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Old 12-13-2017, 06:32 PM
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BEC BEC is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Auburn, Washington
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshire
I agree. Their main interest is achieving airliner-like reliability of the vehicle (or approaching that as closely as can be done with a rocket vehicle), the features of which they will incorporate into their New Glenn orbital vehicle as well as into their New Shepard suborbital vehicle.


I had occasion to get an informal tour of their Kent, WA facility recently as I was there to meet someone to take some old model rocket stuff off his hands. The fact that - engineer to engineer - we found ourselves talking about maintenance access in the booster goes right to this point. As a retired airliner guy for whom getting to things that need fixing or replacing quickly and easily was an important consideration (on the Next Gen 737s and later variants including the new MAX in particular) this resonated strongly.



One of the old model items I came home with was a nearly flightworthy Centuri Quasar which still had a spent C6-5 with a mid 1971 date code on it in the motor mount. That one WILL fly again soon.
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