Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its titanic New Glenn rocket
51 comments
·January 16, 2025vFunct
throw0101a
> The digital cameras used on these launches basically show a white blob with no detail due to digital cameras having such low dynamic range compared to film.
Film negatives have a dynamic range of between 12 to 15 stops, but a whole bunch can be lost when transferred to optical print (perhaps less if digitally scanned).
The Arri ALEXA Mini LF has 14.5 stops of dynamic range, and the ALEXA 35 has 17 (Table 2):
* https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/295460/e10ff8a5b3abf26c33...
ArnoVW
those engineering cameras were not your regular run-of-the mill cameras neither.
NASA published a 45 min documentary of the 10-15 engineering cameras of an STS launch., with comments on the engineering aspets of the launch procedure.
Very beautiful, relaxing, has an almost meditative quality. Highly recommend it.
trhway
> talking about stacked sensors
why not just stacked cameras with a range of filters? modern cameras cost and weight nothing (and that rocket puts 45 ton into LEO)
huhtenberg
Webcast of the launch @ T-20 seconds - https://youtu.be/KXysNxbGdCg?t=6859
nabla9
Everything nowadays comes packaged with excessive emote track.
People in the internet don't enjoy rocket launch with roaring sounds unless there is laugh track over it that validates that the launch is awesome and simulates social connection.
huhtenberg
You don't say. SpaceX used to have "technical" launch streams with just launch status updates, but even they no longer do that :-/
null
sfjailbird
Worst part of any SpaceX live stream.
fransje26
Is there a footage without the hysterical screeching?
bluenose69
As has been noted by others, the emoting is a distraction. I could only watch this for a few seconds.
Another thing: why are they reporting speed in miles per hour, and altitude in feet? Surely anybody interested in space is familiar with SI units.
Tankenstein
Just a guess, but aerospace generally works with feet for altitude and knots/mph for airspeed, internationally. I’m doing a PPL in Europe and we, like everybody, use feet and knots/mph. I believe this is because the US have been on the forefront of aerospace regulation (a set of rules called the chicago convention is the basis of all air law) and aircraft manufacturing.
raverbashing
Not for aerospace no
And knots are not mph, they're "nautical miles per hour" which are a different measure (1nm is 1.8km, not 1.6km as the regular mile")
throw5959
Can confirm, all aviation worldwide deals in feet and knots. It's also because it's much easier to do calculations on the fly (literally) - in your head. Metric is precise and logical but harder to use in stressful situations.
MattPalmer1086
Glad to hear it wasn't just me being grumpy, I also found it immensely annoying and distracting.
Tepix
Perhaps it's considered more patriotic to reject scientific units?
I don't understand why they reserve 6 digits for the speed in mph either. Are they expecting it to go beyond 99,999 mph?
justlikereddit
Do they also report the speed of light as Walmart parking lots per standard commercial tv break duration?
Edit: as an Amazon product it would probably use Amazon(tm) cardboard box unit as the length metric and standardized warehouse drone toilet break as duration.
HDThoreaun
Have to agree with others that the horrible laughing ruins what should be a monumentous occasion for the company and humanity.
jve
Think about it. The fruit of their hard work over all those years while enduring people pointing fingers and memes at them... and now their powerful rocket roars, rumbles and lifts... Ofcourse it is emotional. And looks like me personally enjoy it. Perhaps that is taken from spacex stream where you see people cheering on achieving significant milestones... just gives you some of it.
Perhaps that audio could have been only when showing people cheering or what, but anyways, I'm surprised BO even set up that much of a show for external viewers.
SpaceX obviously has spoiled us. Just think of what we could see before SX. Some visualization on how rocket fly?
notahacker
Personally I like the contrast between the laugh of joy and relief and background cheers from the team that have spent the past few years building it, and the calm technical announcements coming from somebody who probably feels the same way...
atq2119
As a non-USian looking in, it seemed fairly average and non-horrible to me? I find it interesting to find several comments like this one here so prominently compared to the discussion thread about SpaceX launches.
robertlagrant
Why is that interesting?
perihelions
Dupe of / More details & discussion here,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42721882 ("Blue Origin New Glenn Mission NG-1 (video) (blueorigin.com)", 55 comments)
bell-cot
I might say "More details & discussion here", vs. "Dupe of". For those who don't want to burn time watching video, the Ars story is an excellent summary.
hkgjjgjfjfjfjf
[dead]
seydor
I don't understand why making excuses for their failure, 10 years after spaceX started reusing their rockets. There are so many competitors now and china is doing quite well, that we don't need participation trophies.
Tepix
Reaching orbit on the first try is a big deal. I think it deserves recognition and celebration.
Noone has ever managed to nail the landing of an orbital class booster on the first try.
jve
> Noone
Name another company that even landed orbital class booster on whatever try.
10 years ago it was an impossible feat many were laughing at.
cma
The space shuttle achieved reusable booster landing in the 80s with parachutes and water.
Delta clipper controlled burn relanding in the 90s but not scaled to orbital class.
moritonal
Didn't we laude SpaceX for failing fast and moving forward?
dkjaudyeqooe
I don't understand why you're drawing attention to their failure, it doesn't mean anything. Failure by anyone on the first time of anything is understandable.
But I'm interested to know what the extensive competition for domestic heavy lift rockets consists of, especially reusable ones with a low cost. SpaceX of course, but Boeing is out to lunch.
fsloth
”Many” competitors? I thought that in this vehicle category (large&affordable) Space X was the only competitor?
inglor_cz
Blue Origin changed CEOs two years ago and since then it started to pull forward.
They may have failures during flights, but they aren't a failure as a company.
I wish the cameras used film like NASA did for Saturn V. The digital cameras used on these launches basically show a white blob with no detail due to digital cameras having such low dynamic range compared to film. And this is made worse with the night launches that Blue Origin are doing.
In Saturn V launches you could see see detail in the bright flame structures along with background detail.
Maybe some of the upcoming digital cameras chips will have higher dynamic range eventually. I know Nikon has a paper talking about stacked sensors that are trading off high frame rate for high dynamic range: https://youtu.be/jcc1CvqCTeU?si=DuIu4BK48iZTlyB2