Jeff Bezos took to Twitter for the first time to announce a milestone from his space company Blue Origin, and the Internet soaked it in.
The rarest of beasts – a used rocket. Controlled landing not easy, but done right, can look easy. Check out video: https://t.co/9OypFoxZk3
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 24, 2015
The “New Shepard” vehicle flew to space (well, suborbit), reached its test altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) and then successfully landed vertically at the launch site in West Texas.
Among those congratulating Bezos and team was none other than SpaceX’s Elon Musk, who has been attempting something similar:
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Congrats to Jeff Bezos and the BO team for achieving VTOL on their booster
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
However….Musk had more to say on the topic:
Getting to space needs ~Mach 3, but GTO orbit requires ~Mach 30. The energy needed is the square, i.e. 9 units for space and 900 for orbit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
Jeff maybe unaware SpaceX suborbital VTOL flight began 2013. Orbital water landing 2014. Orbital land landing next. https://t.co/S6WMRnEFY5
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
But credit for 1st reusable suborbital rocket goes to X-15 https://t.co/LSb0f8FLJd
And Burt Rutan for commercialhttps://t.co/TGWlNjsyQz— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2015
Musk is basically dissecting what they’ve done to show that each individual “achievement” by Blue Origin is not really an “achievement.” Musk is also referring to SpaceX’s Grasshopper testbed back in the Falcon 1 days. Also, NASA didn’t tweet, so I’m not sure how much of this I believe. Kidding. But come on, NASA.
Rocket shade. YEAH!
https://twitter.com/panzer/status/669210650401357825
