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Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

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Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#121

Post by himinlomax »

nabla9 wrote: post #89
relativ575 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be specific on the subsidizing? Loaded comments without backed sources are intellectually lazy.

'google: "SpaceX subsidies" SpaceX gets almost $900 million in federal subsidies to deliver broadband to rural America https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/tech/spacex-starlink-subsidie... SpaceX just won $885 million in federal subsidies to expand Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite-internet project https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/spacex-just-won-do... In addition to that SpaceX is government contractor. SpaceX and…

> In addition to that SpaceX is government contractor.

It's important to note that SpaceX is different from most space-related government contractor in that they mostly sell a packaged service, whereas other contractors before it had development contracts. Boeing / ULA etc were paid to develop launchers, SpaceX sells launches. (I know that SpaceX benefited from subsidies towards achieving that, but their competitors did not achieve that or even tried.)

The key difference is that they are not (entirely) incentivized on sucking on the subsidies teats. That the US government pays them to provide a public service makes them more akin to any utility than to typical government contractors.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#122

Post by e17 »

fallingknife wrote: post #77
e17 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO you have to maintain or exert some control over a nation in order to be an oligarch. So Jeff and Elon are out, but David Koch and Robert Mercer meet the definition for me. These guys have exerted huge control over the US over the last 30-40 years.

Jeff Bezos owns the 2nd largest newspaper in the country, and now a major movie studio. I would say he qualifies.

How has he used that newspaper to exert political control over the US?

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#123

Post by meepmorp »

SergeAx wrote: post #97
Ticklee wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manipulated the price of certain crypto, and monopolized e-commerce.

Yes, that crypto thing was a real damage for humanity.

Think of the millions of starving kids in 3rds world countries who might've been lifted out of poverty, but for Musk's mercurial tweets about Bitcoin.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#124

Post by sschueller »

fsloth wrote: post #95
sschueller wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"net win for humanity" can be taken two ways. Elon / Jeff not making it back could also be considered a "win" even if dark. For the good they have done they have done a lot of damage to humanity on their way to become billionaires.

Could you be more specific? "A lot of damage to humanity" is a quite strong claim with deep ethical implications. I would prefer a concrete example of such an act.

It would take me a week to go through every detail but wikipedia has some summaries:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)#Controversies

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Lawsuits_and_contr...

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#125

Post by leetcrew »

rplnt wrote: post #32
SilkRoadie wrote: post #24

I am somewhat uneducated on the topic but is space tourism a good idea? It is a flight to nowhere which surely has a hefty carbon cost. Doesn't it also add pollutants high up in the atmosphere? As exciting as it is to experience space I could imagine the environment cost is far from ideal.

The Blue Origin "tourist rocket"[1] uses hydrogen as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidizer, so there are no direct emissions or pollutants. In general you are of course right. The top 1% will slightly increase their already large carbon footprint by a small amount. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Shepard

not quite. any high-temperature combustion in atmosphere is going to create some NOx.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#126

Post by throwaway316943 »

gameswithgo wrote: post #15
peteretep wrote: post #13

An Elon / Jeff space willy-waving contest about who gets to be Space Bro Alpha seems like a net win for humanity

American Oligarchs are certainly up to more interesting things than Russian ones at the moment!

If we could get every billionaire to reinvest their money in world changing technology like Elon we’d live in a much better world. Honestly this is capitalism at its best, how do we do more like this?

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#127

Post by xwdv »

sschueller wrote: post #83
_Microft wrote: post #23

I was a bit shocked how Jeff Bezos looked in the video [0] in which he invited his brother to go with him. He does not look healthy, even a bit bloated. Does anyone know if he is having health issues? [0] https://www.instagram.com/p/CP0MSOqnYEo/

The facial bloating could be from medication such as corticosteroids or ACE inhibitors. Taking the flight this early before more testing may also indicate that he is not well. It might also explain him leaving Amazon.

If he wasn’t doing well the stress from the G forces of the flight would kill him off.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#128

Post by Ticklee »

SergeAx wrote: post #115
Ticklee wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are hurt by dips whether artificial or not are invariably going to be new, small time investors. Even if you think they shouldn't gamble with their money I find it hard to argue there was no damage done.

What about gains from allegedly manipulating those cryptos up? Are those universally good for humanity?

God no, I'm no crypto-nut don't get me wrong.

Propping up a bubble destined to pop is bad too, so why get involved?

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#129

Post by morsch »

onion2k wrote: post #61
SilkRoadie wrote: post #24

I am somewhat uneducated on the topic but is space tourism a good idea? It is a flight to nowhere which surely has a hefty carbon cost. Doesn't it also add pollutants high up in the atmosphere? As exciting as it is to experience space I could imagine the environment cost is far from ideal.

A SpaceX launch outputs 336,552KG of CO2. I imagine Blue Origin's first passenger flight will be a bit less because it's not going as high. The environmental cost of doing anything is far from ideal, but in the case of space tourism the impact is minimal. A 777-300 flight from New York to London outputs about 1,261KG of CO2 per passenger.[1] In British Airways configuration there are 299 seats on a plane like that, w…

As a side note: Stratospheric/high-altitude water vapor is probably also a contributor to global warming.

Re: Jeff Bezos will fly on the first passenger spaceflight of Blue Origin in July

#130

Post by ben_w »

luffapi wrote: post #101
greenwich26 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$900 million = 5 days of federal food stamps spending $3-4 billion = 3 weeks of federal food stamps spending I know which I think is the better government expenditure

[flagged]

Hungry starving sick people make the least effective revolutionaries.

They’re also not very good at spending money on consumer goods when they don’t have any, which Amazon absolutely needs. (Tesla needs a lot of people above average income, given their cheapest offering).

And these two giants aren’t the only places people can work. (Not enough by itself, but still a massive improvement compared to the situation leading to the French Revolution).

Super-rich as a class exists because we let them exist, but there is a reason we let them exist… and a reason we have things like the SEC and FTC to stomp on them if/when they get out of line.

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