'landing' part.
|
| Now to see if they can solve the reentry problem.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Sounded like maybe a telemetry loss, which is hard to fully
| simulate. They'll abort to be conservative in these
| situations even if the rocket could land itself without tele-
| operation.
| mulmen wrote:
| Stage 1 is remotely operated? I find that surprising.
| nirav72 wrote:
| I'm not knowledgeable in the deep technical details of
| rocketry. But curious - how else would the first stage be
| operated? Should it be autonomous?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Yes. The timings involved would make it impractical to
| land a rocket reliably via human teleoperation even with
| zero latency.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'm not a rocket scientist but my assumption is that it
| would be internally guided and only take external inputs
| in the form of GPS and "land on the ship" or "don't land
| on the ship". Saturn V was manned and had a an internal
| guidance computer.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| No, but they want to be able to remotely abort.
| ajax177 wrote:
| Only in the last couple years has blue had a similar
| headcount https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activit
| y:6851212...
| katbyte wrote:
| ?
|
| Isn't the norm not crashing and succeeding? it's only space x
| who normalized so many failures to "move fast"?
| ternnoburn wrote:
| IMO, there are too few entrants to meaningfully draw any
| conclusions about "the norm" in this industry.
| myself248 wrote:
| Exactly as OP said, launcher failures happen and then you
| drive down their frequency.
|
| Landing failures are still quite expected, especially on the
| first few tries. It's weird that they even tried on the first
| launch, but I don't even think of it as a try, I think of it
| as a "let's gather some data, and in the freakishly unlikely
| occurrence that everything goes perfect on the way down, we
| might as well load the landing software too".
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I read about spaceship on one of their launches is that
| they attempted everything that it could possibly do on one
| of their boosters because you basically have the next
| iteration built so why not attempt anything for the
| telemetry.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Firefly, Rocket Lab and Astra spring to mind as having failed
| to reach orbit on their first attempt.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Space shuttle had some harrowing early missions too, just
| didn't explode.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Shuttle got _very_ lucky. On the first flight, STS-1, an
| overpressure caused by the ignition of the SRBs forced the
| orbiter 's body flap into an extreme angle which could have
| destroyed the hydraulic system controlling it. Had John
| Young know this had happened, he and Robert Crippen would
| have ejected, which would have destroyed the orbiter on its
| first flight.
| mmooss wrote:
| You could eject from the Space Shuttle? At what speed and
| altitude? What was the mechanism?
| o11c wrote:
| There were only 2 ejection seats, enough for the crew of
| test flights but not the larger crew of operational
| flights.
|
| The seats were only installed in Enterprise (the
| prototype, used only for suborbital tests) and Columbia
| (only enabled for STS-1 through STS-4 test flights,
| disabled for STS-5 the first operational flight)
|
| The seats would only work at low altitude and speed (I've
| seen differing numbers cited). For the Challenger
| disaster they would've theoretically been useful
| (ignoring all the other factors), but they would've been
| useless for Columbia due to speed.
|
| And it's not clear ejection would have actually been
| successful with the SRBs still active and right there.
| lupusreal wrote:
| As o11c mentioned, they only existed for the first few
| flights, the ones that only had two crew. It wasn't
| possible to have the election seats with the full shuttle
| crew so they were removed.
|
| The ejection seats were essentially the same as those
| used in the SR-71, so they were survivable at shockingly
| high speeds and altitudes.
| Symmetry wrote:
| ULA is pretty remarkable for it's run of new rockets not
| blowing up. Looking at ESA, JAXA, RosCosmos, ISRO, etc too is
| how I'm setting the par. A history like the Ariane 5 is
| pretty typical where flights 1 and 14 failed.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Wouldn't really consider that NewSpace. These are as old as
| space industry gets...
| dmix wrote:
| China's various new rockets are another example.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| What are you talking about? They'll launch of their own
| volition!
|
| "Chinese rocket static-fire test results in unintended
| launch and huge explosion" (30 June 2024)
|
| <https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-static-fire-test-
| result...>
|
| <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=IlQkeKa4IKg> (Shakeycam video)
| sangnoir wrote:
| TBF: that wasn't an unsuccessful launch attempt, but a
| failure to _not_ launch. Which affirms parent in that
| they seem to have work out all the kinks out during
| development.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| _that wasn 't an unsuccessful launch attempt, but a
| failure to not launch._
|
| My point exactly.
| sangnoir wrote:
| The comment at the root of this thread was specifically
| addressing making it to orbit _on first launch_ - which a
| bench test isn 't.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| <https://youtube.com/watch?v=4zRbWNtd05w>
| Symmetry wrote:
| Yeah, 2 failures is par for OldSpace. NewSpace usually
| does much worse, though SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Rocket
| Lab's Electron managed to get the traditional par.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Norm is something like 3 rescheduling within a week from
| launch, 3 auto-aborts or equipment NoGo, 2 wayward boats, and
| 0.15-0.3 kaboom per launch. The fact that SpaceX haven't been
| letting wayward boats/planes for a while is remarkable by
| itself.
| crowcroft wrote:
| My perception is that SpaceX do in fact move fast, curious
| why you feel the need to put that in inverted commas?
| chollida1 wrote:
| > Pretty unusual for a new space company to make orbit on their
| first launch. Generally par for the course in established
| companies is 2 failures in the first 10 launches so lets see
| how they do.
|
| Where are you getting your stats and how many companies are you
| in your model?
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I grew up on the space coast, have watched many new expensive
| fireworks. I expect one of the next ones to either go boom,
| or the less exciting hear the 2nd stage separation failed.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Why are you disagreeing like this? It would be like asking
| for a source if a software developer said "most software
| launches encounter some issues on their initial release".
| chollida1 wrote:
| Really, that was your take away?
|
| All I did was ask for the data used to come to that
| conclusion. I was only aware of SpaceX as a new space
| company. I was curious as to what other companies were
| included in her/his model.
|
| How did you possible take offense to someone trying to
| learn?
|
| And how did you possibly manage to find any ill will in the
| question?
|
| > Why are you disagreeing like this?
|
| I never once disagreed with the OP. Again, how did you get
| to this wild of a take from what i wrote?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I read it the same way as combative or at least skeptic.
|
| If you say that was not your intent, then you might want
| to consider your approach.
|
| A common hostile debate tactic is to ask the other person
| to "bring the receipts", and then pick through them for
| something to object to. It is akin to saying "prove it",
| and puts all of the burden on the other person with
| minimal effort.
|
| In a world where the internet is often combative and full
| of bad faith actors, you may want to be more specific to
| distinguish yourself from them. If you have a specific
| question, ask it directly instead of asking them to
| provide more and sorting it yourself. You may also want
| to be clear about intent eg "what other companies are you
| considering".
| darknavi wrote:
| Firefly and Astra both come to mind.
|
| Not all of the rockets blow up on the pad or dance around
| near the launch pad [0], but lots certainly do not make it to
| orbit in the first try. Space is pretty hard.
|
| 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PS6z9P9nqs
| pokstad wrote:
| Competition here is great
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Important naming rule: Never call your version 2 "New Foo"!
|
| Because the name will remain long after it was new. The naming
| scheme also crashes at version 3.
|
| The New Glenn name is from 2016.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| New Glenn isn't a "version 2". The name is a reference to John
| Glenn, the first American to orbit earth. Think "New York" not
| "New iPhone".
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Still a weird naming scheme though. A rocket is not a new
| astronaut. Am I missing something clever?
| placardloop wrote:
| Rockets aren't birds either, and yet: Falcon 9 (the Falcon
| 9 also is the second iteration of the Falcon rockets, not
| the ninth, so...)
|
| Rockets also aren't planets, and yet: Saturn V
|
| Rockets also aren't mythological horse/man creatures, and
| yet: Vulcan Centaur
|
| You're overthinking it.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| >(the Falcon 9 also is the second iteration of the Falcon
| rockets, not the ninth, so...)
|
| Falcon 9 has nine first stage engines, Falcon 1 had a
| single engine. It's not a version number.
|
| Edit: I had to look it up because Saturn 1 is not a
| single engine vehicle. It turns out that the Saturn V is
| design C-5 of the Saturn family of rockets, with A, B and
| C1-4 designs preceding it (not all designs where built),
| so the "V" in Saturn V is basically a version number,
| despite the Saturn V first stage having 5 engines
| placardloop wrote:
| Yes, it not being a version number is the entire point of
| this thread.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Side note:
|
| "Falcon" was almost certainly chosen so the BFR could be
| pronounced "Big Fucking Rocket", perhaps also influenced
| by the BFG in Doom/Quake.
|
| Also note how "SpaceX" is pronounced.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The "Falcon" name dates back to many years before the BFR
| concept. Then the BFR started out as "Big Fucking Rocket"
| and the F was retroactively changed to Falcon as a tongue
| in cheek way of keeping the acronym in respectable
| conversation. That said, BFR was always just a
| descriptive placeholder.
| ttepasse wrote:
| Back in the 2010s Blue Origin had a naming scheme after the
| pioneering flights of American astronauts:
|
| The suborbital rocket New Shepard is named after Alan
| Shepard who was the first American astronaut and whose
| flight was a suborbital arc.
|
| New Glenn is named after John Glenn whose first flight was
| the first orbital flight.
|
| There was also talk of a New Armstrong rocket, although
| Neil Armstrong wasn't the first American to "reach" the
| Moon. But then together with Buzz he was the first to land
| and the first to walk. I don't know if New Armstrong's
| still getting developed.
| giva wrote:
| New York is from 1624
| hersko wrote:
| Thank goodness for billionaires.
|
| There's a good case to be made that if it weren't for the likes
| of Musk and Bezos we'd still be stuck with the likes of ULA.
|
| They are literally pulling us into the future and i'm all for it.
| settsu wrote:
| Totally worth the exploitation, amirite?? /s
|
| (You do realize we did this before without them, right?)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| No nation has a done what spacex has.
| hersko wrote:
| Can you explain how i am exploited? I use Amazon products
| daily (as do you), why shouldn't i be thankful to Bezos? He
| has made my life tangibly better.
|
| I really don't care how many shares of Amazon he has and what
| the current share price is.
| Tryk wrote:
| I guess it would presuppose some solidarity with the
| workers at Amazon
|
| At a glance: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/12/study-amazon-
| workers-serious...
|
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-10-25/pain-
| exhau...
| pupppet wrote:
| Yes thank you billionaires, if you hadn't vacuumed the wealth
| of a nation this could have been a government agency success.
| Why should we all benefit when one man can?
| renewiltord wrote:
| The sums spent on this are trivial to governments. California
| HSR costs much more than bringing a rocket to life. The
| annual cost of dialysis to the American government is many
| times what SpaceX or Blue Origin costs.
|
| Any number of nations' governments could do this in a wealth
| perspective. And none have.
| pupppet wrote:
| Of course they haven't, how can they afford to compete with
| private companies? We've all decided that taxes are bad,
| there's no money in a govt position.
| renewiltord wrote:
| They have a lot more money than private companies.
| California HSR alone costs ten times or more than the
| Starship program. Annually, the American government
| spends some three or four times as much as the Starship
| program on dialysis for 0.2% of the population. Money is
| in abundance for a government.
| pupppet wrote:
| If this were true, NASA would never need to outsource.
| Why pay SpaceX when you can build your own rockets.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Because SpaceX can build them cheaper.
| hersko wrote:
| Wealth is not a zero-sum game. Musk and Bezos have generated
| insane amounts of wealth for the American economy. They're
| not hoarding dollar bills in some vault like Scrooge McDuck
| lol.
| Tryk wrote:
| No indeed, it is not a zero-sum game, billionaires like
| Musk and Bezos have more money than Scrooge McDuck [0], the
| cartoon version of Greed. While their share of the global
| wealth is increasing by each year
|
| "The richest 1 percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new
| wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice
| as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world's
| population, reveals a new Oxfam report today." Jan 16, 2023
| [1]
|
| [0] https://www.benzinga.com/news/21/11/23829868/elon-musk-
| is-ev... [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-
| releases/richest-1-bag-nearly...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It actually is a feature of capitalism. Envy can blind though.
| akamaka wrote:
| There are billionaires all over the world who haven't built
| successful space companies. The key ingredient is the
| government funding which has made the US space industry
| possible, such as building the launch pads, subsidizing
| hundreds of companies which build specialized parts, creating
| the GPS network required to track launches, etc.
|
| Maybe thank the taxpayers instead?
| quesera wrote:
| Apropos of nothing, but I appreciate the flaunting of branding
| best practices, and aerospace superstition, in the naming of Blue
| Origin (BO) and New Glenn (NG).
| carabiner wrote:
| What are branding best practices and aerospace superstition?
|
| - Someone who was an aerospace engineer for 8 years and knows
| many people in the industry, including BO, SpaceX, Boeing
| jjk166 wrote:
| BO is an acronym for body odor, something you don't typically
| want to associate with any brand.
|
| NG is an acronym for No/Not Good used in various engineering
| contexts to refer to things that fail to meet requirements. A
| superstitious aerospace engineer might not want to
| essentially name something "failure" though in practice I
| think most aerospace engineers would love to call their
| rocket Explodey-9000.
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