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Comment by grkvlt | Hacker News Reader

Really, 'classless'? The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused. And, Blue Origin managed that first, no two ways about it. I think it's probably pretty classless to imply that what Blue Origin managed to do was 'trivial'. Just because SpaceX is the current hacker's favourite, doesn't mean you have to downplay everyone else. I think Musk's tweet about the difference between 'space' and 'orbit' was actually pretty pointless hair-splitting. Now, you can get technical and say that the achievement is landing a booster that is part of an orbital launch system but really, what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage, and I think everyone else understands that.

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The achievement is landing a space-capable booster vertically, after an actual mission above 100km, which can then be reused.

Who said that was the achievement? What is important about that achievement?

The important achievement is dramatically reducing the cost of sending things into space (such that they will stay there). SpaceX's rockets achieve this, Blue Origin's don't even attempt to be in that league. Using your Everest analogy, Blue Origin was the first to climb some lesser peak nobody cared that much about (still, nice job), then SpaceX climbed Everest, and Bezos said "welcome to the tall mountain club."

"Who said that was the achievement?"

Anyone who understood what was being achieved. That doesn't mean that a single achieve or being first in itself is that meaningful, but it's still an achivement.

Just like anyone who understands mountaineering knows that climbing Everest isn't the greatest norvthe hardest achivement among tall mountains i.e. the eight-thousanders.

New Shepard is able to make several compromises that make landing _much_ easier. New Shepard doesn't have to get anywhere close to orbital velocity, so it can use a far less powerful engine. That means it can throttle down far enough to hover. That is a _huge_ advantage over Falcon 9, which must time the landing burn perfectly to hit 0 velocity at the exact moment it touches the ground.

They're in the same club like a general aviation pilot landing his Piper Cub on a giant runway and a navy pilot landing his F-14 on a carrier are "in the same club". While it's technically true, pointing it out would be pretty tacky...

But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember.

The achievements are comparable, despite the fact it makes SpaceX come second. Blue Origin was first with a VTOL rocket stage, as part of a space system.

> But the F9 first stage doesn't get to orbital velocity, either, remember.

It gets a whole lot closer (and is _much_ larger).

I really can't emphasize enough how much of a difference the ability to hover makes for New Shepard. SpaceX has been doing "New Shepard" type flights for a long time now (they didn't bother going that high, but 'high' isn't really that interesting, it's 'fast' that matters). However, Grasshopper (like New Shepard) was able to throttle down to a TWR less than 1. That makes landing so much easier (the rocket can 'stop' and get settled before it proceeds to land).

To give people an idea, this is the difference of scale:

http://i.imgur.com/RVOKED2.jpg

Blue Origin's achievement is nice; just as older prototypes that achieved suborbital landing (Grasshopper, DC-X), but it's unclear yet what it meant for the industry (hope they keep going though, they're a good track). SpaceX's landing is a landmark for space travel, rapid reusability is now much closer. I'm much more confident now this will change the cost structure of the whole industry, seeing how launch is a dominant factor.

Sure, Bezos gets the "first rocket that went to 'space' and landed vertically" prize. It might even be cool sounding for the laypeople who really don't know what values 'space' can take.

But it's not what matters, in fact it's irrelevant, was not a disputed trophy, and won't be mentioned 50 years from now.

The huge difference is the Falcon 9 first stage is part of a system that puts a few thousand kilos in orbit, and it flys half a dozen times per year.

Getting to space is just getting high off the ground, its not very useful unless you can achieve orbit.

Actually, I'm sure NASA managed that first a long time ago.

In fact, didn't they do it on the moon several times?

At any rate, John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace managed it long before Bezos did. But wait, he didn't get to space? Hair-splitting.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8eb_1318290493

They're barely comparable. If at all. The F9 isn't at orbital velocity (although, much faster and on an orbital trajectory that has to be cancelled out). Sure. But the F9 was actually taking a payload to orbit. The Blue Origin never will, it's just a mega rich tourist toy.

At the end of the day, you could do what Blue Origin did with a balloon. The practical aspect of actually being able to put something on orbit is what's special.

I guess it's like Hilary and Tenzing being the first to climb Everest, and then someone else (can't remember who it was) coming along and doing it without supplementary oxygen. Just because that was harder doesn't detract from the fact that Hilary and Tenzing were first and anyone else is just joining the ever-growing club of Everest summiters.

Now, if you want to invent an extra category of 'first VTOL landing for a first stage booster for an orbital rocket system that uses boost-back to change trajectory mid-course' or similar, they SpaceX are first with that, and of course it's an awesome achievement.

Ok, in that case, SpaceX was 'first' to land a VTOL rocket with Grasshopper... unless you want to invent an extra category of "first VTOL landing for a ground launched rocket that crossed an arbitrary altitude threshold before returning at terminal velocity".

Actually, that prize goes back as far as DC-X (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X), if not farther. Grasshopper and F9R-dev were evolutionary, in that they were larger than what had been done before, not revolutionary.

Landing the F9 stage is not even the first "reusable part of an orbital launch system", the Space Shuttle was that. It just wasn't very effective in terms of lowering the cost, which is where F9's true claim of being a game changer is going to be. Let's hope that pans out.

"what the rest of the system does has no real part to play in the landing of the rocket stage"

That assertion is ridiculous. The rocket is optimized to do one thing, push it's payload into orbit, this is a very strict restriction, especially on a two stage rocket. On the other hand, the designer of a suborbital vehicle has ample design space to play.

It's like comparing your practice free throw, in your back yard, with a slam-dunk in the NBA.

I think you underestimate the degree of difficulty between these two achievements. They are both very impressive but what SpaceX just did is many times more difficult than what Blue Origin did.

OK, explain how the landing of the SpaceX first stage was many times more difficult? They used different mechanisms, yes (suicide burn vs. hover-capable) and the purpose of the overall system was different, but they are both VTOL rockets.

Blue Origin was first, and Bezos can quite rightly welcome SpaceX to 'the club' as the second company to achieve this, without being accused of being classless, surely?

Because the Falcon 9 traveled at several thousand miles per hour horizontally when it did its flip and then the first retro burn. By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down. It never moved away from the launchpad in any appreciable amount and it never had to change orientation. From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp.

Today, history was made. Blue Origin: not so much. Nice but nowhere near in the same league (or the same club, to stick with Bezos).

History is being made wheter you like it or not.

By contrast, the Blue Origin rocket went straight up, and straight back down...From a space applications perspective it is not much more useful than a blimp.

Actually, the "pop-up" 1st stage trajectory is interesting from a space applications perspective. You can think of it this way: a SSTO spaceplane is just beyond the cusp of possible for technology made out of normal matter and fueled by chemical rockets. But what if you could somehow cheat and launch an SSTO at very high altitude? Then it's just below the cusp of possible. So you wind up with a completely reusable TSTO craft.

So how is that more interesting than a high altitude blimp? You get the craft back faster, directly to the facility. Recovery is more straightforward. The equipment and technology is the same sort of equipment and technology as in the orbiter craft. Also, if you're able to get up to a "mere" 600 mph or so downrange velocity, due to the mathematics of the rocket equation, you're still saving a sizable chunk of vehicle weight in fuel.

Even for that application Falcon would be a lot more usable due to the increased payload compared to BO's offering.

True. But I'm not defending BO's craft. I'm just pointing out that the "pop up" first stage trajectory is indeed interesting. You wind up with a godawful huge 1st stage and a rather tiny orbiter, but lots of things are simplified, especially with 1st stage logistics.

If we downplay the difference between the landing modes and vehicle's missions, then SpaceX has beaten Blue Origin anyway - they had Grasshoppers doing VTOL years ago. After all, what's the difference between 700m and 100km, especially if in the latter case you're falling at terminal velocity for most of the way?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_%28rocket%29

How is BO's achievement different from what SpaceX did with their Grasshopper test vehicle years ago?

If you want to say it's about VTOL rockets, SpaceX was first by a long way. If you want to say it's about reusing an orbital launcher, BO is nowhere close. You have to torture the categories into uselessness to say BO did anything first.

Why is this downvoted? There is some serious tribalism going on in this thread. You all need to chill out and start thinking again.

Who cares whether BO or SpaceX was first, or whether China or America was first? We should be happy that humanity is closer to Mars.

It probably wouldn't have come up if Bezos hadn't thumped his chest in Musk's direction, or if Musk hadn't taken the bait.

Competitive people are competitive. Film (and Twitter fight) at 11...

I for one think that giving credit where credit is due is an important thing.

Getting off this rock is probably the only thing that matters. Credit is irrelevant when Earth is no longer habitable and we never left.

That, and I want to see an Epic Rap Battle of History between Musk and Bezos some day. It will take a lot of competition and a lot of progress before they have enough dirt to throw at each other.

Hahaha... Thanks, that cheered me up.

Someone should totally do rap battles while pretending to be some famous figure. The possibilities are endless. Faux Bill Gates vs Faux Steve Jobs.

If you're being serious, one of the most viewed Youtube channels is "Epic Rap Battles of History" which did exactly that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njos57IJf-0

It's a bit silly, but entertaining. It doesn't get too technical, but usually gets the generic facts right.

Best Christmas ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_RO-jL-90 was hilarious.

Yeah, don't follow that link pnt12 posted until you have a whole afternoon to kill.

People who compete want to get recognition for their accomplishments. "Getting off this rock" has so far been led closer to becoming true by cold hard competition. So sorry bud, people will always want credit for their success whether you like it or not. And hey, who said we won't get off this rock during the process of all that?

I agree the tribalism is not helpful on either side, but Blue origins is nowhere near getting off this rock, or even into orbit around it.

This is not tribalism; those two achievements have an order of magnitude difference at difficulty and practical meaning, and Bezos wasn't first in his class either. I was very happy for Blue Origin then and I'm happy for everyone who pushes the boundaries of space technology (hell, I even start to like ULA), but those two landings are not comparable, and trying to do so diminishes what just happened.

>Why is this downvoted

I can't give the exact answer but if I had to guess, I'd say it's a consistently argumentative attitude under the guise of asking questions. The commenter has asked the same question "what makes this SpaceX thing so special?" at different points of this thread and has gotten many different answers providing a bunch of different view points. They're not trying to get clarity, they're trying to convince people that this isn't an accomplishment, and there seems to be a hint of accusation ("you only think this is better than BO because HN loves Musk and hates Bezos") in the questions.

That's my guess.

Sort of... I knew I would get downvoted, mostly because of my failure at SpaceX cheerleading ;)

I actually agree that SpaceX did an awesome thing, and really do understand that its more complicated, and difficult, and challenging, and so on, than what Blue Origin managed to do; yes. My point was more of a "HN loves SpaceX and cannot acknowledge that they might not be the best in the world at everything, ever" thing, rather than any technical breakdown. I would also maintain that the 100km altitude flight is important - it's the internationally recognised boundary of space - and that the 'first' that Blue Shepherd claimed was valid, since the SpaceX Grasshopper did not cross the 100km Karman line.

The important parts are that the flight is of a 1.) reusable, 2.) VTOL, 3.) rocket after a 4.) 100km altitude space flight. Since all four points are valid for SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage booster, I think it's technically correct to place its landing in the same category as Blue Origin's New Shepherd landing. SpaceX's achievement is more technically interesting and useful, but that should not detract from what Blue Origin managed to do with a much smaller team and budget.

The key difference is, again, space vs. orbit, i.e. 4). 100km vertical hop is not meaningful for lowering costs of spaceflight. Comparable feats have been done before, as pointed out multiple times in this subthread. You can't just take New Shepard and use it as a first-stage booster; it's a rocket designed for the very easiest component of spaceflight, i.e. going high, and completely unsuitable for putting anything in orbit - which means going very very fast horizontally. OTOH, SpaceX landed an actual booster - a much bigger rocket designed to put payload into orbit - which again, means going very very fast horizontally, and then having to reverse that flight and navigate to a proper landing site. What SpaceX did impacts spaceflight significantly. What Bezos did (and SpaceX before him, and others before them) does not.

> I would also maintain that the 100km altitude flight is important - it's the internationally recognised boundary of space - and that the 'first' that Blue Shepherd claimed was valid, since the SpaceX Grasshopper did not cross the 100km Karman line.

Having a flight control mechanism that function outside the atmosphere is valuable/important. Landing a rocket without relying on atmosphere is valuable/important. Gluing those two things together is much less so - like being the first person to climb Everest and swim across the Channel.

Honestly the F9 landing isn't much of a "first" - landing a rocket vertically has been done, and landing the main engines of an orbital launch vehicle so that they can be reused has also been done. What makes it exciting is a) the technical difficulty b) the potential for making things there's actual commercial demand for (satellite launches) much cheaper - and in both those regards Blue Origin's landing isn't comparable.

I suspect the main region for the popularity is that SpaceX has done a lot of community engagement, webcasts and all the rest of it, while Blue Origin has done everything in secret. But I'm fine with that - if it encourages companies to be more open then that's all for the good.

It's not "tribalism" to understand that Blue Origin's landing was fun but irrelevant unless you want to play five-minute space tourist, while SpaceX's landing is a massively significant event for the future of space travel.

Didn't SpaceX go around the entire earth before landing? I don't think Bezos'did

Could someone clarify the stage one path? Where did it launch, and where did it land, and where did it go horizontally in the meantime?

It flew 100's of kms away from the launch site, flipped around, flew back and landed a mile or so from the launchpad.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/by-making-a-historic-...

Actually 9KM from the launchpad I believe.

No.

No, but it lifted a second stage that continued on to orbit, delivering 11 satellites.

https://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png

http://www.flightclub.io/results.php?id=eb627cc3-ffab-43a3-9...

Because Falcon9 is a big launcher taking a serious payload into orbit. This means that the first stage has to have very large engines - so large that they can't be throttled down to hover, they have to kill velocity at the point of touchdown.

It's the difference between slowing your car down gently to stop at a red light, and having your car going at max speed and slamming on the brakes as hard as you can at exactly the right moment so that you will eventually stop at the lights. One is easy to do, the other will most likely get you killed.

BO was not trivial, just as grasshopper was not trivial years before, but there is a significant difference. Going up into space can be done in a balloon or plane, but not orbit. The difference is qualitative.

F9 will significantly reduce the cost of putting things in orbit.

NS will reduce the cost of space tourism (momentary views of earth), but would require new engines and a different design and landing style to put things into space, something like F9.

Hence implying they are the same is a bit tacky and inappropriate as it will mislead lots of people.

http://i.imgur.com/g2VIKVC.jpg

What, exactly, did Blue Origin do that the X-15 didn't do 50 years ago? Other than the terrestrial launch, that's about all I can think of.

That's pretty much it. As I understand it, the difficult bit was landing your rocket safely after launching it 100km up.

Not really... terminal velocity is terminal velocity. There is a limit to how fast you can fall through the atmosphere, regardless of how far up you start falling from.

I don't think you understand the big picture. Musk = Good, Everyone Else = Bad. The Musk sycophants are peeing their pants in excitement over this achievement, and you are just not allowed to question any part of it.

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