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Blue Origin - New Shepard

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I'm not sure if this belongs here, but if you watched the BO launch, anomaly, and capsule landing, I could swear the retro's were supposed to fire just as the capsule landed, there was a "Whoa" exclamation at 1 min 4 seconds, then dead silence for 1 minute, as capsule accelerated away at _quite_ _high_ gravities, not suited for old fat guys 'n such, not wearing high G flight suits.

I expect if there had been human occupants during that burst of speed in the capsule, such as "Captain James Tiberius Kirk/William Shatner" there would have been "anomalies" inside the capsule also

when the capsule landed, after the drogues released, which seemed to be late, and then the main's which also seemed late, it really looked like a hard landing with no seeming retros firing.

I await the conference explaining wtf happened.
 
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I'm not sure if this belongs here, but if you watched the BO launch, anomaly, and capsule landing, I could swear the retro's were supposed to fire just as the capsule landed, there was a "Whoa" exclamation at 1 min 4 seconds, then dead silence for 1 minute, as capsule accelerated away at _quite_ _high_ gravities, not suited for old fat guys 'n such, not wearing high G flight suits.

I expect if there had been human occupants during that burst of speed in the capsule, such as "Captain James Tiberius Kirk/William Shatner" there would have been "anomalies" inside the capsule also

when the capsule landed, after the drogues released, which seemed to be late, and then the main's which also seemed late, it really looked like a hard landing with no seeming retros firing.

I await the conference explaining wtf happened.
Retros made the huge dust cloud.
The abort happened near Max Q, so deceleration after escape engine cut out would be pretty high.
 
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Retros made the huge dust cloud.
The abort happened near Max Q, so deceleration after escape engine cut out would be pretty high.
thank you. it's just those dust clouds looked a lot bigger than previous ones from previous landings.
I shall go back and watch the video from
nextspaceflight.com @1/4 speed, i see no retros fire, perhaps my eyes are bad i guess
 
thank you. it's just those dust clouds looked a lot bigger than previous ones from previous landings.
I shall go back and watch the video from
nextspaceflight.com @1/4 speed, i see no retros fire, perhaps my eyes are bad i guess
It's hard to catch, but you can see the dust cloud form before touchdown and then the capsule settles into it. 1:26:21. I think there is a rise that blocks view of the landing spot.
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I don't think you are going to see so much dust cloud with the capsule just slamming in. The retros probably fired with just around 5 or 6 feet above the ground. Good enough to absorb the shock
you are correct, I am incorrect.

I watched 5 other landings @ 1/4 speed and a large dust cloud erupts just upon landing @ 6ft, (2 meters)
all the way back to their 1st human crew.
they use cold gas retros as there is no flare that activate at 6 feet, above ground that the announcer called "skirt jets"
here is the time of landing of first flight
here is the first human flight close up view start at 1hr, 48 min for booster then capsule
they land at ~16mph (~25kph) and "skirt jets" activate
 
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Still no news that I am aware of about the booster anomaly four months ago.

Just read this in Eric Berger’s weekly Rocket Report:

Lawmaker wants to buy a New Shepard seat. In one of the more bizarre pieces of legislation that I've seen, South Carolina State Rep. Neal Collins (R-Pickens) wants the state to purchase a seat on Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle and give it away to a resident. "A few companies have made it to where it’s possible for normal people to go to space, and I want to raise awareness of that,” Collins told The State. “Why not send one person a year to space and raise that awareness?"

Taxpayer-funded private spaceflight? ... Under Collins’ plan, the state would convene a commission responsible for selecting space travelers. The seven-member commission, composed of representatives from the aerospace industry, academia, and government, would establish selection criteria and choose applicants best able to promote the program’s goal of encouraging careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Collins said he wants to pay for the program out of South Carolina’s general fund budget. Props to whichever Blue Origin lobbyist works South Carolina.
 
Eric Berger: After a failure 4 months ago, the New Shepard spacecraft remains in limbo

Congress is pressing Blue Origin to be transparent, but…
The company has not heeded this advice. Founded by Jeff Bezos more than two decades ago, Blue Origin has largely been non-transparent in its activities during its existence, only rarely offering glimpses of its work through carefully choreographed public relations campaigns. Bezos almost never speaks with space journalists about the company's activities. This has continued with the New Shepard-23 investigation. To date, Blue Origin has said nothing publicly about the failure, its investigations, or the next steps.
 
A note to add along with Eric's assessment that BO lacks transparency, regarding the recent BE-3 engine malfunction and their ongoing silence. Recall that well over a year ago there was a launch delay prior to Shatner's flight. In his post-flight interview with Bezos, Shatner described he was told the delay was due to an “anomaly in the engine.” We only heard crickets about that problem from BO.
Although he's probably more familiar with impulse engines, maybe Eric could contact Kirk to get some straight answers.;)
 
Although he's probably more familiar with impulse engines, maybe Eric could contact Kirk to get some straight answers.;)
The Enterprise impulse drive was generally considered by fans to be powered by a fusion reactor and was capable of going about 0.25C. So Shatner’s “knowledge“ ;) would be of little use to BO.
 

Berger should really think about getting into tabloid journalism. Taking one old news event (some congressperson asking for transparency) and making it into a current article is more worthy of the Harry and Meghan saga than rockets.

BO simply doesn’t reveal anything until they need to in the public arena. That’s how they’ve operated since they started. There’s no new news here; implied uncooperativeness is in poor taste.

When blue has something to share, they’ll share it with the right people.
 
Berger should really think about getting into tabloid journalism. Taking one old news event (some congressperson asking for transparency) and making it into a current article is more worthy of the Harry and Meghan saga than rockets.

BO simply doesn’t reveal anything until they need to in the public arena. That’s how they’ve operated since they started. There’s no new news here; implied uncooperativeness is in poor taste.

When blue has something to share, they’ll share it with the right people.
It doesn't appear it's Berger taking 4-month-old news and deciding to write a story about it... it's a recent FCC filing, that in tern raised the congressional interest, that prompted it,

He also points out that it's possible it may be manned, which would probably raise interest and/or concerns in most people's minds, given the failure.

Seems story worthy to me.

Is BO a bit more old-school "tight lipped" about their development progress and issues? Yep. Does that also raise more questions in many people's minds? Also yep.
 
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It doesn't appear it's Berger taking 4-month-old news and deciding to write a story about it... it's a recent FCC filing, that in tern raised the congressional interest, that prompted it,

Berger does not suggest the flight filing you link resulted in congressional interest. Berger recycled the post-anomaly dialogue.
On a similar note, can you BELIEVE the dress Meghan wore to see The Queen two years ago? Scandalous!

Again, there's no new news here, let's not read what we want to read just because we don't like the way Blue operates.
 
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Berger does not suggest the flight filing you link resulted in congressional interest. Berger recycled the post-anomaly dialogue.
On a similar note, can you BELIEVE the dress Meghan wore to see The Queen two years ago? Scandalous!

Again, there's no new news here, let's not read what we want to read just because we don't like the way Blue operates.
The subcommittee "strongly encourage[ed] Blue Origin to be as transparent as possible" and requested they "keep the Members of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics appraised of the plans and timetable for the NS-23 anomaly investigation, the root cause of the failure once determined, and plans to ensure that actions to address the root cause or causes are completed.”

To date it's unclear those things have happened, yet in the last week an application was filed with the FCC to use those engines on a flight that may be crewed.

Seems like a pretty clear case of a newsworthy recent development to me. And it's typically good practice to provide context for an issue that has factors that occurred a few months ago.
 
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Seems like a pretty clear case of a newsworthy recent development to me.

I'm sorry, I simply can't agree with your assertion that when everything is going literally exactly how anyone of sound mind would have expected it to go, that thing be classified as "newsworthy" or a "recent development".

Again, when Blue has something to share they will share it with the right people.

They are not in any way trying to sidestep appropriate bureaucratic imperatives (Ironically, the same can't always be said for SX...); There is zero evidence they are going to do anything but Exactly The Appropriate Things before returning to flight.
 
BO hasn’t shared the findings or any progress towards that and that is puzzling - that is news

Therefore BO has something to hide and has a questionable leadership and culture - that is tabloid only fit for main stream media, not for Eric Burger.
 
BO hasn’t shared the findings or any progress towards that and that is puzzling - that is news
Yes, especially because the issue effects a human spaceflight program which is regulated by the federal government.

It would be different if it was just some smallsat startup company that had a failure and didn’t release any information about the cause of the failure. That’s not really news.
 
I'm sorry, I simply can't agree with your assertion that when everything is going literally exactly how anyone of sound mind would have expected it to go, that thing be classified as "newsworthy" or a "recent development".
This is your opinion of what "anyone of sound mind" might expect. (Much like you wanted te tell us what "was reasonable" to think regarding the Artemis launch). Clearly, not everyone shares your opinion.

Again, when Blue has something to share they will share it with the right people.

They are not in any way trying to sidestep appropriate bureaucratic imperatives (Ironically, the same can't always be said for SX...); There is zero evidence they are going to do anything but Exactly The Appropriate Things before returning to flight.
We hope so. However we have no evidence of such, which is the crux of the article.

Being tight lipped about issues is one way to play it. It's somewhat the "traditional" approach, not necessarily indicative of bad intent. But it also leaves an information vacuum that leads to speculation.

But things change, and it turns out that many people prefer an organization that provides services to tax-payer-funded customers be a bit more open and transparent. Given that, expectations change, and organizations that don't may stand out.... and get an article or two written about them...