Mach 3.7 to 62 miles high. Elon's does Mach 10 though to get into orbit, this is more like what virgin galactic does. If the booster can be refueled it reduces cost by 100 times, still expensive, but a step forward.
Nov 24 2015 1:32PM
Nov 26 2015 10:38PM
Nov 26 2015 11:11PM
I'm pretty sure Elon was getting upset that the media was making this out to be the first accomplishment of it's time when really we've had this capability for a while. I think they get along quite well since his first tweet about the Blue Origin was congratulating them on the sub orbital flight.
However the only impressive part is that it was done by a private company. We've had this capability for a while, just nobody has done it since they actually want to deliver a payload to orbit. Not give someone a few minutes at the edge of space before they come back down. There's hardly any money in that compared to most space flight contracts. Falcon 9's first stage has the specs to do exactly what blue origin did, but that's not what it's intended to do so they don't try it. It's engines are so strong they can't actually make the first stage hover without weighing it down.
Really this should be compared only with what Virgin Galactic is trying to accomplish with their crafts. Both are only aiming for sub orbital flights with only a window of a few minutes in space while Elon is actually aiming for orbit and delivering payloads into orbit.
Nov 26 2015 11:20PM
To add to the information about the patent disputes between the two companies (SpaceX and Blue Origin), Blue Origin actually motioned to retract the patent after the dispute because they knew they had lost their case. SpaceX even offered to use the pad as a multi-use facility with Blue after Blue protested about SpaceX getting the 39A launch pad from NASA. I think it's more that Blue Origin is jealous of SpaceX's success rather than Elon Musk not getting along with them.
Nov 27 2015 11:23AM
Elon says bezos likes to be thought of as King Bezos and I'm sure the surge in media attention is annoying. Increasing access to space for TOURISM is great on every level like virgin and BO, but a visionary comes in the form of Elon who wants to colonize mars with a million people. Elon and Richard Branson also seem to lack the pride that king Bezos has - I hope you're correct about the patent dispute going in SpaceX' favor. On another note bezos recently replaced the koch brothers as the 3rd richest man in america which stoked his ego. Any technical deets on the rockets used and flight plan are fully welcome. Also why they do this on land or at sea, is that for safety reasons to protect cities?