This article is from the WeChat public account: The Great Filter (ID: TheGreatFilter) , author: Takemoto I cbwe, FIG head: description for FIG.
Blue Origin’s plant in Huntsville, Alabama is officially open today. The plant will use liquid oxygen methane as fuel to build the high-speed rocket engine BE-4. At present, there is only one engine that also uses liquid oxygen methane as fuel-SpaceX’s Raptor Raptor.
Blue Origin is a commercial space company dedicated to private space flight. Compared to SpaceX, you may be new to this company, but his boss is no stranger to you—Jeff Bezos (Jeff Bezos) < / span>.
Because most people know Bezos because of Amazon, in fact, Bezos’s true passion since childhood was in space. Ratajak, a software engineer, recalls a conversation with Bezos: “It was 1996. I asked him why he founded Amazon. He said that I was interested in space exploration, but it would take a few years to achieve it. . During this time, I think Amazon might have been an interesting thing. “
Bezos ’passion for space began on July 20, 1969. That day, 5-year-old Bezos watched Apollo 11 with three astronauts on the moon in a black and white TV in the living room. Despite his youth, Bezos clearly realized that he had witnessed history.
In high school, Bezos’ passion for space, along with his curiosity and high IQ, erupted. He published a paper entitled “On the Effect of Zero Gravity on the Aging Rate of Common Houseflies” and won a visit to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
When graduating, Bezos spoke as a graduate representative, with the subject still about space. He talked about the immigration space program and about building a habitat like a space hotel. He believes that one day, millions of humans will move away from Earth to accompany the stars.
“All my thoughts are protecting the planet.” Bezos, 18, told the Miami Herald.
18-year-old Bezos | Photo source: Pinterest
Most ordinary people give up their childhood dreams as adults, but Bezos always remembers his space ambitions. After he became the richest man in the world, some people accused him of charity-at least relative to his wealth. But Bezos believes his humanitarian contribution is not here.
In 2000, the fourth year Amazon launched, Bezos founded Blue Origin. He sells about $ 1 billion in Amazon stock each year to raise funds for Blue Origin, to build rockets, rover vehicles, and spacecraft that can fly across the Earth’s atmosphere.
Amazon’s success is obvious, but Bezos considers his most important cause to be Blue Origin. Bezos believes that the planet ’s growing energy demand will soon exceed the limited energy supply. Compared with extinction, the first threat to humanity is stagnation in development. Without enough energy, rations and hunger will follow. For years, Bezos has rarely responded to questions about Amazon, but has shared his faith in space immigration as a missionary:
“We have to go to space to save Earth.”
In January 2005, Bezos announced for the first time that he was buying land for Blue Origin.
After the company was founded, it was kept confidential by Bezos, and no one knew what the company’s plan was. The company did not add it to the city phone book, and the company employees only said to relatives and friends that they were doing scientific research. An employee of the company told The Economist: “I know anyone who knows something is not allowed to talk about it. And, don’t say I told you.” The mystery makes Blue Origin unknown to the public.
Blue Origin’s philosophy is “Gradatim Ferociter”, which means “Step by Step, Ferociously”, which is in keeping with Bezos’ personal style. In 1997, in the first annual shareholder letter listed on Amazon, Bezos wrote: “If we have to choose between the beauty of the company’s financial statements and free cash flow, we believe that the company’s core focus should be It’s free cash flow. “If you only focus on short-term performance, you will often do things that hurt the company’s long-term interests.
This claim is also reflected in the company’s badge. Earth, stars, the speed required to enter space at different heights, and a winged hourglass represent human life and death. However, all the images on the badge may not be as important to the two tortoises that are advancing to the stars-to pay tribute to the winners of the turtle-rabbit race. The tortoise is their mascot, and it embodies another motto Bezos likes: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Blue Origin badge | Image source: ars technica
Bezos said: “Do n’t start and stop after that, climb steadily; be a turtle in the tortoise and rabbit race, not a rabbit; keep spending at a sustainable level; assume that spending will increase monotonously ; Do n’t just think that the road ahead will get better and better for no reason. “
Blue Origin’s office will make you feel like a theme park for those familiar with space or science fiction. Along the way, you can see all kinds of space things: Russian space suits, posters of giant rocket engines, models of the aggressive starship in the Star Trek movie, and more. Da Vinci’s famous quote was written on the wall: “When you have tasted the taste of flying, even if you walk on the ground, your eyes will be thrown into the air, longing to return to the sky.”
Bezos’s core collection is placed at the most prominent place in the lobby. This is a full-scale Victorian rocket ship model from “From Earth to the Moon” by Jules Verne. It is shaped like a bullet, occupying a whole floor upstairs alone. The rocket can take up to five people. The engine points to the fire pit facing the ground, as if it is going to be launched from the lobby.
For decades, after the first stage of the rocket powered the upper load, it always fell directly into the ocean-becoming marine debris. So both Bezos and Musk hope to realize rocket recovery, which is the most important step to achieve space travel.
In 2015, Blue Origin launched the New Shepard rocket deep in the desert of western Texas. The name is in honor of the first American astronaut Alan Shepard who made sub-orbital flight (Alan Shepard) . The rocket flew into space with a maximum speed of Mach 3.72, and the spaceflight entered a predetermined test altitude of 100.5 kilometers from the ground. This altitude is widely regarded as the edge of space and is called the Karaman line.
The capsule and booster started to rush to the ground. When the rocket was visible to the naked eye, it just landed 7.62 kilometers above the ground and was still falling rapidly. The capsule slowly landed with the help of a parachute, and completed recovery as planned, while the booster continued to rush to the ground, and the original thrust became reverse thrust, slowing down the rocket. Later, the rocket unfolded the landing bracket and successfully landed vertically at the target landing site. The rocket’s landing point was only 4.5 feet away from the launch point.
Everybody is boiling, Bezos sees it in the control roomThe whole process, “This is one of the best moments in my life,” he said, “I’m in tears.”
In the past 50 years, no one has been able to fly a rocket into space and land vertically. This is the first time in history that a dynamic landing has crossed a space boundary. People are looking forward to the next Apollo 11 time and again, looking forward to the next “a big step in human history”, and this moment finally came.
Blue Origin later reused this booster, launched multiple times into space, and successfully recovered it accurately. In addition, a suspension test during the flight was conducted to prove the reliability of the escape system, which can make passengers more confident in their own safety and also allows Blue Origin to take a big step towards its original goal.
New Shepard is landing | Photo source: Space News
When Musk first heard of Bezos starting a rocket company, he was very curious about it. So the two had dinner together in 2004. Musk later recalled: “I think he may be worried that Amazon investors will find him a little distracted. We talked about rocket engineering. Technically, he was obviously wrong. I wanted to give him as much as possible Best advice … Some of their ideas for renovating rocket engineering are wrong. “
Musk says some of Bezos’ ideas have been tested by SpaceX. “Brother, we tried it, and it didn’t work, so I advise you not to go our old way.” He recalled the words at the time, “I did my best to give him good advice, but most of them ignored it.” p>
With the landing of the new Shepard, Bezos cheered the victory and posted his first tweet.
On November 24, 2015, Bezos posted his first tweet.
But this tweet made Musk a little bit angry. Musk believes that Bezos’s celebration is extremely shameful and that this celebration is not accurate. He tweeted @ 贝佐斯, which is not Rare thing. “Bezos may not know that SpaceX began orbiting VTOL in 2013. (vertical takeoff and landing) flight.”
However, there is still a significant gap between the two. SpaceX’s test rockets fly at a maximum altitude of only 1,000 meters, while the New Shepard flew to an altitude of 100.5 kilometers. None of the previous rockets successfully landed vertically back into the ground after flying into space.
Another reason for Musk’s anger is that the public seems unable to distinguish between SpaceX and Blue Origin. SpaceX’s rocket is launched into orbit, while Blue Origin only launches into space. If the latter needs 9 units of energy to fly, then the former needs 900 units, so Musk believes that the two are not comparable.
Musk is right. In fact, the New Shepard is not even as tall as the SpaceX’s Falcon heavy landing legs. But this is also a manifestation of Bezos’ “slowness”. He stated earlier that at some point in the future, Blue Origin will shift its attention from the new Shepard to the manned space orbiter project, although the orbiter Much more complicated, but this shift will broaden the company’s size and capabilities.
The orbiting space flight rocket carrying this mission was named the New Glen, a name derived from John Glenn, the first American to orbit. This heavy rocket is powered by seven BE-4 engines made by Blue Origin and is partially reusable. According to plan, the New Glenn will be launched for the first time in 2021.
New Glenn was launched from the 36th launch base at Cape Canaveral. After the first stage separation, it will return from a distance of 1,000 kilometers and land accurately on a moving ship. Then the secondary engine ignites, the fairing is separated, and the transported material is safely brought into the track-the task is completed. ｜ Image source blueorigin.com
In 2013, a private expedition funded by Bezos successfully salvaged a Saturn 5 from the 4,300-meter-deep Atlantic Ocean floor. (Saturn V)
Although to others, these engines are just broken pieces of iron that have no practical meaning, but for Bezos, they are a symbol of the Apollo plan that inspired and inspired his 5-year-old. “This is the actual object that sent humans to the moon.” He said, “They carry the memories of countless engineers who put the Apollo plan into reality.”
Photo taken by the expedition team, the first row of red clothes in the picture is Bezos | Image source: bezos expeditions
Later, the F-1 rocket engine was exhibited at the Seattle Museum of Flight. Bezos talked to a group of elementary school students about his mission and his interest in the universe. “We all have enthusiasm,” he told the pupils sitting on the ground in front of him. “You don’t need to choose your dream, it will come to you, but you must be alert enough, you must actively look for, when When you find it, it will guide you in the way forward, it will give you a goal, you can do a job, start a business, or hear the call. “
For Bezos, he heard the call while witnessing Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon.
Blue Origin’s goal is to make millions of people live and work in space. But in the long run, their goals are actually more ambitious. On Blue Origin’s official website, you can see the mission they have given to themselves.
BUILDING A ROAD. We’re committed to building a road to space so our children can build the future. | Image source blueorigin.com
Bezos said, “I hope that Blue Origin can build a new generation of infrastructure that will enable thousands of companies to blossom in the future, like I have seen in the Internet industry in the past few decades. . “
Amazon is on the path paved by its predecessors. When Bezos founded it, Internet cables were ready, postal services were maturing, and credit cards were popular. For Amazon at the time, all it needed was to take advantage of all this important infrastructure, regroup it in a whole new way, and use it to make new, creative things …
Bezos Expeditions: http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/updates.html
This article comes from WeChat public account: The Great Filter (ID: TheGreatFilter) , author: Takemoto I cbwe