Time capsule coffin hybrid 😅

Probably helps fund the costs of the test too

Especially since when they shelved the idea of ACES. At this point, this rocket can be decent at best and mediocre at worst.

Absolutely love this thing, it's surreal that they're actually launching this. In a day.

When is it exactly .., did I miss it or is it upcoming? It's currently 1/7/24. Thanks!

⁠@@kimberlybellefontaine1215It’s on Monday, 1/8/24 at 1:18 AM EST. So as of me writing this comment, it hasn’t happened yet and will happen in 2 1/2ish hours

@@phofers thx! I had also already found this out from my son (who is an engineer with Blue Origin in TX) and who's in FL right now for the launch:). Are you planning to watch?

@@kimberlybellefontaine1215 Got up in the middle of the night to watch it!

Hoo boy, this is a can of worms, but the brief answer to this: The ACES depot model was so capable and cost-effective that it arguably obsolesced the NASA SLS Rocket. There is an on-record answer from a former ULA engineer that this upset Boeing (who is building the SLS and also owns half of ULA), and there are unsubstantiated rumors that this upset a senior member of Congress. Pressure from Boeing (plus maybe pressure from Congress) shelved ACES development, apparently Plan A was to develop the ACES second stage first, and then figure out the first stage (now known as Vulcan) later. ULA is trying to sell itself from Boeing and Lockheed, I expect depot development will rapidly re-commence if that goes through.

January 8th at 0718 UTC

There are, they just forgot to render them I guess, since they are not in the video.

@@starmanxvi They did, but they took a bit of artistic license to show how Vulcan can be configured for different kinds of missions.

The configuration for C1 is VC2 so it has 2 SRBs

Thanks guys

I think it's here, unless they have some fn genius that going to try to manipulate the masses.

Just 2

Tautology is part of expression

What is the 100% reusable rocket operating today? Non-reusable ones still exist because they are necessary to certain types of missions

@@zaks01 starship pretty soon also blue origin eventually and there's another I can't think of at the top of my head

@@gufdrrh That's true, in the future when these rockets are 100% operational it will be an important advance in space exploration, and unfortunately companies that do not adapt, may cease to exist

@@gufdrrh Stoke space too

@@zaks01 that's the one 👍

No, the boosters, the first stage and fairings fall to Earth

The second stage either injects itself into a high orbit (like with Artemis 1) or de-orbits

Why is that a problem? Spaceflight has been expending boosters for decades. This makes the vehicle provide 10-15% more performance

ULA does have a solid plan to recover and reuse the engine section in the future, but first they need to prove this bird can fly. They'll get to work on implementing reuse once Vulcan is fully operational--preferably sooner rather than later.

@@Delta-V-Heavy Reusing the engine section of boosters in a few years isn't a very solid plan when the biggest competitor was reusing whole boosters in 2017. They'll still be behind where SpaceX was a decade or more ago. By the time SMART reuse is happening, you will probably have several other companies doing reuse of whole boosters, including Blue Origin New Glenn and Rocket Lab Neutron. Maybe even Relativity Space Terran R and others. Not to mention that fully reusable rockets might be operational.

@@lextacy2008 Cost. Luckily, ULA has a solid niche in the market. The not-SpaceX niche.

What does cost have to do with anything? That's how spaceflight has fundamentally worked. @@SpaceAdvocate

Aw man they'll have to start from scratch, good spot.

Falcon 9

*Starship What? Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy has proven to be a pretty good launch vehicle. Debates can be made as to Refurbish vs Replacement Costs, and how that has compared to just the Vertical Integration vs NASA/DoD Programs with all their Pork Barrel Complexities, *but at the end of the day, it has been getting many launches done for lower costs* (MAJOR apostrophe for non-LEO launches/Delta V hungry things, payload fairing limitations, and how many of the larger launches especially the core stage of Falcon Heavy *are done* in expendable mode”, which many of these rockets people decry as obsolete excel at.) Also Projects like Delta Clipper and the Venturestar show that reusability wasn’t something Elon Musk (and not the SpaceX Engineers hired with his Emerald Mine Money) came up with as many a fan believes. *ALSO* granted this may change over the next few years, but as of now “Starship” is a suborbital (if even that), non-proven, behemoth without a need. So between Falcon 9 (or if SpaceX abandons that success, Electron and all the *piles* or small-medium launch vehicles *many of which are already doing proving flights*, and large infrequent launches being taken up by ULA and such, Starship really is irrelevant *at least as of 2023 happenings*. That’s my non-expert take at least, and explained in a somewhat brief rant lol.

@@ericlotze7724 the rockets people decry as obsolete are in the same payload range as Falcon 9 and cost more than a Falcon Heavy. I don't know of anyone who claims SpaceX invented reusability, but they were the first to try to propulsive landing of a launch vehicle. Delta Clipper doesn't count, as it wasn't a launch vehicle, it was a test article. Starship may be irrelevant now, but not planning for it is planning to fail

@@bryanillenberg I’d need to see some data, and also another factor which is sometimes neglected is Faring Size (no need for massive payload mass if you can only fit small things; noone is launching lead bricks (exaggeration but i hope it’s a decent analogy)). Also as i stated in my rant somewhere, many of the higher orbit missions have used Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy in *expendable mode* (at least partially as well ie the core stage is not saved) I think the point of “who did it first” / Fully Functional Test Article vs Non-Pile of Launches under it’s belt-Launch Vehicle is a bit valid *but also semantics*. My main point was to try and dispel the myth of SpaceX’s unmatched Genius. It was mainly they were at the right place at the right time.

​ @ericlotze7724 Falcon 9 can currently hold any satellite for GTO and GEO. And while it has often used expendable mode, for Falcon Heavy that's because, AFAIK, they've given up on core stage reuse. After all, it has very little value. Even then, a reusable Falcon has roughly the same GTO payload as an Atlas V.

Ift-3 will more than likely be successful.

Starship needs a useful payload bay and operational reusability before it can start to compete in the commercial market, which it won't have both of for likely a year at least, realistically in the next 2. But I agree it will definitely be game-changing if they even get close to their targets.

it will, when it lands on the seabed, in HORRIBLE condition.

@@ThatOpalGuy so sad. Seems like they have no interest in reusing rockets

@@rjgreen91 Well they do have plans for engine section reuse

@@rjgreen91while i dislike it and hate waste, the business world operates on money, and unlike Electron or Falcon 9 (ESPECIALLY if you take away starlink’s artificial inflation of the launch market), these larger rockets are used so infrequently, and are so hungry for launch energy, that it barely makes any sense (At least Economically…) to reuse any components. The “Smart Engine Reuse” concept is an interesting middle ground. Basically fuel tanks etc which are more complicated than one would think, but still essentially tanks+piping, get chucked, but turbopump and other complex+expensive engine bits (and maybe most of the electronics if i remember correctly) get recovered. *At the end of the day* I am still team Venturestar, Skylon, or *heck even just a Dream Chaser on a Falcon 9 (or similar thing*) (That or in an alternate timeline a better old space shuttle/ the Energia-Buran with flyback boosters)

@@ericlotze7724 wrong: SpaceX flew over 30 times last year, excluding Starlinks. That's more than enough to justify large, reusable rockets. And remember: more megaconstellations are coming. Project Kuiper, for example. These will inflate the market even further. SMART is possibly the least-smart method I've ever seen for reuse: ditching the tankage (which are large, and with mass-produced engines, the most expensive part of the vehicle), while also dumping the engine section into the ocean (causing damage). Something more like Electron's recovery is better, but the best by far is either propulsive landing on a barge or propulsive landing RTLS.

Read my post under RJGreen’s similar comment and/or watch the works of “The Pressure Fed Astronaut” (and/or go down a rabbit hole of papers). TLDR: It doesn’t make Economic and Practical Sense to do so currently, especially for the Missions this launch platform will do. The only real justification is Moral, which I agree with.

@@ericlotze7724 and read my response to that post.

This rocket is built for different missions further than low earth orbit so it needs all its fuel, high energy missions that other providers cant reach, its not its focus to land boosters yet. Falcon 9 needs a third of its fuel to land so it doesnt go far out. ULA does have plans in the near future to re use the engines.

oh. my. god.

Think it though...

Its actually a privately owned company shared with lockheed and boeing so I dont know which tax money you think is involved in this.

@@odynith9356 ULA could be owned by aliens, however ULA gets its money from taxpayer funds. This isn't up for debate. The vast majority of their revenue is taxpayer funded contracts. The very mission this video is promoting is tax payer funded, "NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative"

@@odynith9356 Lol "privately owned"... Up until now ULA was 100% government funded. Yes that's right....every mission, every launch, every payload....for the U.S. Government. It's funny how ULA and members of congress have the audacity to criticize and condemn China's space program for being totally owned and funded by government and representing communism and blah blah blah...when OUR space program does the exact same thing. The only difference is we hide it under the guise of "privately owned companies" yet all of them only did federal missions either for the military, NASA, NOAA and the CIA. Infact until SpaceX came along the USA was responsible for a grand total of.....0% of the commercial launch market. Now its about 80+% and 75% of that comes from SpaceX alone. The only reason ULA has any commercial missions at all is because SpaceX forced its hand. One, by being so cost competitive that not even the billions of dollars of lobbying money could stop the military from giving at least half the mission awards to SpaceX. (of course, not before SpaceX had to literally sue the military for not even being allowed to bid for missions even though they had a product that could easily compete for bids...). But once ULA's monopoly hold on military missions were broken up through the courts, SpaceX started winning bids easily and the only thing saving ULA was its ties in congress. and two, was SpaceX forced the issue of fix priced contracts. By bidding this way and showing NASA and what is now called the Space Force that they can reliably deliver on missions at a fraction of the cost AND be liable for any cost overruns...Government organizations had no choice but to embrace fix price contracts because wasting obscene amounts of money in front of the public on delays and budget overruns was no longer going to accepted when there was a working and reliable alternative available. So now a company that once relied on 100% government contracts, no longer had a monopoly on all the government contracts being rewarded to "privately owned" companies. So now it is forced to seek commercial contracts...in a market where its product isn't really competitive. But make no mistake, even now, most of its revenue comes straight from the government...aka U.S. taxpayers.

I see the cognitive dissonance is strong with you. The problem that's really delayed them these past 8 + months was the Centaur V H2 forward tank dome issue, not BE-4. There's going to be a lot Reeeeing soon, because the 1st stage engines and core were so heavily tested.

@@thomasackerman5399 Blue origin has never flown an orbital first stage engine. That's such an unwarranted insult for a genuine concern.

@@thomasackerman5399The BE-4 engine is absolutely a concern.

@@reagank.2268 They have now, so neither yours nor their comment aged well at all.