The commerical space pioneer Jeff Bezos -- better known as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com -- hasn't let the failure of a unmanned rocket dampen his ardor for building a business that will be able to take passengers to the edge of outer space. And he's working to get the patents to prove it.
His space venture, Blue Origin, is based not far from Seattle in Kent, Wash., with a separate launch complex in Texas. According to its Website: "Blue Origin is developing New Shepard, a rocket-propelled vehicle designed to routinely fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space at competitive prices."
That's a tall order, though a number of companies are aiming for similar heights under the umbrella of NASA's Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program. The most notable of them is SpaceX, which was started by PayPal co-founder and Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk. In June, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon rocket.
Click this image to see three diagrams from Blue Origin's patent applications, discussed below:
Diagram from Blue Origin patent application 20110017872, "Sea Landing of Space Launch Vehicles and Associated Systems and Methods."
Bezos wasn't as fortunate with Blue Origin's latest launch attempt in August. The company's second test vehicle reached a speed of Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet, but then it encountered what Blue Origin called "a flight instability [which] drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle."
The Blue Origin launch attracted lots of attention not because it wasn't successful -- spaceflight in general, and commercial spaceflight in particular, is rife with false starts -- but because Bezos has been so secretive in doling out news on the company's progress. The failed flight took place August 24; Blue Origin posted a one-paragraph notice in early September.
Another angle to the Blue Origin story which heretofore seems not to have come to light is its activity on the patent front. In January, Bezos, along with Blue Origin colleagues Gary Lai and Sean Findlay, filed application number 20110017872 for a patent entitled "Sea Landing of Space Launch Vehicles and Associated Systems and Methods."
The interesting twist here is that Blue Origin is aiming at reuse of its spacecraft, including recovery from a ship on which the vehicle makes a vertical landing.
Here's the relevant language from the patent application abstract:
A reusable space launch vehicle is launched from a coastal launch site in a trajectory over water. After booster engine cutoff and upper stage separation, the booster stage reenters the earth's atmosphere in a tail-first orientation. The booster engines are then restarted and the booster stage performs a vertical powered landing on the deck of a pre-positioned sea-going platform... After landing, the sea-going platform can be towed... to transport the booster stage back to the coastal launch site or other site for reconditioning and reuse.
A second application of interest, number 20100326045, was filed by Gary Lai on December 30, 2010. Entitled "Multiple-Use Rocket Engines and Associated Systems and Methods," it clearly seems to describe the guts of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle. New Shepard is a two-stage rocket, and the engine components are recoverable for reuse.
Finally, if you're a mechanical engineer, Blue Origin might have a career path for you. The company currently has 13 job postings on its site, including one for a mechanical systems engineer whose duties would include "design, development, and test of ordnance, actuation systems, umbilicals, deployable devices, environmental control/pneumatic systems, crew seats, and abort systems." Aerodynamics, avionics, structural, and test engineers are also being sought.
The super rich may be accomplishing what the U.S. government has given up on -- keeping manned space adventures alive. There is also a spaceport in New Mexico, the Spaceport America: http://www.spaceportamerica.com/
Richard Branson of Virgin Records was part of this grand plan that was launched while Bill Richardson was governor of New Mexico.
Any one have a take on the reuse angle of the patents and why that is such a compelling and potentially secretive part of this spacecraft design? Does the reuse element differentiate Blue Origin from other commercial space projects currently underway by Richard Branson and others?
This seems to be straight out of the pages of The Right Stuff: Failures of early prototypes; the "quick and dirty" space travel solution; booster rockets; ocean recovery (albeit slightly different from the Project Mercury recoveries). The question is whether they will find participants, as Project Mercury did, willing to serve as "spam in the can."
Applying a variation of an old joke - "How do you make a millionaire?" Answer - "Get a billionaire to invest in space travel."
Building unmanned spacecraft is spectacularly hard. Building a manned spacecraft is even harder. While NASA has its issues, it is the only proven builder of manned spacecraft. The entreprenurial companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, bring a fresh approach and non-traditional ideas about going into space. However, they may run afoul of what they don't know. Earth's gravity well is an exacting taskmaster.
I don't have a lot of confidence in the space tourist model. The New Mexico spaceport looks more like a pipe dream with government money than a commercial enterprise.
Another thing that really worries me is that commercial operators are always looking to make a buck, and cut corners oops I I mean cost where ever they can. it's a part of a lot of commercial airline accidents, and given the risk envelope on space travel... well you get what I mean.
As a long-time consltant to NASA, I'm highly skeptical. My take is that you have this really rich guy sitting around with the guys and gals he's funding. He says, "Since I was so good at seling books, I have this brilliant idea for a reusable space craft." His people, who are collecting nice paychecks, say," That's genius!" (I once was a partner with Warren Avis of Avis Rent-a-Car fame. I saw it happen over and over again with businesses Warren was funding that had nothing to do with renting cars. He had crazy, unworkable ideas that his employees thought were "genius" as long as he was writing checks.)
Vertically landing a space craft on a platform in a pitching sea is a feat that is going to require a lot more than a patent with some stick drawings. Get back to me when Blue Origin patents the anti-gravity device necessary for success.
I think the reuse part is aimed at getting more than one run form the most expensive components, the engines and turbopumps. Landing that ona seagoing platform will be tough but I imagine if they can get it working before they run out of money it will be pretty valuable. The patent seems to be general enough that it will prevent anyone else from using that approach and thus become a revenue tream for the company.
I like the idea of commercial companies trying to get into the space business. It is an expensive area but NASA did not have the same interests in making it profitable.
The dreamchaser spaceplane is a good fit for this idea in that it is pretty much a crew only transport that is launched on a booster and eventually returns to a landing strip like the shuttle. If the booster was pretty much reusable it fits very nicely into a system concept.
NASA's latest heavy lifter would be great for carrying cargo only and would not have to man-rated if the dreamchaser were part of the system. Recover the booster from that one and its, how many, seven main engines and turbo pumps, and you have saved a lot of money. the main engines on the new heavy lifter are shuttle derived which were designed for 100 flights.
Commercial companies are good at innovation and reducing costs. And yes, there are failures and heavy investments to be made before any profits are generated.
Are there other soultions to this problem of lowering costs? NASA has no track record on that front. Time for the entrepreneurs to have a go at it.
NASA's record on successful flights is not exactly stellar. Correct me if I am wrong but out of 135 flights total, 2 were total failures with complete loss of vehicle and crew.
NASA could never get costs inline with estimates and that were possible to reduce. The vehicle performance regarding payload was restrained to something like half the orginal design goal. This was due to a mission abort landing requirement with a load that had to be limited to about 35K lbs.
And all this for a 100 ton vehicle getting into orbit, then bringing the whole 100 tons back. It just never really made sense from an economic and system analysis point of view.
I might not have the exact figures right but this is my understanding of the design of the STS. Would anyone care to correct me on any of these points?
Reader Ivan Kirkpatrick is correct in that NASA costs were all but out of sight, but he is wrong on two counts.
1) Both Shuttle failures were the direct consequences of human failure. The Challenger accident was the lack of management concern for a well established O-ring problem that was identified on a number of prior flights, and then a request to redesign the joint was turned down by NASA Hq. On top of that, NASA insisted on flying that day when the ambient temperature's were clearly below the established design limits and the [now] ATK representative said "No, don't fly."
The Columbia accident was the direct result of human complacency. The flight managers didn't delve in to the risks involved with the change of thermal insulation on the External Tank nor did they follow up on the concerns of their own people
These comments are clearly documented in the NASA accident reports.
2) The 35K payload limit was the limit of what the system could transport to the ISS at its relatively high inclination angle. On a due East launch, it could carry, and land, a 50,000 lb payload (down from the original 65,000 lb design target).
Thus, the Shuttle system performed admirably well in its own right. Remember, it was the first of its kind. Hopefully, the next one will reflect the lesson learned from this fantastic experience.
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