The private space race is heating up: After several years of hints about the new and multi-purpose launcher that the space company Blue Origin is developing, tycoon Jeff Bezos on Monday revealed the details of the giant launcher, which will almost dwarf rival company Space's Falcon 9 launcher in height X. The new launcher will be called "New Glenn", after the American astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. The first launch of the new launcher is planned to be carried out by the end of the decade.
Similar to the Falcon 9, New Glenn's first stage will be able to land vertically and thus make the launcher partially multi-purpose, which may significantly reduce the costs of launching into space. The new launcher, which Blue Origin began developing in 2012 in great secrecy, will have two variations - a two-stage model and a three-stage model. It will be able to launch astronauts and cargo into orbit around the Earth, and in its three-stage variation also into deep space.
The new launcher stands 82 meters high in the two-stage model and 95 meters in the three-stage model (for comparison, Falcon 9 stands 70 meters high). New Glenn's three-stage variation approaches in height the superlauncher that brought man to the moon, the Saturn 5, which stood 110 meters tall. The diameter of the launcher will be 7 meters and it will provide thrust at sea level of about 17.1 mega-newtons, compared to 7.6 mega-newtons thrust of Falcon 9.
The first and second stages will be the same in both New Glenn variations and will be powered by BE-4 engines that Blue Origin is also developing in-house. This engine is unique in that it burns liquid methane, and so far no space launcher has used such a fuel. SpaceX and NASA are also currently developing rocket engine technology that will run on methane. One of the reasons for this is that methane can be extracted relatively simply from the atmosphere of Mars, thus creating fuel for returning to Earth on a mission to Mars. The third stage of New Glenn will include a BE-3 engine Single, which runs on liquid hydrogen fuel.
In an email he sent to the media, Jeff Bezos said that "our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glen is an important step [for that]". Bezos also added an interesting allusion to another future launcher in the message: "Next on our list - New Armstrong," wrote Bezos. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, and the name may suggest that the moon is somehow related to the future project. The company has previously stated that it is also developing a spacecraft that can carry people and cargo into orbit around the Earth.
Bezos said that the New Glenn will be launched for the first time by the end of this decade. When this happens, Blue Origin will enter into significant competition with Spice X. With the new launcher, the company will be able to compete with SpaceX and other companies in launching private satellites and payloads for NASA and the security apparatus of the United States, which are a significant customer of this industry.
Jeff Bezos, who made most of his fortune from Amazon, which he founded, founded Blue Origin in 2000. The first launcher that the company developed and is now in advanced testing stages is New Shepard, which will be able to launch space tourists to an altitude of about 100 km, which is considered the official limit of space. Such a flight is called a "sub-orbital flight", because it does not allow the launched cargo to reach to enough speed to enter orbit around New Shepard hit the headlines last year After becoming the first launch vehicle in history to land safely after launch. Because it was a suborbital launch, the vertical launch of New Shepard was simpler than the launch of Falcon 9, which SpaceX managed to do it the first time A month after Blue Origin. With the new New Glen launcher, which, as mentioned, will be able to launch a payload into orbit around the Earth and even beyond it, it seems that the private space race is only heating up.
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"New Shepard made headlines last year after becoming the first launch vehicle in history to land safely after launch."
It should be said the first rocket that managed to reach space and land. Missiles that managed to land were already in the past - GrassHopper, DC-X and Xoie. of Masten
We live in an age where one person and not a government will own property worth hundreds of billions of dollars and even a colony in space.
It is a perfect dictatorship or slavery - its cover is modern. He will be allowed to fire whoever he wants whenever he wants.
The films Elysium and Holit are very similar to this concept. People will not be allowed to work after a certain age even if they want to. They will not be able to live with dignity even if they work hard. After that in the sine wave comes a rebellion/revolution. But with modern technology it is possible to develop an army of robot workers so that the weight of the workers is not what it used to be.
All this because countries are not ready to unite: USA, China, Europe and develop together and thus avoid the need for billions in space.
A. From the Ministry of Space Tourism
You are welcome to enter the Mars Airlinea offices at 5 Bogarshov St. in Tel Aviv and buy a flight ticket.
By the time he goes to space X he will probably already have the falcon heavy which should be more powerful (with a thrust of 22.5 mega newtons).
Further on in the plans for space X there are other interesting, much stronger rockets that are all supposed to be released by 2025, first of all the falcon XX that is supposed to send the manned missions to Mars.
Excellent! We are finally seeing what the free market is doing - one more player is enough, and we will finally start an economic space race that I hope will jump start the industry much faster than the intergovernmental space race that was between the USA and the USSR.
What a fascinating era we live in, already longing to see the landing on Mars.