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Blue Origin's Rocket Test Just Went Better Than Anyone Thought Possible

Blue Origin just successfully completed its first in-flight escape test, during which the empty crew capsule was able to make an emergency separation from the booster just seconds after takeoff. It's a maneuver that could save lives if it happens on a real flight. But Blue Origin stumbled upon some extra success: It landed the booster too.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/r ... w-shepard/



Looks like we may be eventually getting a horse race.

Suborbital...

Five landings.

How may rockets can we think of that have been used so many times they look scruffy?

Not counting my old Estes V2 model.

Most of the "scruff" on that rocket came from this flight when the escape booster launched and seared it pretty good. It actually looked pristine on takeoff.

Sadly, my Estes V2 rocket was the victim (on the first flight) of a batch of defective D engines that blew up on ignition. 20 odd hours of work (as a teenager) put into building, painting and finishing that thing, only to have it disintegrate into little chunks in about 1/20th of a second.

To paraphrase Elon Musk, "Model Rocketry is hard."

jnaujok wrote: Sadly, my Estes V2 rocket was the victim (on the first flight) of a batch of defective D engines that blew up on ignition. 20 odd hours of work (as a teenager) put into building, painting and finishing that thing, only to have it disintegrate into little chunks in about 1/20th of a second.

I once attended a talk about disintegrating totem poles, meaning multi stage rockets coming apart as they launched. I guess this was a big more of a disintegration than planned!