New Armstrong Speculation and Discussion

[Robotbeat]

Would Blue Origin copy SpaceX's use of stainless steel?

Sounds very plausible that BO could build NA out of stainless steel.

I doubt it. I'd bet aluminum or possibly composite.

Do you think they can reduce production costs similar to the stainless steel designs?

I suspect that it won't matter that much for fast followers. Stainless has advantages in terms of the iterative design process.

By the time you get to fully fitted out human rated vehicles the cost of the tank wall material will be relatively irrelevant. A crew Dragon is ten of millions of dollars for comparison.

BO will be in a position to copy what worked on Starship and potentially improve on it.

One improvement would be to leap past steel plus tiles and go directly to a fully hot nickel based alloy structure.

Not a chance BO will leap past anything. Just like they've always done, they'll make their own decision totally independent of SpaceX, kind of pretending they don't exist.

They're not anything like a fast follower; in fact, they started before SpaceX. They only look like a "fast follower" because (to their credit) they had decided on propulsive landing even while SpaceX was still committed to parachute recovery, and they've been working on it for a very, very long time. So they were working on it first and are just super slow. Literally the opposite of a fast follower.

...which is fine. Blue has near infinite money. I'd prefer them to go faster, but hey, not my money.

[TrevorMonty]

I wouldn't say NG development is going slow, takes time to build factory and launch facilities. Can't build LV without factory. Their buildings are popping  up like mushrooms.

NS, now that is different story, seems ready to me don't know why its not flying regularly.

[whitelancer64]

I wouldn't say NG development is going slow, takes time to build factory and launch facilities. Can't build LV without factory. Their buildings are popping  up like mushrooms.

NS, now that is different story, seems ready to me don't know why its not flying regularly.

If it weren't for COVID-19, New Shepard would have had a launch in April. Blue Origin nearly pushed to do it anyway, but it got put on hold. 

[GWH]

It sure would be a shame if they decide New Glenn won't be competitive and switch resources to whatever New Armstong is. They already did that once after scrapping their BE-3 powered Soyuz class vehicle back in the middle of last decade. There was some kind of a market response when that occurred. 

[whitelancer64]

30m diameter is extreme.  How tall would that have to be?  What can handle such a beast?  There may not be a crane large enough to lift it upright if it was made horizontal.  30m is wider than most ships.  I don't even think an aircraft carrier is 30m wide.  It would feel like an earthquake for miles if taking off from land.   There are limits to width and length of rocket stages for existing infrastructure to handle.  Even the largest rocket ever conceived was Sea Dragon and it was 23 meters wide and 150 meters long, and would have been built at a shipyard and towed to sea for launching. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)

The Convair NEXUS concepts were 164 ft and 202 ft in diameter, 500 tons and 1000 tons of payload to orbit respectively. And double that payload with a nuclear second stage.

[meekGee]

Would Blue Origin copy SpaceX's use of stainless steel?

Sounds very plausible that BO could build NA out of stainless steel.

I doubt it. I'd bet aluminum or possibly composite.

Do you think they can reduce production costs similar to the stainless steel designs?

I suspect that it won't matter that much for fast followers. Stainless has advantages in terms of the iterative design process.

By the time you get to fully fitted out human rated vehicles the cost of the tank wall material will be relatively irrelevant. A crew Dragon is ten of millions of dollars for comparison.

BO will be in a position to copy what worked on Starship and potentially improve on it.

One improvement would be to leap past steel plus tiles and go directly to a fully hot nickel based alloy structure.

Not a chance BO will leap past anything. Just like they've always done, they'll make their own decision totally independent of SpaceX, kind of pretending they don't exist.

They're not anything like a fast follower; in fact, they started before SpaceX. They only look like a "fast follower" because (to their credit) they had decided on propulsive landing even while SpaceX was still committed to parachute recovery, and they've been working on it for a very, very long time. So they were working on it first and are just super slow. Literally the opposite of a fast follower.

...which is fine. Blue has near infinite money. I'd prefer them to go faster, but hey, not my money.

I'm going to posit a postulate here.

"In a commercial environment, the product of infinite money and infinitely-slow progress rate is zero total result."

It's not because the money runs out.  It's just that the world is dynamic, and by the time the result shows up, it is no longer relevant.

For BO, after 20 years, they actually have MORE money than they had in the beginning...  But they are further behind.

When they started, they were on-par with SpaceX.
8 years later, SpaceX were launching a small rocket to orbit, and BO were experimenting with a reusable small suborbital rocket.
2 years later, SpaceX were launching F9 to Orbit, but BO could make a claim about being ahead in the reusability game
5 years later SpaceX were recovering a heavy booster and BO were at exactly the same place
20 years later SpaceX are further along with their Super Heavy fully reusable StarShip and with their higher-performance Raptor than BO is with a partially reusable NG and BE-4.

As time passes, BO is getting more funding and is simultaneously falling further behind. And I don't think the buildings in Florida are going to change that.

[JEF_300]

It sure would be a shame if they decide New Glenn won't be competitive and switch resources to whatever New Armstong is. They already did that once after scrapping their BE-3 powered Soyuz class vehicle back in the middle of last decade. There was some kind of a market response when that occurred.

I hadn't heard about that before. That's a very interesting concept. Is there an old thread or something I can go read to catch up on that?

Edit: Is this the LV that would've launched Blue's Commercial Crew vehicle?

[ncb1397]

20 years later SpaceX are further along with their Super Heavy fully reusable StarShip and with their higher-performance Raptor than BO is with a partially reusable NG and BE-4.

That is highly debatable. Didn't we see first stage rings in the video update a couple months back? Where are the components for the super heavy booster? We also saw real fairings rather than simulator nose cones.

As time passes, BO is getting more funding and is simultaneously falling further behind. And I don't think the buildings in Florida are going to change that.

Outside commercial funding for SpaceX is comparable to Blue Origin. We don't have exact details on Blue Origin though. Outside government funding was very tilted towards SpaceX vs Blue Origin until pretty recently (like the HLS award).

[meekGee]

20 years later SpaceX are further along with their Super Heavy fully reusable StarShip and with their higher-performance Raptor than BO is with a partially reusable NG and BE-4.

That is highly debatable. Didn't wee see first stage rings in the video update a couple months back? Where are the components for the super heavy booster? We also saw real fairings rather than simulator nose cones.

As time passes, BO is getting more funding and is simultaneously falling further behind. And I don't think the buildings in Florida are going to change that.

Outside commercial funding for SpaceX is comparable to Blue Origin. We don't have exact details on Blue Origin though. Outside government funding was very tilted towards SpaceX vs Blue Origin until pretty recently (like the HLS award).

I think smart money is on SS flying to orbit or near-orbit this year and SH in 2021.

Given that even Vulcan is late 2021, I don't think there's a lot of money on NG before 2022.

But suppose.  Suppose even that somehow NG flies in 2021.  It doesn't change the picture.  The gap is only growing.

For example, SS has a rich manifest already. NG's  main customer is oneWeb, and that's only a handful of flights.

I forgot to mention that little thing: SpaceX has been flying cargo to the ISS and is now flying people. SS will be a manned system for tens of people.

Starlink is moving faster than Kuiper.

If there's so much money, why is BO so slow overall?  It's not for lack of talent, since Bob Smith would not have come aboard without a license to hire..  I expect BO to be able to nail any narrow technical challenge - the competency is there

What is missing, and will continue to hinder them, is lack of vision (both technical and commercial) and a risk averse culture.

[high road]

As time passes, BO is getting more funding and is simultaneously falling further behind. And I don't think the buildings in Florida are going to change that.

Outside commercial funding for SpaceX is comparable to Blue Origin. We don't have exact details on Blue Origin though. Outside government funding was very tilted towards SpaceX vs Blue Origin until pretty recently (like the HLS award).

Well, they've been selected on the merits of their design, but if they continue to show very slow progress, they will not survive downselection for long. If the Artemis program continues, which is not that straightforward.

[DJPledger]

We know nothing about NA other than it's name. Time for everyone to please take a break and wait until BO releases some info. on it. This is likely to be a long wait as BO is unlikely to release any NA info. until after NG has reached orbit successfully.

[JEF_300]

We know nothing about NA other than it's name. Time for everyone to please take a break and wait until BO releases some info. on it. This is likely to be a long wait as BO is unlikely to release any NA info. until after NG has reached orbit successfully.

I don't understand the point of going into a thread labeled "Speculation", and asking people to stop speculating.

Edit: I say this, and yet there's not one post on this page of the thread that actually speculates about New Armstrong.

[TrevorMonty]

It sure would be a shame if they decide New Glenn won't be competitive and switch resources to whatever New Armstong is. They already did that once after scrapping their BE-3 powered Soyuz class vehicle back in the middle of last decade. There was some kind of a market response when that occurred.

I hadn't heard about that before. That's a very interesting concept. Is there an old thread or something I can go read to catch up on that?

Edit: Is this the LV that would've launched Blue's Commercial Crew vehicle?

Not much info on it but most likely BE3 orbital LV would've been for their CC bid. When that failed they switch to NG which meant developing BE4 which was originally 400klbs but ULA needed larger engine. Move to 550klbs version must of set them back a few years.

The NS was always planned and is just extension of their Goddard suborbital LV.

I'm guessing they are still working on crew vehicle for NG.

[GWH]

It sure would be a shame if they decide New Glenn won't be competitive and switch resources to whatever New Armstong is. They already did that once after scrapping their BE-3 powered Soyuz class vehicle back in the middle of last decade. There was some kind of a market response when that occurred.

I hadn't heard about that before. That's a very interesting concept. Is there an old thread or something I can go read to catch up on that?

Edit: Is this the LV that would've launched Blue's Commercial Crew vehicle?

Not much info on it but most likely BE3 orbital LV would've been for their CC bid. When that failed they switch to NG which meant developing BE4 which was originally 400klbs but ULA needed larger engine. Move to 550klbs version must of set them back a few years.

The NS was always planned and is just extension of their Goddard suborbital LV.

I'm guessing they are still working on crew vehicle for NG.

Yeah pretty much. There may have even been a smaller variant with BE-4 that was never published but that's speculation on my part and old Tory Bruno comments.

New Shepard we know is actually the 2nd version. Old New Shepard had 3x BE-2 peroxide/kerosene engines. At one point the New New Shepard was to be the test bed for their reusable BE3 powered orbital launcher.
This old slide show shows how much they changed.  https://slideplayer.com/slide/4218732/

This would be like if SpaceX redesigned Falcon 1 after the first failure with entirely new engines and propellant while delaying F9 then after a few years scrapping F9 to focus on a Raptor powered FH....
There is nothing "step by step" about Blue's development strategy and decisions.

I'll note this is a post better suited for the "business strategy" thread but will make it here for now to continue with the posts above.

[envy887]

20 years later SpaceX are further along with their Super Heavy fully reusable StarShip and with their higher-performance Raptor than BO is with a partially reusable NG and BE-4.

That is highly debatable. Didn't we see first stage rings in the video update a couple months back? Where are the components for the super heavy booster? We also saw real fairings rather than simulator nose cones.

As time passes, BO is getting more funding and is simultaneously falling further behind. And I don't think the buildings in Florida are going to change that.

Outside commercial funding for SpaceX is comparable to Blue Origin. We don't have exact details on Blue Origin though. Outside government funding was very tilted towards SpaceX vs Blue Origin until pretty recently (like the HLS award).

How do you know the New Glenn parts shown are for flight, rather than manufacturing pathfinders or test articles?

Even if you want to call the current Starship vehicles static test articles, Blue hasn't shown any indication that they are anywhere near ready to put a stage - either stage - on a test stand, with an engine, and hotfire it. They don't even have a test stand to put it on. SpaceX did all that months ago.

[meekGee]

We know nothing about NA other than it's name. Time for everyone to please take a break and wait until BO releases some info. on it. This is likely to be a long wait as BO is unlikely to release any NA info. until after NG has reached orbit successfully.

I have to ask - the assertion that BO is unlikely to release any NA into until after NG has reached orbit successfully - is that founded on inside information or are you... wait for it...  speculating?

[RonM]

New Armstrong was mentioned nearly four years ago. Is there any evidence that Blue is currently working on a project name New Armstrong?

[Eric Hedman]

New 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.

[spacenut]

New Armstrong is ALL speculation.  Nothing has come from Blue except a name. 

[jstrotha0975]

New 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.

The only evidence for NA is that size of the launch facility they are constructing as Eric Hedman suggested. The hangar and launch pad and tower look to be over sized for NG. If we can get the size of the doors on the hangar we could speculate the size of their next launch vehicle.