Blue Origin first human flight

https://www.blueorigin.com/

by squarefoot • 5 years ago

221 442 5 years ago

blueorigin.com

ethbr03• 5 years ago

Link to the direct feed: https://youtu.be/watch?v=tMHhXzpwupU

(Posted by many others, but this is what made the front page)

Update 1: Successful booster touchdown (admittedly, they probably had a lot larger fuel budget than orbital launches)

Update 2: Successful touchdown of capsule

Congrats to Blue Origin for success in tossing people through space!

jcun41284• 5 years ago

Not directly relevant: what's annoying are the fake live streams. Then there are blatant crypto scams on top lol ugh.

dole• 5 years ago

Youtube's homepage reminds me of the television broadcasts in Idiocracy. Just another fulfilled prophecy.

paganel• 5 years ago

I would have expected an ambulance to be at the landing/crash site just in case, for the moment I can only see pickup trucks.

JshWright9• 5 years ago

There are certainly rescue vehicles staged nearby. The potential landing area is actually pretty large (since it's coming down under parachutes and will be pushed by the wind), so it wouldn't be possible to preposition them exactly where the capsule is going to land. The rescue vehicles would have been rolled if they were needed.

JshWright9• 5 years ago

(admittedly, they probably had a lot larger fuel budget than orbital launches)

That booster isn't capable of orbital launches.

ethbr03• 5 years ago

I meant it's a helluva lot easier to have plenty of landing fuel when you're tossing a capsule up, vs trying to insert an actual payload into orbit.

madjam002• 5 years ago

Incredible, congrats to the crew and team who have worked on this!

avalanche123• 5 years ago

What a mind blowing achievement. Wow!

marshallbananas• 5 years ago

This felt so underwhelming. I don't know if it's because I've seen SpaceX doing much more complicated missions or it's just not that big of a deal. They got about two minutes of zero G and came down immediately. You can experience that for much longer with a regular plane, for much less money.

It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth.

jacquesm4• 5 years ago

Yes, but 'Blue Origin successfully avoids achieving orbit' sounds so much less like an achievement than 'first human flight'.

notjustanymike• 5 years ago

He went up and then down again.

jstsch2• 5 years ago

Agreed. This really felt like an amusement park ride for rich people. Like a throw towards the edge of orbit.

I'm sure there is some innovation coming out of this, but compared to the insane progress of SpaceX it's super underwhelming.

iso16317• 5 years ago

Like a throw towards the edge of orbit.

It's nowhere near orbit. Orbit is about 10km of delta-v, then there's the reentry problem.

Reaching the Karman line is about 2km of delta-v.

q1w22• 5 years ago

I agree that there's no scientific or engineering achievement here and that this ride is essentially joyriding.

I disagree that we should deride rich people for spending money the way they want. I splurge on things sometimes as well. Unlike a lot of modern social media, I don't think there's anything inherently immoral about being wealthy.

If someone has an argument about what these specific people did that was specifically immoral to achieve their wealth, then they should call that out specifically and suggest a systemic change.

I find the mindless rich-people-hate to be nothing more than juvenile hate.

purple_ferret2• 5 years ago

it was a sales pitch

Darmody• 5 years ago

To me it was pretty exciting after watching what Virgin Galactic did the other day.

Clewza3133• 5 years ago

Virgin Galactic is at least taking a novel approach with the spaceplane though. Sticking a capsule on top of a rocket and bringing it down with parachutes has been done since the 1960s, and SpaceX beat them to landing the launcher as well.

Clewza3133• 5 years ago

Agree re: being underwhelmed, but in fairness, your typical "vomit comet" parabola flight only gets you about 25 seconds of weightlessness at a time. Although you can repeat this several dozen times per flight pretty easily.

FredFS4563• 5 years ago

25-30 seconds, with https://www.gozerog.com/ offering 15 parabolas totalling 6.5-7.5 minutes for $7500+tax. Much better total zero-gee time at much cheaper rates. Of course, you don't get the view above the atmosphere...

qayxc• 5 years ago

And you are ignoring the 1.8 g part after each parabola - the zero g don't come for free.

The acceleration on New Shepard is much lower and even the max acceleration experienced during landing should be in the same ballpark of <2 g but only once and for a very brief period of time only compared to the vomit comet.

This could be a factor for some people.

rvz3• 5 years ago

It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth.

Translation: 'Other private companies building their own rockets and going into space is 'not good enough' unless it is by SpaceX' and doesn't count.

To SpaceX fanatics and downvoters: I'm sure you are deep fanatics of SpaceX but surely you have the funds and deep pockets to join Musk and friends on a space mission together right now? If not, just continue to watch livestreams of others going into space then.

It should not be just down to ONE company. Commercial space flight is going to get allot cheaper with the existence of more competitors and that should be welcomed. Even SpaceX welcomes this and so should you.

jdavis703• 5 years ago

The Russian v. USA space race’s important milestones included putting satellites, animals and people into orbit. It wasn’t just merely launching them to the edge of spacs.

altcognito• 5 years ago

It’s kinda funny to see even the SpaceX fans miss a broader point. SpaceX could probably sell orbital trips on Falcon on the regular but they are out of reach of most nearly everyone except the US government whom needs manned flight for staffing the space station (thank goodness or we’d never get space progress)

The excitement and noise over suborbital flight is good, but in terms of achievement, Blue origin has yet to deliver on their major promises. I have confidence they will get there, but credit where credit is due, Spacex is getting it done.

dang3• 5 years ago

Please don't take HN threads into tedious flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pantulis• 5 years ago

Yet this is what, with all their power, billionaries can achieve today. While private innovation is welcome, space exploration needs even deeper pockets so it is government territory.

gameswithgo4• 5 years ago

Im very happy for Wally Funk

LoungeFlyZ• 5 years ago

So happy! A proper injustice revisited.

chasd003• 5 years ago

i feel pretty guilty for being so underwhelmed because I sure as hell couldn't build an engine and airframe to do that but I am. I think the duration and lack of events is what did it. I'm use to the multiple phases of a falcon9 launch and the landing.

However, i'm glad BlueOrigin did this and had a successful launch/landing. It certainly helps inspire others and is good for the industry as a whole.

cptskippy6• 5 years ago

i feel pretty guilty for being so underwhelmed because I sure as hell couldn't build an engine and airframe to do that but I am.

Given Bezo's bank account, you don't think you could put together a team to get a rocket into space?

Let's be realistic, no one person built this or any other rocket. Apart from Money, and perhaps short/bald man complex, Bezo contributed little overall. Yet all of the media has been about Bezos going into space.

When Richard Branson came along to steal his thunder with the SpaceShipTwo launch just before him, Bezo showed his colors by dismissing the achievement as not "real space". I have doubt Bezos is still salty about it and planning to get back at him.

IMO, none of these billionaires should be celebrated for these achievements. We should be celebrating the people who put them there but those individuals receive almost no mention.

55556242• 5 years ago

It really shouldn't count as space travel unless they go into orbit around Earth.

So, Alan Shepard would not be the first American in space? Gus Grissom's first flight wouldn't count, either? I'm all for making a distinction between space tourists and astronauts; but, I don't know if orbiting the Earth is the distinction. (Yes, I know Shepard and Grissom orbited the Earth on subsequent space flights; but,those first flights have to count for something.)

loloquwowndueo• 5 years ago

Maybe you were just told they counted as going into space because otherwise the first American to orbit earth only did so a full 10 months after Gagarin, which looks worse than saying “oh we launched an American into space less than a month after the Russians did”.

rtkwe11• 5 years ago

Personally I think there's a difference when the thing is completely new like when the space race first launched and now when it's decades on and we have continuously occupied the ISS for just over two decades. I might take one of these suborbital hops for fun but mostly because I have doubts it'll be reasonable to do a full orbit in my lifetime.

These are both neat but the billionaire pissing contest nature of it really cheapens it. Blue Origin originally rushed out and crowed about 'beating' SpaceX in (I think) launch and land reusability and now Branson rushing out to beat Bezos to barely cross into space. I'd honestly thought the whole Virgin Galactic thing had been quietly canned years ago because nothing was happening till there was this little race.

tester34• 5 years ago

wasn't it just a few years ago considered as being ahead of everybody in space industry?

detritus3• 5 years ago

The thing that amuses me is that if SpaceX can make Starship and the Heavy booster work, they could actually come up with a tourism/joyride that would blow these piffling jumps by Branson and Bezos into irrelevance.

If you can send 50-100 people on an actual orbiting jaunt, perhaps a night in 'space rocket hotel', rich folk would gladly pay millions, which makes the business case a lot more compelling.

Then they'd just need to get environmentally-friendly methane production going and we can all be a bit happier.

BurningFrog6• 5 years ago

You can also land on the other side of the planet within... I want to say an hour?

Ajedi323• 5 years ago

That's the dream; affordable space tourism for the masses.

If Starship manages to hit the price and performance targets Musk has set for it (~$2 million/launch[1], max of 1000 passengers[2]) you could get a ticket to orbit for around $2000. Throw in some extra for profit margin, a stay at an orbital space hotel, and a few additional expenses, and it might well be possible to take a vacation in space for less than $10k.

I really hope that happens within my lifetime; it'd be amazing to experience.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/elon-musk-says-spacexs-sta...

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1144004310503530496

gist2• 5 years ago

rich folk would gladly pay millions, which makes the business case a lot more compelling.

I would say some would but keep in mind that a few other things have to come together.

a) Willing to take the risk (non trivial example I would not do this no chance)

b) Your family/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend has to buy into the risk even if it's just you going into the orbit.

c) Potential negative publicity as in 'look how they are spending their money' since early adopters would most likely be publicized in some way.

d) Guilt maybe spending millions for a trivial short ride vs. other things you can spend money on.

Keep in mind with 'd' other things are considered more acceptable and have social proof. This seems (to me anyway) the ultimate extravagance and I am wondering if there is the classic difference between what people say they would do if given the chance and what they would actually do.

bob10292• 5 years ago

Out of all of these space-faring corporations, SpaceX has orders of magnitude more aerospace infrastructure and assets to work with. Their entire ethos since inception was getting humanity to Mars, not sending a handful of wealthy people into suborbital trajectories. Elon/SpaceX have certainly participated in a lot of PR throughout, but it always seemed to be along an engineering axis, not some feel-good emotional axis (although many were moved by witnessing double booster landings regardless).

The construction of a massive space port in one of the more desolate places in America is a pretty damn good starting point. Doesn't take a magician to round that out with an airport, hotels, convention centers, restaurants, etc. I believe there is already an uptick in real estate on South Padre Island and talks about some bridge to better connect the island.

gvb• 5 years ago

There is a SpaceX private Crew Dragon mission scheduled: https://spacenews.com/inspiration4-announces-crew-for-privat...

"Launch is scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 15, slightly earlier than the original announcement of the fourth quarter of this year. The spacecraft will remain in orbit for three days, flying in an orbit at the same inclination as the International Space Station — 51.6 degrees — but in an orbit as high as 540 kilometers, more than 100 kilometers above the station."

agloeregrets4• 5 years ago

The best part is that while these two billionaires do their 'space hop', Elon is laughing the whole time and probably texted Jeff Bezos asking 'Hey have you seen my car? NVM, sorry, you probably were not close enough to see it.'

Edit: To be clear, I'm referring to the obvious feud with Jeff Bezos, I know he is friends with Richard.

dev_tty012• 5 years ago

Yeah, the sub-orbital is a harder sell. When you are the only one or one of a few, the benefit/cost is perceived to be higher. After a dozen or so of these flights much of the cachet will be gone. Can they (Bezos/Branson) bring the cost down fast enough to transition to a sustainable model?

In 2000, Dennis Tito paid $20M for 11,400 minutes in space or about $1750/minute ($2765 in 2021 dollars). The Branson and Bezos models 20 years later are much more expensive per minute and are so short there is no real time to absorb the experience.

alexashka2• 5 years ago

they could actually come up with a tourism/joyride that would blow these piffling jumps by Branson and Bezos into irrelevance.

We've had tourism that blows all these attempts into irrelevance, for thousands of years.

Take 5 grams.

bitL• 5 years ago

There will be an inevitable crash/failure resulting in a mass casualty event where many industries will lose their leaders (the only people that could afford a spaceflight for fun), and that's very bad for PR and could sink the whole company as a result.

ekianjo• 5 years ago

I've seen SpaceX doing much more complicated missions or it's just not that big of a deal.

Also, SpaceX knows how to put on a show. In comparison this felt like an amateur video. (not to diminish the mission itself, just how it was filmed).

jpgvm2• 5 years ago

To be fair SpaceX also has had practice, go back and watch some earlier launches and they have the same amateur vibe.

theshrike79• 5 years ago

I was kinda disappointed that the whole thing was just one shaky camera shot, no in-vehicle cameras on Bezos' face getting squished from G-forces or anything =(

Ottolay• 5 years ago

The underwhelming part is that it took so long.

The first private manned suborbital flight occurred in 2004 with SpaceShipOne. It is 17 years later at this point and only now do we have paying customers for sub-orbital flight.

Clewza3133• 5 years ago

And even then we still don't have "paying passengers" in the sense of being able to rock up and buy ticket. One seat being raffles at a charity auction doesn't quite count.

I also suspect the pool of people willing to pony up $250k+ for a few minutes barely in space is going to be pretty shallow. I'd sign up in a heartbeat for a space hotel trip in that price range though, so here's hoping Axiom Space delivers (and gets the price range below the current projection of tens of millions).

mongol• 5 years ago

Yes. What made it take this long?

cecilpl2• 5 years ago

Note that SpaceX hadn't even launched its first rocket in 2004. They didn't reach orbit until 2008 and yet sent crew to the space station over a year ago already.

robotresearcher• 5 years ago

Yes, and the first suborbital crewed flight was in May 1961. A bit more than sixty years ago.

The gap between the Wright Brothers' first flight and Apollo 11 was about 66 years. (I realize aircraft and spacecraft are not very similar).

I think almost everyone interested in space flight back then would be pretty disappointed by the slow pace of development since Apollo, until things picked up recently.

ww520• 5 years ago

Getting rocket working correctly is never easy. Just like in IT when things work smoothly, it doesn't look amazing but it takes a tremendous amount of work to get things work correctly and seemingly smooth. A smooth operation is always amazing.

The booster landing looks pretty amazing. The capsule landing went without a problem. The deceleration when the braking chutes deployed looks a bit fast, from 205mph to 150mph in couple seconds. Must be hard on the body.

Edit: Ok, in the post-flight briefing, they mentioned that they didn't anticipate the 5G deceleration on descent and it was pretty hard. Must be when the braking chute was deployed.

daveslash2• 5 years ago

It looked like they were going about 15-16mph when they hit the ground. That looked a bit rough as well. They seem to have done fine, but I can't imagine that it was comfortable.

shadowgovt2• 5 years ago

It's frustrating, because I'd like to get excited, but relative to even the regular things going on in aerospace this isn't interesting. Interesting enough, I guess. Guy went up and down. There are six people going around and around right now on the ISS and a second station is coming into orbit. He never left Earth? CNSA has a rover on the moon, and NASA has several rovers, some satellites, a helicopter, and a Will.i.am single on Mars.

Max altitude of about 100km? Alan Eustance managed half that with a balloon, and then he jumped out of his capsule like Master Chief and fell back to Earth.

They're planning to build a moon rover in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. Three rivers, some department stores, a couple abandoned steel mills, more bridges than they can afford to maintain, and a mission control center.

I'm generally in favor of more people being involved in space technology and space travel; I still consider it a long-term existential need. But about this, it's just, kinda... Step it up or step out, Bezos.

It is nice to live in an era where this accomplishment feels mundane, though.

mLuby• 5 years ago

Step it up or step out, Bezos.

So much negativity in this whole topic, IMO due to Bezos's involvement.

Space is hard technically, politically, financially, so the more entrants in the space race the better. Every space program, government or private, has started off small and built on what they learn.

rtkwe11• 5 years ago

I think it's pretty underwhelming and then is further diminished because it feels so much like Bezos and Branson just spending their obscene amounts of money to notch a win in this billionaire one upmanship game. First there was Bezos's Blue Origin crowing about their early launch and land success vs SpaceX like they were in a similar league of difficulty. Then with this you have Virgin Galactic coming out of seeming corporate catatonia so Brandon could rush out this first ahead of Bezos. I hadn't heard anything about SpaceShip One for what feels like years before this stunt.

Also yeah they do also just barely make it to what the US had somewhat arbitrarily defined as space in the case of Branson's company.

gameswithgo4• 5 years ago

come on, our billionaires are spending money advancing space tech. what a grand improvement over billionaires bribing governments and having people slaughtered instead, as happens through much of the world and history. applaud this.

sanderjd3• 5 years ago

Yeah I expected an orbit too. But it was their first manned mission, so I think it makes sense that it was a simpler thing. But it shouldn't have been such big news. It only was because there was a billionaire on board, and that's really dumb.

yreg2• 5 years ago

It was news because it was the first manned flight of a private launch provider. That doesn't happen often and it is an important milestone.

usrusr• 5 years ago

Let's look at it from the Hollywood angle: SpaceX clearly wins in explosions per minute, but on the other hand BlueO has Vin Diesel (I might have squinted too hard)

zackbloom• 5 years ago

If you listen to the stream there's a moment when they ask each astronaut for a mock-serious 'status update'. At least one forgets to even respond. It feels like cosplay, like a tourist experience where you are pretending to be an astronaut despite having no responsibilities and little training. I would struggle to not feel embarrassment at pretending to be something I am not, and at the knowledge they are stroking my ego purely for my ego's benefit on the back of the very well earned reputation of real astronauts.

It reminds me of what might happen on a tourist experience in Bali, where they have you hold a big spear and take a photo for Instagram as if you were a tribal hunter. I would take the Blue Origin flight if it was free, but I would wish they would treat me honestly: as a random schlub who knows how to sit in a seat and smile.

DocTomoe2• 5 years ago

One point: that was no "mock status update call", it was control checking if people were back in and strapped to their seats again. The wording arguably was a bit too much fluff ("Astronaut Bezos", yeah, right)

rossdavidh• 5 years ago

Well in one sense you're right, however...if they decided that they wanted to go for orbit without first doing an up-into-space-then-down trip, that wouldn't be a very wise thing to do. Test at each step. It makes perfect sense to do up-into-space-then-right-back-down first, before you try for orbiting the Earth, for many of the same reasons that NASA did it that way.

yumraj• 5 years ago

I don't know if it's because I've seen SpaceX doing much more complicated missions

You know that NASA and other countries have been flying rockets and sending people and things to space before SpaceX, yes?

docdeek2• 5 years ago

Incredible achievement.

I had to catch myself as, at first, I was thinking “10 minutes? That’s it? And in space for a lot less than that?”. Quickly reminded myself that in the history of the world hardly anyone has gone where they have gone - 10 minutes isn’t much, but if I could I would.

tokai2• 5 years ago

Incredible achievement

Is it though? I don't see how.

docdeek2• 5 years ago

When I was growing up the only people who had a chance to go where these four people went were trained for years by a nation-state. It was incredibly dangerous and it was only those who the government approved who might make the trip.

I just saw four pretty regular people - including one I believe subbed in at the last minute - take a trip and it cost a fraction of what it used to. The high price tag means it’s still nowhere near accessible to most people as flying in a plane or taking a train, but it’s a lot more accessible than it was when I was a kid, and by the time my kids are adults it is likely to be more than just a pipe dream.

I still remember what it was like to catch a plane for the first time and how I would count the number of trips I would take on a plane because it was just so outside my normal experience. Maybe one of my kids will have a chance to feel the same way about flying to space.

AlexanderTheGr84• 5 years ago

I agree - it's incredible. First flight of Wright Brothers lasted about 8 seconds. For initial flights, I would not consider time spent in space as the most important metric.

markx2• 5 years ago

The coverage was excellent.

So many ways that this could have been an ego / company boosting event and it was not.

Branson, take note.

jacquesm4• 5 years ago

You mean like they used 'Blue Origin' in tiny letters next to huge letters spelling out 'First Human Flight'?

Always check the fine print.

admissionsguy• 5 years ago

Mixed feelings. I suppose it's important to have competition/alternatives to SpaceX, but does it have to be done in such a sluggish manner by one the most unlikable people in the world?

nrmitchi• 5 years ago

such a sluggish manner

Can you elaborate? I'm not sure "sluggish" is an adverb I would use to describe space launches.

FredFS4563• 5 years ago

Blue Origin is funded by Bezos with much more resources/year than SpaceX, yet has achieved far less over a longer time since founding. "Sluggish" is the adverb I would use to describe its engineering progress.

basisword• 5 years ago

I hate to break it to you but Musk is just as unlikeable.

Why does it matter who does it though? It’s a great achievement and could lead to great things. I’d much rather people like Bezos were spending money on this than mansions, supercars, and other crap that doesn’t benefit anyone.

jacquesm4• 5 years ago

Bezos is so rich that he has plenty left to spend on mansions and supercars.

selykg2• 5 years ago

I hate to break it to you but Musk is just as unlikeable.

Right? I don't get the guy's appeal. Yes, SpaceX and Tesla are doing neat things and I love that. But Musk is literally the last person I want to hear from, or about. Despite all the cool stuff Tesla is doing, he really makes me not want to buy anything from Tesla ever just because he's associated with it. Perhaps a bit dramatic, but I really can't stand the guy.

q1w22• 5 years ago

I don't see this sort of joy-riding as a material competition to what SpaceX is doing.

It's not even clear to me that that is their objective.

These sub-orbital flights are not interesting - scientifically nor engineeringly.

rrss2• 5 years ago

Their objective is to make money through space tourism.

sandworm1012• 5 years ago

The latest of the rich man roller coasters. Biggest windows in space... Cool. I cannot wait to see the first Champaign cork opened in zero gravity. At least spaceX's efforts have some none-entertainment uses. This rocket is nothing more than a pleasure craft.

Me10004• 5 years ago

Blue Origin has already flown New Shepard with various science experiments onboard. They've flown it with new guidance systems which they were testing for their moon landing bid which they submitted with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper.

New Shepard can kind of be thought of as a prototype of the second stage to their new (bigger) rocket, New Glenn.

Blue Origin is a serious company and New Shepard is greatly overly engineered for joyrides. That's because the goal of Blue Origin and New Shepard is bigger than just space tourism.

ninjamayo• 5 years ago

Gongrats to Blue Origin, this was great but when compared to SpaceX its like seeing a bicycle ride compared to a Model S Plaid track on Nuremberg.

_joel• 5 years ago

It's great to have more companies operating in space but, as noted by others, it felt fairly routine given what SpaceX have been achieving (BN3 static fire yesterday and proper orbital flight in a few weeks)

jbverschoor• 5 years ago

I didn't see Bezos sitting inside, except after the landing.

runawaybottle2• 5 years ago

I’m more impressed that Bezos took the ideas that worked from Spacex and successfully copied it.

JshWright9• 5 years ago

Blue Origin actually predates SpaceX. They have been working in parallel on related ideas, so I don't think it's fair to say they "copied" SpaceX.

SpaceX is definitely a lot further down the road, and what Blue Origin is doing currently is much easier. The energies involved in suborbital flights are much lower, and the fact that the rocket has a thrust-to-weight ratio low enough that it can hover makes the landing process a lot simpler.

eco2• 5 years ago

I still can't wrap my head around how little Blue Origin has accomplished in 21 years despite having an earlier start than SpaceX and with Bezos injecting a billion or so into it every year.

SpaceX launches people and cargo to the ISS, just completed the first shell of a nearly worldwide satellite internet network using reused boosters many of which approaching 10 flights, and is a few months out from test launching a fully reusable rocket with twice the thrust of the Saturn V using a novel-full flow staged combustion rocket engine of their own design.

And now Blue Origin is seemingly dragging down ULA with them because of the constantly delays of the BE-4 engine ULA selected for Vulcan.

I just don't understand how Bezos can find this progress acceptable. I want Blue Origin to succeed. Having SpaceX as the only US launch provider is not the future we want.

Me10004• 5 years ago

New Shepard landed after going to space nearly a full year before SpaceX's first landing.

Obviously an orbital class booster is a different challenge than a suborbital booster, but the idea that Blue is copying SpaceX is just wrong.

_fat_santa• 5 years ago

Seems that between Musk, Bezos and Branson, we have in essence restarted a space race but this time it's billionaires in the private sector versus governments. Some will surely say that they have better things to spend their money on (Bezos for sure) but I gave to say it's still mindblowing. I would imagine if you're one of those guys, you've basically have enough money to solve any problem, so these guys it seems are chasing harder and harder problems, space exploration seems to be top of mind among these problems.

jacquesm4• 5 years ago

I don't see a race. I see one company that does space travel and two dilettantes, who may or may not one day actually do something useful.

api2• 5 years ago

Blue Origin is the closest to actually developing useful orbital and beyond-orbital capabilities. They have their own new engine design that's not quite as impressive as Raptor but not bad and their own super-heavy lift booster in development. The thing you just saw fly is similar to "Starhopper."

Virgin Galactic is an expensive carnival ride and has nothing close to orbital capability.

For those that don't know: getting to orbit (let alone beyond) requires way more delta-V (energy) than getting past the Karman line. The German V-2 is (I think) the first vehicle to do that, but it was nowhere even near orbit capable. The first photo from space was done by the USA with a captured and modified V-2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_No._13

BurningFrog6• 5 years ago

You're seeing the very first steps of a long race.

sebzim4500• 5 years ago

There is a race, but the competitors are China and SpaceX.

throwaway0a5e• 5 years ago

This is what "trickle down" technology looks like. We are watching space flight move a rung down the economic ladder.

Nation states -> wealthy bigco -> billionare's pet project -> ????? -> normal people

(some steps omitted for brevity)

CryptoPunk3• 5 years ago

Not sure if you're being facetious. If so, I'll point out that it didn't take long to get from the Wright Brothers to regular civilian jet passenger flights, and it won't take long to get from Musk and Bezos to regular civilian space flights.

The wealthy early adopters provide the capital to refine and scale up the industry to make it practical and affordable for less wealthy late adopters.

pdelgallego• 5 years ago

Nation states -> wealthy bigco -> billionare's pet project -> hobbyist (e.g. Copenhagen Suborbitals) -> normal people.

afavour4• 5 years ago

But what’s the actual purpose? Space tourism I get. But beyond that I’m struggling to see the uses of normal people having access to space travel. By comparison people having access to air travel has clear benefits.

iso16317• 5 years ago

Mentioning Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the same breath as SpaceX seems disingenuous. It's like comparing an horse+cart with a modern car.

Maybe Electron and Virgin Orbit are in the race, but these hop 100km (or 80!) up and about 5 miles downrange are nowhere near the same league.

gameswithgo4• 5 years ago

Understanding the difference between orbital and suborbital space flight need not cause one to be cynical and negative about things.

Especially since blue origin has a design that can scale up quickly, as SpaceX did with falcon 1 to 9

freediver• 5 years ago

This tweet summed it up well:

https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/14162863209561210...

nimithryn4• 5 years ago

The US was behind the USSR at the beginning of the last space race. Jeff Bezos is an extremely smart and talented guy, and is now focusing a lot more of his time on Blue Origin. I wouldn't count them out.

ethanbond2• 5 years ago

"Space exploration" is lending way, way too much credence to this.

These two flights were ~60mi altitude. The ISS, for reference, is at 250mi. We've launched people there more than a hundred times, never mind having to put it there in the first place. The moon, which we landed and recovered people from in 1969, is 240,000mi away.

This is a hobby project, which is totally fine in that it's their money to spend, and it's kind of neat that we can generate enough wealth that private individuals could even imagine doing this, but let's not dress it up as more than that.

Edit: Musk/SpaceX is definitely in a different category. That actually seems to be shooting for space exploration, which is pretty neat, though I still think there are earthly priorities that we'd see much higher ROI from.

eevilspock• 5 years ago

it's their money to spend

Not everyone agrees.

thereddaikon• 5 years ago

I don't think Blue Origin is currently in the same league as SpaceX. One is making money putting payloads in orbit, actively disrupting the industry and developing new hardware. They other has a sub orbital rocket that is only good for joy rides and otherwise is a lot of talk and little results. Rocket Lab is a more substantial player in the space industry right now than Blue Origin is. Maybe some day they will get off their ass and actually do something noteworthy.

stronglikedan• 5 years ago

Space tourism will be noteworthy insofar as it will normalize more and more of the public to space travel, which in turn normalize the acceptance of the expenditure required.

purple_ferret2• 5 years ago

Some will surely say that they have better things to spend their money on

Hasn't Branson essentially cashed out of Virgin Galactic for a huge payday? Even his flight was just a stunt to sell 500 million in stock.

LeifCarrotson• 5 years ago

The question every time space exploration comes up is whether the money and effort is better spent in space or on more terrestrial problems.

With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research and development that resulted in spinoffs that are useful on land. With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret.

Also, when it comes to 'hard problems', physics is pretty predictable. Humanity has all kinds of social problems, which I'd argue are harder than these tech problems. For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that.

CryptoPunk3• 5 years ago

>With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret.

Much of what is developed is in the public domain. Patents and trade secrets only go so far. You can't patent or keep secret the concepts that these trials prove out.

The satellite of industries that develops to support space flight is also not affected by whether the fights they're supporting are private vs government, and neither are the skills developed by the engineers working these projects.

Private also has one distinct advantage: it can be self-sustaining, in being managed by an owner with a strong stake in the venture as a business unit.

Chris20485• 5 years ago

With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research

And you (the public) pay for it. With the Musk's of the world paying, the gov has more money for social causes.

If the public can't consistently support these kind of projects without constantly threatening their budgets, maybe they are better in the hands of private benefactors that value them.

it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that

How can they help? There's enough money to eliminate hunger and keep billionaires. Hunger isn't just about who has money, it's about who could have money and maintain it.

HideousKojima• 5 years ago

For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that.

Hunger is basically a non-issue in all developed nations. See all the gray and purple nations on this map. In the US, for example, deaths from malnutrition are ~,1% of all deaths annually. Any money the billionaires might put into it would be better spent on traffic safety, reducing cardiovascular diseases, or researching cancer, and those are all by several orders of magnitude. https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit...

Also, aid sent to the countries that do have hunger problems (like much of sub-Saharan Africa) has simply crashed their agricultural economy, making the issue even worse. Local farmers can't really compete with free, after all.

JKCalhoun• 5 years ago

I can't help but thinking we've entered another Gilded Age.

Chris20485• 5 years ago

I hear those complaints, but aside from a snarky "then spend your own money on <whatever> then", they fail mention:

- anyone can spend money on things, if enough sub-billionaires spend money on something the same amount can be raised - there's no reason a billionaire needs to do it. On the other hand, large focused projects like this are arguably harder to crowdfund from a management perspective.

- The governments is richer than Musk. Taxation brings in more money, and is a much fairer way to contribute to these problems.

- the government is more empowered to deal with social issues. There are some things a private corp/citizen cannot do, at least without government approval anyway. The issues being tackled here are mainly engineering, that is "free" to solve. The items that they would "better" to fix are highly political, with a heavy side of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

- throwing money at something can make it worse. A pipedream has no metrics that could prove this, so they can always be optimistic. When a "clothe the poor" drive kills local tailoring businesses, for example.

- Billionaires pay taxes, usually more than most (generally, though they have more leverage to bargain for lower taxes. unfair? sure, but that's global free trade gets you). What remains is income - why should they fix the problems government could, but won't?

- A major component of this is envy/belittling effort (Musk looks too happy in PR pics, so he's "playing around") or belittling the goal (spaceflight is useless) - i.e. grievance from the ignorant. There are a bajillion "useless" pastimes and occupations relative to some rando's pet social cause, yet billionaires are easy individual targets when everyone is equally to blame - at least Musk probably works hard.

courtf• 5 years ago

It's not really about the individual billionaires, that's missing the forest for the trees. That individuals can afford glamor rides to the edge of space in personal rockets is merely a symptom of gross inequality that has many more downsides than upsides.

Life expectancy is dropping, climate change is accelerating and while we can't solely blame any individual billionaire, they have as a group profited astronomically [:)] from the collapse of our institutions and middle classes, and from the wholesale destruction of livelihoods during the pandemic.

The government is more corrupt, more attuned to the needs of the rich than ever, so you don't need to wonder why the government has failed to attend to the needs of the majority. The same class of people currently culminating in rockets launches toward space have been directing the flows of tax dollars for decades.

boringg2• 5 years ago

The Space Race is still happening, but it's happening on other planets and with government money (see: Mars and further afield exploration). All these initiatives have been possible by the heavy lifting of NASA and other international government agencies over the last 6 decades.

Theses newcomers have drawn in attention and effort and are trying to reframe space as a business being funded by revenue - which has trade offs but in general is a positive development. The really challenging work without the glamor is still being down by the scientists and research agencies with the government. I do tip my hats to the accomplishments of all three of the new comer organizations. I just dispute that the narrative that they are driving the future. I think they are complementary.

To be clear - they don't have enough money to "solve" space exploration - it takes deeper capital than they have - though they are bringing a new business model to potentially stretch their capital deployments.

AlexanderTheGr84• 5 years ago

In my opinion, they are still doing incredible work. SpaceX and Blue Origin can both bring their rockets down - no government space agency can do this today (and govt space agencies had a 60 year lead)

Privatization helps because NASA cannot afford failures today, but private companies can. And since space is a new and risky frontier, failures will happen. That's why I believe that privatization is a good thing overall

noelsusman• 5 years ago

Bill Gates is chasing harder and harder problems, not these guys.

nostromo• 5 years ago

Gates is doing great work, no doubt.

But are they "hard" problems to solve? Most of the projects Gates takes on have already been solved in the developed world. He's primarily trying to distribute those successes to the developing world.

In any case, we can have both: rich people building the tech of tomorrow, and rich people trying to apply existing tech to the underserved. Both are good; both have utility.

solidasparagus• 5 years ago

I believe Bezos has been obsessed with space since before he even started Amazon. Apparently he even talked about this dream during his high school graduation.

I always thought that Amazon was just the way to make his space dream possible.

bamboozled2• 5 years ago

I'd say climate change would be the real hard problem, considering we've already been to the moon.

Jeff Bezos' company has contributed significantly to the problem, I get his plan is to manufacture things in space, but who is that really designed to benefit.

The real hard thing to do would be to invest his personal billions into the issue, today.

sschueller• 5 years ago

What I found interesting is that the vehicle that drove them to the launchpad was a Rivian SUV. The direct competitor to the Tesla Model X.

sandworm1012• 5 years ago

Yup. There are layers upon layers of messaging here. This is a handful of very rich people throwing shade at each other. In the past they used paintings and architecture to send coded insults. Now they use thier toy rockets.

jansan• 5 years ago

They should have driven there with four Rimac Nevera, one car per astronaut. Now THAT would have sent a message.

machtesh• 5 years ago

Amazon/Jeff Bezos are investors in Rivian. They're developing electric delivery vehicles for Amazon.

nickik5• 5 years ago

NASA uses Model X to transport astronauts to the launch tower. And Amazon invested in Rivian so Bezos wants to feature that.

arriu2• 5 years ago

Comments in this thread complaining that the rich get to do whatever they want are forgetting that the wright brothers (and others) enabled flight for all of us even though most people during that time could only dream about it. It might not happen for you and I, but let's think about the bigger picture.

FredFS4563• 5 years ago

Wright brothers were certainly not dirt poor, but they weren't barons either. They were only able to build their planes because of their experience building other mechanical things.

arriu2• 5 years ago

Let me clarify, my point is neither about their wealth or expertise. I'm simply pointing out that this could be a similar point in time for future commercial travel; focusing on their wealth is beside the point. Or it could fizzle out...

afavour4• 5 years ago

I want to be excited but I keep coming back to confusion over what the actual purpose of this will be. Flight has very clear benefits: getting you from A to B way faster than was ever possible before. With space flight there is no B to go to. You go up, you come down.

If these companies were making breakthroughs in making space long term habitable I’d be excited. But I’m yet to see that.

alfalfasprout• 5 years ago

Actually, point to point travel on earth is something virgin galactic is targeting. If you can go to the edge of space you can travel at ludicrous speeds.

nickik5• 5 years ago

With space flight there is no B to go to.

That not the case. Suborbital space flight of the model BO or Virgin do is, but that simply not generally true.

nimithryn4• 5 years ago

I see these launches as early stepping stones to really profitable space industries. Asteroid mining, space manufacturing (like Varda: https://varda.com/), space hotels. You have to walk before you can run.

Meandering• 5 years ago

Firstly, I'm against corporate welfare and I don't care how people spend their money. But, damn... the people who ushered powered flight into the realm of possibility? That is a ridiculous analogy.

SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are incorporating scientific advancements and modern engineering into an industry that has been making orbital flights for over 50 years. We are not going from horses to cars... We are going from a 1920 Cadillac to a 2021 Toyota. Maybe it's a childhood dream and they have lofty goals to guide humanity into space... or it's a lucrative long-term investment... or a little of both. But, the technology has been there, we've had an active presence in space, and the modern space race will not provide us a huge leap in technology like we saw from the cold war. [1]

Space tourism isn't going to move society forward. The "big picture" benefit of space tourism is reducing the cost of payloads which will continue to drop for NASA and telecommunication demand anyway. Space tourism will not substantially improve the quality of life for humanity, it will not provide breakthrough technology (outside of things like human life support systems), and it will not significantly enrich our collective culture. The median quality of life will not benefit from space activities until they bring us some cheap platinum and other precious materials.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer... I just hate the romanization of this whole thing.

[1] https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/infogr...

mns• 5 years ago

Can't wait for short haul flights to be banned and to travel 14 hours in a train so we reduce carbon emissions. But I'm happy that rich guys can have fun and advance "space exploration".

acover• 5 years ago

SpaceX's starship uses methane which can be synthesized from CO2 and water - allowing it to be carbon neutral for a cost.

JshWright9• 5 years ago

It will be a while before synthesizing CH4 is "carbon neutral". Sure, you could set up a massive solar farm and pump it out, but that solar farm would be way more effective offsetting other power production methods on the grid at large.

Me10004• 5 years ago

New Shepard burns liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the byproduct of which is just water vapor.

la6471• 5 years ago

Memo to Bezos/Brandon/Musk:

Great , but now can you guys do something about reducing human suffering due to climate change? Like potentially developing technologies for sucking off CO2 and other harmful gases off our atmosphere? Or how about cancer cure or anti aging or something that helps humanity?

tsuraan• 5 years ago

Maybe a $100MM X-Prize for carbon removal?

https://www.xprize.org/prizes/elonmusk

whitepaint• 5 years ago

Why don't you work on these as well?

thehappypm2• 5 years ago

I wouldn't lump Musk in here. Musk is divisive as hell but his companies are hardly wasteful. Tesla is leading the car industry towards an oil-free future and also has a healthy solar panel division. SpaceX is opening up space exploration. Even things like the Boring Company and Hyperloop are aiming to make human life better.

f00zz• 5 years ago

https://thesolutionsproject.org/bezos-earth-fund/

flareback3• 5 years ago

Am I the only one annoyed that it's spelled "Shepard"

JshWright9• 5 years ago

Probably...

It's named after Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut to fly in space.

flareback3• 5 years ago

That makes a lot more sense

sega_sai• 5 years ago

Obviously everybody (Branson/Bezos) is entitled to spend their cash in whatever way they want. But, if they are making a spectacle of it, publicise it and promote it like some big achievement, then those people should be prepared to take some criticism. And in my opinion, I see the last two launches as indeed amusement rides for billionaires and a strong argument for better taxation policies. In contrary, what Musk does with SpaceX ( and I'm not a fan of Musk as a person), can be classified as technological development as he actually sends satellites, deliveries to ISS.

adventured• 5 years ago

And in my opinion, I see the last two launches as indeed amusement rides for billionaires and a strong argument for better taxation policies.

How would different taxation policies prevent Bezos from spending a very modest share of his wealth on what he wants to do? He has $204 billion. What he has done with Blue Origin can be replicated for 1-3% of that.

Is the plan to take 99% of the Bezos fortune through government confiscation and forced sales of Amazon stock? I ask because only a small number of nations have ever behaved with that level of brutality toward private wealth, all were - without exception - totalitarian genocide machines with zero human rights. How about we not keep repeating the mistakes of the past.

Even Scandinavia - the region that arguably created the highest standard of living in world history - would never dare to behave that way toward private wealth (Scandinavia is overflowing with billionaires and adores private wealth). Nor would Germany or France.

What's the premise then, no fun if you're rich? Which board of comrades is going to be responsible for dictating who gets to do what? Are we abolishing the bourgeois, 20th century style? I think I've read this story before. There's only one way to prevent someone like Bezos from doing Blue Origin, only one approach politically that can be utilized to accomplish that (skeptics will argue there are utopian approaches to mass property confiscation that are humane; there aren't, once you uncork that genie, extreme violence and genocide always follow).

So if you've got $N wealth, you're not allowed to own a boat. If you've got over $1 million you're not allowed to fly in a plane for fun or convenience, nor may you experiment with creating new types of planes.

Perhaps if you've got over $250,000 you may not experiment with new types of technology period. That includes software and hardware. No fun for you. I say so. I have decided to draw the line there and my Socialist board of comrades will enforce it. I have no interest in only restricting the fun Bezos is allowed to have, it should be taken to its logical conclusion, so everybody gets to enjoy how the system will really work in the end.

shakezula• 5 years ago

It's really funny how you translated "better taxation" into literally "totalitarian genocide machine" and then typed up a thoroughly straw-manned paragraph about hypothetical questions that no one is promoting or suggesting. It's completely disingenuous that you bring up all these arbitrary lines in the sand about wealth when no one is suggesting that obviously ridiculous approach.

We can tax billionaires so that they pay their fair share for the public resources they use without it going full gulag.

BurningFrog6• 5 years ago

I see the last two launches as indeed amusement rides for billionaires

I see this take a lot, and I strongly disagree.

These launches are marketing events for their space tourism businesses! The billionaire CEOs go up to prove they personally trust the tech is safe. If they won't go, who else would?

Now they can start selling trips to paying customers, and hopefully build genuinely sustainable space tourism businesses. The fairly minimal experience of these short jumps will be improved gradually, and that future is impossible to predict, as it is completely novel territory.

thethethethe4• 5 years ago

These launches are marketing events for their space tourism businesses!

Okay, so these launches aren't amusement rides for billionaires, they are marketing stunts to advertise amusement rides for other billionaires? Hard to see the difference tbh

thehappypm2• 5 years ago

Most billionaires build mansions and buy islands and offshore their money. Bezos and Branson are doing R&D. Bill Gates does philanthropy. There's a spectrum of wastefulness, and I wholeheartedly applaud billionaires doing R&D that our governments seem to have lost interest in.

animalgonzales• 5 years ago

Obviously everybody (Branson/Bezos) is entitled to spend their cash in whatever way they want.

straight up, no. they're using your tax dollars because they aren't taxed

trey-jones• 5 years ago

I'm not interested in the semantics of outer space or the competition to see who can meet the terms of one of those arbitrary definitions first. More than one corporate/government entity making progress in rocketry and space-faring technology is a good thing for humanity.

I'm thinking that there should be plenty of incentive here for billionaires: it's conceivable that whoever gets there (where? I don't know) first will be running the show in 50 or 100 or 500 years. There are worse bets for establishing your legacy.

Tepix• 5 years ago

These suborbitals flights to space require 20% of the velocity and 2-3% of the energy of an orbital flight.

soheil• 5 years ago

Doesn't T-10 usually indicate seconds not minutes?

mendigou• 5 years ago

I found it annoying, even a bit insulting, that they kept referring to the people in the capsule as "astronauts".

I could understand if they did it for Wally Funk, as she actually did the training back in the day, but the rest?

When rich people were allowed in the ISS they were called "tourists", which is befitting.

cptskippy6• 5 years ago

Looking up the definition of astronaut, I'm inclined to agree with you. They weren't crew, the flight was autonomous. It's unclear what if anything they could do should there have been a problem.

AlexanderTheGr84• 5 years ago

"An astronaut (from the Greek "astron" (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and "nautes" (ναύτης), meaning "sailor") is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft."

They were trained (not as well trained as NASA astronauts, but still trained well enough for such a short mission)

They were equipped with whatever equipments they needed for this flight.

They were deployed by a human spaceflight program.

So by definition, shouldn't they classify as "astronauts"?

finnh• 5 years ago

What about the "serve as commander or crew member" part?

mdorazio• 5 years ago

Crew members have defined roles and responsibilities, and are important to the success of a mission beyond having paid to be there. The alternative is more apt here, I think: passengers.

croes2• 5 years ago

To finish you wiki quote:

"Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists and tourists."

jszymborski• 5 years ago

Surely I'm not a sailor for having taken a cruise ship. I did, however, participate in the safety demonstration, and packed my bags.

I'm definitely on-board with calling Bezos a passenger.

nemo44x• 5 years ago

When I'm out rowing a boat I don't think anyone would consider me a captain. Or when I'm sitting on a ship, I don't think anyone would consider me a sailor.

When I'm on a flight I'm called a passenger, for example. They were passengers.

publicola1990• 5 years ago

I find strange that line of thinking. That NASA and other space agencies use highly trained personnel like military pilots for space missions seems largely a historical accident.

In "The Right Stuff", there is discussion on this topic, initially trapeeze artists were thought to be the ideal personnel for the space program due to the high dynamic forces they routinely experience. Another opinion being considered was to use death row prisoners. Finally it was decided to use military pilots from mostly a PR point of view.

nautilius4• 5 years ago

Exactly. Literal monkeys and dogs did the job, before Gagarin or Shepard.

BitwiseFool3• 5 years ago

"Finally it was decided to use military pilots from mostly a PR point of view."

I suspect that decision making process was dramatized in The Right Stuff. Test pilots make sense for several reasons: they already understand aeronautical concepts, are used to g-forces, have experience with state of the art machines, have a high risk tolerance, and are already familiar with following orders.

Faaak• 5 years ago

If you're interested about that, the "The Calculating Stars" book talks a bit about it. It's really nice to read !

aardvarkr• 5 years ago

Do you really think the pilots are nothing more than dead weight whose only purpose is to be a passenger? The astronauts were some of the best of the best because it was an experimental flight program. Do you really think the best pilots would sign up and give their lives just to be a test subject with no control like the chimpanzee the Russians put into space?

baus• 5 years ago

That seems pedantic. Just because technology has lowered the requirements for becoming an astronaut, that doesn't change the definition.

eplanit• 5 years ago

So if I go on an ocean cruise I'm a Sailor?

w0de0• 5 years ago

Your critical responses focus on parsing the meaning of "astronaut," or on the true utility of the job with respect to other non-human test pilots.

I leave all of that aside, and agree with you on egalitarian and emotional grounds. The term in America rightly has implications of public service - of deserving the fantastically unique opportunity of exploring space on behalf of all Americans by virtue of intelligence, diligence, and impeccable ethics. Topically, this might be compared to Olympians: though all extreme athletes perform extraordinary feats, Olympians carry an extra responsibility to represent us as a nation. So too with people called "astronauts."

Whether or not one agrees with this understanding, I believe it is the practical understanding underlying your (and my) insult at the use of this term.

mumblemumble2• 5 years ago

I found it annoying, even a bit insulting, that they kept referring to the people in the capsule as "astronauts".

This is all about poking at Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic cleared 80km, which is the height that earns you astronaut wings in the USA. Blue Origin clears the Kármán line (100km), which is the internationally recognized standard for human spaceflight. So they're digging in hard on, "Jeff Bezos has been to space, Richard Branson hasn't," in an effort to imply that Virgin Galactic's flight from earlier this month doesn't count, theirs is the real first.

goshx• 5 years ago

as·tro·naut /ˈastrəˌnôt/

noun a person who is trained to travel in a spacecraft.

They were trained, and they traveled in a spacecraft.

This is such a historical moment and this is what people are focusing on?

What difference does it really make to you or to anyone? Who the hell really cares?

And this is the top comment here. Come on people. Enjoy things for a change.

jb1991• 5 years ago

And how about Christa McAuliffe? She was a career school teacher who had the opportunity to fly on the Challenger. But she was also titled an astronaut.

agloeregrets4• 5 years ago

Christa was trained and fully qualified for her role.

js2• 5 years ago

She trained for that mission for a year, and planned to conduct experiments and teach lessons from space. I don’t make the rules, but it seems to me she did a fair bit more than touristing.

simonh2• 5 years ago

Shuttleworth and Tito underwent a year of training, including 7 months at Star City. They also conducted scientific experiments while on the station. They are formally considered Spaceflight Participants by Roscosmos, the FAA and NASA. They weren't considered Cosmonauts or Astronauts, but that seems to be solely due to their non-professional status rather than their training or operational duties.

_moof3• 5 years ago

Honestly these days even the “real” astronauts are basically passengers. The systems are so heavily automated, including anomaly response, and the parts that aren’t are mostly done by ground operators. Crew Dragon doesn’t even have a stick. It’s not the ‘60s anymore, which in many ways is good. But glamorous it ain’t. Let’s not forgot that the end result of all this will be to make spaceflight as pedestrian as air travel, an activity that hasn’t had a shred of its initial sparkle for decades.

I think w0de0 got to the heart of the matter (elsewhere in this thread) with their comment about astronauts being associated with public service. That rings true for me as to the source of the insult.

decebalus12• 5 years ago

I found it annoying, even a bit insulting, that they kept referring to the people in the capsule as "astronauts".

When you reach a certain threshold of wealth, you get access to an unbelievably efficient PR machine and you can become basically whatever the hell you want and rewrite reality to suit your imagination. Hell, you'll even get people to believe it and ruthlessly defend your reality.

tqi• 5 years ago

Would you feel the same way if this were, say, a collection of college students that achieved the same thing?

nickik5• 5 years ago

Its the same with pilots. Early on only pilots flew at all. Currently anybody who crosses a certain line is considered an astronaut.

There will be some shakeup in the is there clearly is a different between the type of astronaut that is trained to do experiments in space and repair a space station, and somebody who just sits in his seat and lets the space-craft fly.

mygoodaccount• 5 years ago

I feel the same way when software developers call themselves engineers.

echelon• 5 years ago

Does your work involve research, measurement, planning, architecture, review, and instrumentation?

Are you using math to plan capacities and growth rates?

Do you push your services to 1000k+ QPS of sustained traffic to see how it handles or falls over?

Are you developing DR scenarios and training people and performing live exercises? Designing systems to fail open or closed appropriately, to gracefully handle missing dependencies, not cause a thundering herd upon restart, etc.?

Are you performing security analysis, STRIDE, etc.?

Is your data model active-active, have redundantly striped caching, and use vector clock consolidation, consensus?

This skill set is software engineering. It's not configuring a Drupal or Wordpress install.

Don't downplay it.

comeonseriously• 5 years ago

What if we have engineering degrees? That change anything?

Edit: That being said, depending on who I am talking to it ranges from "I do computers" to "I am a computer programmer", and very rarely use "engineer" unless I am referring to my actual degree (BSCpE).

guerrilla• 5 years ago

If you had a biology degree and were a mailman, would you call your profession 'biologist'? No. That's absurd, as is calling people who write JavaScript, most of whom don't even have computer science degrees, engineers. It's nothing but grandiosity and ignorance of what engineering is.

Cu3PO42• 5 years ago

In Germany, and presumably many other countries, "engineer" is a job title that requires a certain degree. As in, you need to have such and such degree if you want to advertise yourself as an engineer.

The B.Sc. and M.Sc. in computer science are actually amongst those degrees that allow you to call yourself an engineer. If I remember correctly, my diploma specifically says "This diploma permits you to use the job title 'engineer'." (loosely translated).

Of course, the legal definitions are unrelated to whether or not it's sensible to use that title. Honestly, I think it depends on the kind of programming you're doing. If you're designing new systems, for example, it seems to fit.

jcun41284• 5 years ago

Yeah that one I struggle with too. I don't have a degree/can't call myself an engineer but my contract/pay is for Sr. SWE which I also don't consider myself a Sr. so idk... Generally go with SWD.

Granted in my job it's so strict/refined... tech designs, unit/visual regression testing/QA/TA that sort of thing... it's not like I can just write code on the fly/release it out there without it going through the tests and several people.

I'm definitely not the caliber of a developer that thinks of tasks in Log N or something. Least path algos and what not I'm a typical dev and I'm alright with that ultimately I am a tinkerer and end goal is FIRE.

mavhc• 5 years ago

If your software can kill people you'd better be an engineer

dhosek• 5 years ago

In certain industries, the titles often have little to do with the work. In banking, it seems, everyone is a vice president (I had a moment of panic when I had a job offer from a bank as a programmer and the offer said that I would be hired as a vice president). In publishing, everyone is an editor. The title managing editor generally has no editorial duties—it's largely dealing with the administrative/business duties of the publication(s). But since it's mostly English majors working in publishing, it makes them feel better to have editor in their job title.

So I have no qualms about having "engineer" in my job title, even if I still view myself as a programmer (I'm still not accustomed to having "senior" in my job title even though I've been a programmer longer than some of the readers of this comment have been alive).

airstrike• 5 years ago

Interestingly, in banking one gets promoted from Vice President to Director which is the exact opposite as anywhere else...

liketochill• 5 years ago

Certainly some software is engineered! Maybe the software in space ships is a good example where it was written with an engineering process, tested, and then worked “first try”. Of course a lot of software these days is morally bankrupt and never finished.

marssaxman• 5 years ago

I generally agree with you, but we don't have a better term, and it's not completely wrong. I think you have to consider it as something of a homonym. The people who drive trains are also called "engineers", after all, though their job has nothing to do with engineering in either the software-engineering sense or the civil/mechanical/electrical engineering sense.

dang3• 5 years ago

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27894728.

Axsuul• 5 years ago

Really clean launch! I think this was the first time a reusable rocket was landed with humans onboard? It must’ve fell 100k feet at the end in less than a minute which must’ve been nuts.

someperson• 5 years ago

No, Dragon and the Falcon 9 launch crew to the ISS and both are "land" (well, splashdown for Dragon).

Though as far as I know, the Crew Dragon vehicle has been new every launch, with re-used Dragons being used for future missions. I don't know if this was the first flight of that particular New Shepard Crew Capsule though.

peshooo• 5 years ago

The capsule with the humans separated from the rocket a little bit before they hit the 100km attitude mark. Then it landed with parachutes.

maxnoe• 5 years ago

The capsule and booster seperated and the capsule landed with parachutes

rtkwe11• 5 years ago

No it's basically the same as the SpaceX CrewDragon flights where the capsule parachutes down and the booster lands separately except the capsule doesn't go to orbit.

xor99• 5 years ago

Did I miss it or was there no in capsule cameras for this one? I thought the Branson space flight had a little more drama to it because of the scenes from the cockpit and passenger area.

rtkwe11• 5 years ago

I don't think they showed any. There's a chance it just doesn't have the extra mass available for a strong HD downlink. The Virgin Galactic flight had them but the feed was lost so it was all recorded and shown later. I imagine there was some camera rolling in there.

ok2938• 5 years ago

Whitey on the moon [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otwkXZ0SmTs

tawan2• 5 years ago

Lot of people in this thread are arguing that wealthy people can spend money on what ever they want. I think it’s important to distinguish whether the money they spend on personal joy rides has been taxed as private income or written off as business expense. Does anyone have information on whether Bezos‘ investments into Blue Origin has been taxed previously as personal income when he presumably liquidated Amazon stock?

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 5 years ago

I think it’s important to distinguish whether the money they spend on personal joy rides has been taxed as private income or written off as business expense.

So if the mafia did it, it'd be fine because government didn't pay for it? I'm not saying that Bezos is a mafioso, but this is a false dichotomy. There are also good reasons to think that all "legal" businesses aren't legit and with litttle political oversight, maybe the profit of giant companies like Amazon shouldn't be deemed 100% deserved.

This comment is related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27893518

tawan2• 5 years ago

I think you misinterpreted my comment (probably my bad, Im not an English native). What I meant is: It is important to make sure that the profits of stocks sold need to be taxed properly, and only the after tax amount that’s left over can be spend on, some may say frivolous, space adventures. Especially when it is often reported that billionaires dont pay hardly any taxes, since their wealth grew „only in equity“. But then suddenly they find themselves on a pretty expensive space vacation.

HarHarVeryFunny2• 5 years ago

I'd like to have gone for the ride, but it was rather underwhelming, and slightly absurd, from the spectator POV.

Four dingbats going for a 10min joyride in a mobile lounge strapped onto a dick-shaped rocket.

Still, I'm all for billionaires pursuing daft dreams like this rather than just buying big yachts like Larry Ellison, or not much of anything like Bill Gates. At least Bezos is putting on a mildly entertaining show for us to watch.

mrlinx• 5 years ago

not much of anything like Bill Gates you kidding?

HarHarVeryFunny2• 5 years ago

I meant non-philanthropic stuff. What billionaires choose to splurge their money on.

davidw2• 5 years ago

As the owner of several western hats, I'm curious about Jeff Bezos' hat. What's the story behind it? It does not fit him well. He obviously has the money to have whatever kind of crafted, perfectly styled hat he wants. Maybe something from his family?

rtkwe11• 5 years ago

Iirc this is in Texas so local affectation probably?

davidw2• 5 years ago

He's spent time on ranches, so probably knows how they're supposed to fit; this one's practically resting on his ears.

I'm curious if it's a hat that means something to him for some reason.

cjlars• 5 years ago

Having spent time supporting these sorts of live / PR events, there's a non-zero chance that this was brought in last minute by an underling.

okareaman• 5 years ago

I think the end game for Bezos and Branson is space hotels, which benefits no one except themselves and their investors.

ChrisMarshallNY• 5 years ago

I'll tell ya...whenever I look at that spaceship...

Just to make it official, they should have two circular blast deflectors, on opposite sides of the gantry.

mr_sturd• 5 years ago

I saw a related picture from Austin Powers on the front page of Reddit, this afternoon.

_moof3• 5 years ago

Seriously. When I think of the hundreds if not thousands of people who had to say, “yes, let’s build it this way,” the mind boggles.

gitpusher• 5 years ago

Bezos in that spacesuit and cowboy hat ...completely made my morning LOL.

vmception2• 5 years ago

I get a laugh imagining that Bezos took that boy/bidder up as insurance he would be allowed back onto the planet

sjg007• 5 years ago

I was amazed at how routine it felt. Definitely a rich person’s rollercoaster. I could see hotels in space as a thing.

adminscoffee• 5 years ago

my gf has given me more space than this and she's pretty clingy. jk

adammunich• 5 years ago

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/gilscottheron/whiteyonthemoo...

astatine• 5 years ago

Did anyone get the feeling that this was a "MVP" style launch? It looked more engineering oriented with its very firmly functional-only everything. Or maybe, Virgin Galactic pushed so far towards the other end that this pales in comparison.

ruined• 5 years ago

dude goes to space but can't show me a webpage without executing js

crb• 5 years ago

Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin offer you ~4 minutes of weightlessness.

Can this sub-orbital model scale in such a way to have, say, 60 minutes of weightlessness? Or is the "straight up, straight down" model such that sub-orbital flight has a cap at 4?

codezero• 5 years ago

low-earth orbit is around 90 minutes per orbit, so 60 minutes may be possible but I think it would require odd re-entry or a distant recovery that wouldn't be economical, probably at that length they'd just go into orbit.

teraflop• 5 years ago

A "suborbital" trajectory is just an orbit that intersects Earth's surface, and in theory you can make it whatever size and duration you want. I suppose the limit would be when your apogee becomes high enough to be near or beyond Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, which would happen for orbital periods on the order of months.

Practically speaking, if you have enough thrust and delta-v to achieve a suborbital flight of more than a few tens of minutes, you also have the ability to reach orbit, so why bother?

galgot• 5 years ago

Obscene in every sense of the word.

trhway• 5 years ago

a privately developed powerful reliable human rated rocket engine and a vertical booster landing - that were big deal just 10 years ago. Today - nah. That's called real progress, and i think we should be happy that it is happening.

Private people, even if billionaires for now, starting to pop into space as a routine occurrence looks to me like very early days of aviation, and we all know the explosive development after that.

mesozoic2• 5 years ago

What was Jeff Bezos' carbon footprint today?

gbronner• 5 years ago

How long before people record it and post it on social media?

Cool experience for the first few people, but once everyone has been there, it is just a vomit comet to nowhere for the price of a car -- sort of like the world's most uncomfortable cruise ship.

As an FYI: the Concorde wasn't actually all that nice inside -- food was excellent, but unless you really needed the extra 3-4 hours, first class conventional was a much nicer trip.

sys_64738• 5 years ago

The video of them weightless showed them all crammed into a very small space. Surprised somebody never got a foot in the head from another. Feels like a lawsuit is waiting so who would have jurisdiction here?

Blue Origin first human flight

Related Stories