Quote from: RonM on 06/29/2020 04:04 pmNew Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?I have seen no evidence from anyone posting here. I see no evidence on Blue Origin's website. I really doubt it is anything more than a concept they discuss from time to time. I think they have their hands full with all there other projects including building up infrastructure. I would guess the concept is having an effect on the size of their facilities. I see no evidence of anything that they are working seriously on New Armstrong. If someone has hard evidence to the contrary, please post.
New Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 06/29/2020 04:16 pmQuote from: RonM on 06/29/2020 04:04 pmNew Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?I have seen no evidence from anyone posting here. I see no evidence on Blue Origin's website. I really doubt it is anything more than a concept they discuss from time to time. I think they have their hands full with all there other projects including building up infrastructure. I would guess the concept is having an effect on the size of their facilities. I see no evidence of anything that they are working seriously on New Armstrong. If someone has hard evidence to the contrary, please post.BO has over 2500 employees. They are a big enough organisation that they can afford teams looking forward into the future and get started early on "long pole" developments. It's not that it's a small startup that can only focus on a small number of projects.
Quote from: yoram on 06/29/2020 07:22 pmQuote from: Eric Hedman on 06/29/2020 04:16 pmQuote from: RonM on 06/29/2020 04:04 pmNew Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?I have seen no evidence from anyone posting here. I see no evidence on Blue Origin's website. I really doubt it is anything more than a concept they discuss from time to time. I think they have their hands full with all there other projects including building up infrastructure. I would guess the concept is having an effect on the size of their facilities. I see no evidence of anything that they are working seriously on New Armstrong. If someone has hard evidence to the contrary, please post.BO has over 2500 employees. They are a big enough organisation that they can afford teams looking forward into the future and get started early on "long pole" developments. It's not that it's a small startup that can only focus on a small number of projects.How do you know Jeff Bezos thinks they need anything bigger than New Glenn any time soon? They might think New Glenn could be improved and upgraded for a long time to increase payload and reduce operating costs. The market will tell them a lot in the next few years. A reusable second stage or a Starship like second stage with refueling is what I would do. Both would be great for testing out technology that could down the road apply to a much bigger vehicle if the market develops. Why dive into anything more than conceptual studies on New Armstrong until you see what happens in the next few years with New Glenn and Blue Moon? I don't see the point.
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 06/29/2020 08:08 pmQuote from: yoram on 06/29/2020 07:22 pmQuote from: Eric Hedman on 06/29/2020 04:16 pmQuote from: RonM on 06/29/2020 04:04 pmNew Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?I have seen no evidence from anyone posting here. I see no evidence on Blue Origin's website. I really doubt it is anything more than a concept they discuss from time to time. I think they have their hands full with all there other projects including building up infrastructure. I would guess the concept is having an effect on the size of their facilities. I see no evidence of anything that they are working seriously on New Armstrong. If someone has hard evidence to the contrary, please post.BO has over 2500 employees. They are a big enough organisation that they can afford teams looking forward into the future and get started early on "long pole" developments. It's not that it's a small startup that can only focus on a small number of projects.How do you know Jeff Bezos thinks they need anything bigger than New Glenn any time soon? They might think New Glenn could be improved and upgraded for a long time to increase payload and reduce operating costs. The market will tell them a lot in the next few years. A reusable second stage or a Starship like second stage with refueling is what I would do. Both would be great for testing out technology that could down the road apply to a much bigger vehicle if the market develops. Why dive into anything more than conceptual studies on New Armstrong until you see what happens in the next few years with New Glenn and Blue Moon? I don't see the point.New Glenn is likely too small for a reusable second stage with still acceptable payload. And millions of people living in space is not going to happen on half reusability. Bezos knows that too. Also he likely wants to see tangible progress in his lifetime, so he cannot wait forever.That said I'm not sure they already doing full development on NA. As you said it makes sense to wait on lessons learned from NG for many areas. But I would bet they identified some "long pole" areas that take much longer and that will be eventually needed. For example if they think they need a new engine they already need to have started years ago to get to it in a reasonable time frame. There are likely some other areas like this.
A very long time ago when I was a new project manager I noticed that there was an optimum amount of money needed to successfully complete a project. If a project had more money than needed then the project manager spent too much time trying to justify and spend the extra money, to the detriment of the overall project. I witnessed perfectly good engineering projects that had too much priority and too much money, which resulted in the project management being overwhelmed and the project collapsing. Somebody, somewhere, must have written a book on the phenomena. You can probably buy it through Amazon.
Well, since this is still a speculation thread. What about a 3 core heavy version of New Glenn. 100+ tons to LEO. No new rocket or engine development, except maybe a larger upper stage for multiple BE-3U's, and the development of a stronger center core like FH had to do. The upper stage could be a minimum of 4 BE-3U's and 1 BE-3 center engine for a reusable upper stage to land. However, using the same engines like SpaceX, and new wider rocket would probably be easier or better.
Quote from: spacenut on 06/30/2020 03:54 pmWell, since this is still a speculation thread. What about a 3 core heavy version of New Glenn. 100+ tons to LEO. No new rocket or engine development, except maybe a larger upper stage for multiple BE-3U's, and the development of a stronger center core like FH had to do. The upper stage could be a minimum of 4 BE-3U's and 1 BE-3 center engine for a reusable upper stage to land. However, using the same engines like SpaceX, and new wider rocket would probably be easier or better. The FH wouldn't have been built if they'd known how difficult and expensive it would be. It will probably never come close to recovering the money spent on developing it. And "a larger upper stage for multiple BE-3U's, and the development of a stronger center core" is a long way from "no new rocket development".
Someone should really do a detailed analysis of the differences between Falcon Heavy and Delta Heavy development. I'm curious what big differences they would find.