Cool Alert

The design and operational concept for the Jeff Bezos-funded Blue Origin private spacecraft has been announced:

Blue Origin’s spaceship is patterned after Department of Defense/NASA work on the single-stage vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) and Delta Clipper Experimental Advanced (DC-XA). It was repeatedly flown in 1993-1996 at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Among a list of distinctions, a 26-hour turnaround was achieved between the DC-XA’s second and third flights – a first for any rocket. The flight program ended in July 1996 with the DC-XA suffering severe damage due to a landing strut