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Blue Moon

blueorigin.com

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Re: Blue Moon

#181

Post by patagonia »

It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring.

You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1) It’s gonna be raw resources and real estate, not energy, that we run out of first. 2) Amazon, the company, is doing all it can to reap profits at the expense of the environment with seemingly no regards for the health of the real Amazon and other natural treasures. 3) Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty, so that argument falls flat. Not to mention the whole presentation managed to avoid mentioning SpaceX explicitly and ended with a self-referencing “Big things have small beginnings” photo of Bezos, kinda sadly insecure.

I for one don’t want to live in a “manufactured” world that is “manufactured” by Amazon. My head just kept going to “Amazon Prime Planet”!! My god it will be efficient, cheap, on time, and chock full of externalities that we can all ignore because instead of being off-shored and hidden in warehouses, now they’ll be off-planet. This is how we get the dystopian future none of us deserve or want.

(edit: Also, did Bezos just rip off the tag line from Prometheus, a movie whose central thesis is the inherent dangers in attempting to engineer life and worlds!? Bezos: “Big things start small.” Prometheus: “Big things have small beginnings.”

Re: Blue Moon

#182

Post by [deleted] »

varjag wrote: post #178
pacificmint wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11. 12 years, and 4.4% of the federal budget (in the peak). In 2007 dollars they spend around $136 billion to get to the moon.

That sounds like a huge amount of money, until you consider the Shuttle programme alone cost the taxpayer apporx $196 billion, inflation adjusted.

[deleted]

Re: Blue Moon

#183

Post by [deleted] »

nickik wrote: post #161
godelski wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're going about it very different ways so I think from a typical bystander it is hard to see. We won't really know how accurate your statement is until we see New Glenn and if BFR ever becomes a reality. But historically BO has been right on the mark with their timelines while SpaceX (and a lot of other Musk stuff) is at least a year behind schedule.

Wrong. SpaceX is objectively faster. The New Glenn is about the size of the Falcon Heavy in terms of payload. The BFR is a whole different class that is gone be more in line with the hidden BO project the New Armstrong, but we don't really know what that is gone be. That said, SpaceX is ahead in rockets but this moon lander is something SpaceX doesn't have or is even working on.

[deleted]

Re: Blue Moon

#184

Post by andygates »

peterlk wrote: post #129
azernik wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's less capable than Apollo - we don't have anywhere near the lift capability of Saturn V anymore, and this program's budget is a rounding error in the $200B (inflation-adjusted) that went into Apollo. I think people underestimate just how insane the investment was in that program: in the neighborhood of 0.25% of GDP for a decade.

I think most people (myself included) do not understand how much technological improvement costs. Anecdote: I once had a conversation with a guy who worked at ITER, and he was pretty bullish (and he had no reason to bullshit me) on the prospect of fusion as a viable energy source, but frustrated with the internal politics of ITER. So I asked, "well, what would it take? If I could call up a bunch of rich people to get…

Was that a while ago, before the management shakeup?

Re: Blue Moon

#185

Post by andygates »

johnvega wrote: post #44
muricula wrote: post #42

Blue origin can't build a moon rocket by 2024, so maybe they can settle for the lander. Here's the vision I bet they're aiming for: a Spacex rocket, a United Launch Alliance capsule, a Blue Origin lander, and a round of pork barrel in every Congressional district.

I'm seeing a lot of exponential technology. If Jeff B. takes more risk and focus, it could be possible. We'll see.

Expand that buzzword into something concrete, please.

"Lander... mumble... O'Neill Cylinders!" does not count. That's hopes and dreams, not technology.

Re: Blue Moon

#186

Post by andygates »

Aeolun wrote: post #74

Is there anyone else that feels like Blue Origin actually has a chance of making their own timelines, as opposed to SpaceX? Don’t get me wrong, I love SpaceX, but the down to earth way in which Blue Origin appears to be working also appeals to me.

Anyone announcing that the first generation of their motor will start hot-fire testing this year and be ready for service by X date is a liar or a salesman. There's many a kaboom between test and ship.

The other dates are to match the current NASA bid timescale, so they're pure marketronium.

Re: Blue Moon

#187

Post by golergka »

patagonia wrote: post #181

It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring. You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1…

> Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty

What.

Amazon as a company have created enormous value for all of its clients, created thousands of jobs and value for it's trading partners. It's one of the forces that work to eradicate poverty in modern world, not the other way around.

Re: Blue Moon

#188

Post by 8draco8 »

patagonia wrote: post #181

It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring. You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1…

Amazon is not saint but market hates vacuum. If Amazon wouldn't exist then other, smaller companies would fill it's space. That would probably mean more people employed but environmental footprint would be much greater. It may look bad if you study Amazon carbon footprint etc. but if not them then someone else would be doing all that pollution and most likely in far less efficient way.

Re: Blue Moon

#189

Post by patagonia »

golergka wrote: post #187
patagonia wrote: post #181

It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring. You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1…

> Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty What. Amazon as a company have created enormous value for all of its clients, created thousands of jobs and value for it's trading partners. It's one of the forces that work to eradicate poverty in modern world, not the other way around.

Yes, it has created value for its customers and investors. It has also generated enormous externalities. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, and the point is one of the main points of my argument. The other being, this is just uninspired and unoriginal. It’s a presentation by an ex-hedge fund guy on a profit play, that feels more like my know-it-all uncle lecturing the family during Thanksgiving about how we all finally see that his warnings about climate change are being proven true and that means we all have to buy Soylent Green from him. And everyone around the table just stays quiet because we are afraid he is serious and just want him to stop talking.

Amazon’s unconstrained growth relies on a model that allows for limitless externalities and this requires limitless resources both as direct inputs to production and cheap or free pricing of waste handling and social costs, in order to capture the value creation and offload the costs for its customers and investors.

Re: Blue Moon

#190

Post by [deleted] »

8draco8 wrote: post #188
patagonia wrote: post #181

It’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring. You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1…

Amazon is not saint but market hates vacuum. If Amazon wouldn't exist then other, smaller companies would fill it's space. That would probably mean more people employed but environmental footprint would be much greater. It may look bad if you study Amazon carbon footprint etc. but if not them then someone else would be doing all that pollution and most likely in far less efficient way.

[deleted]
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