New Shepard: Bezos claims success on second spaceship flight

[hunter]

By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent



The Amazon.com entrepreneur Jeff Bezos has claimed success on the second flight of his New Shepard spaceship.
Intended eventually to carry people just above the atmosphere, the re-usable vehicle launched from west Texas on Monday with no-one aboard.
Both parts of New Shepard - the capsule and its propulsion unit - landed safely, Mr Bezos' company said.
On the maiden outing in April, the propulsion module was lost on the way down because of a hydraulic failure.

--more--

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34909713

Promotional video here (sorry), but interesting:

Sticking that landing looks a little suspenseful; the beast was a little wobbly.

The liquid hydrogen fuel looks much cleaner than the dirty traditional solid-rubber-nitrogenous-aluminum-perchlorate fuels, or kerosene.

[valerief]

1. Why do these things always have to look like penises? nt

[hunter]

2. That was my first thought too...

... especially since I'm not a fan of Bezos or his business practices.

But I'll bet there's some happy rocket scientists and techs working for him who'd rather not be building building missiles.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Because anything cylindrical looks "kind of" like a penis ?

Just like anything round looks "kind of" like a breast.

Be grateful we don't have any cubical appendages.

[valerief]

4. Ha, but I do! Each tooth.

Thin cubes, but cubes nonetheless.

[Matthew28]

5. This is a great day for space flight!!!

If this can be reused over and over again = much cheaper space flight. I can't believe they beat Musk's space-x...But I am glad they did it!

[friendly_iconoclast]

6. SpaceX almost stuck the last one- a moving landing site is far more difficult...

...as anyone familiar with naval aviation will tell you

[Johonny]

7. SpaceX is a company putting payloads into orbit, Blue Origin has a demonstration vehicle

that does fun things. SpaceX trying to land their first stages is sort of icing on the cake. Blue Origin currently lacks cake.