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Blue Origin first human flight

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Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#111

Post by arriu »

FredFS456 wrote: post #108
arriu wrote: post #40

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.

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.

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...

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#112

Post by detritus »

marshallbananas wrote: post #8

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.

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.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#113

Post by jcims »

FredFS456 wrote: post #103
Clewza313 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

I don’t think it’s the weightlessness as much as it is the view. That’s the part that i would like.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#115

Post by ja27 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #44
Darmody wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

SpaceX only "beat" them to a landing if you're disregarding suborbital flights.

Blue Origin landed their booster 23 Nov 2015. SpaceX landed their first booster 21 Dec 2015.

It really is apples and oranges until BO or VG gets to orbit. Rocket Lab is likely much closer to orbital booster re-use than BO or VG are.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#116

Post by dimitrios1 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #109
iso1631 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Walk before you run. I very much doubt Blue Origin intends to freeze rocket development after this launch. Blue Origin now has a successful manned flight under their belt, and a revenue stream. While it might surprise some here, Amazon started by selling just books... It feels like similar attitude comments on that would have been "They'll never compete with Walmart. Real retail stores sell all kinds of things."

Well to be fair, they don't compete with Walmart. Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year, and that was during the height of a pandemic, which naturally steered people towards more online orders, something you think would tip the scales in Amazon's favor.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#117

Post by LoungeFlyZ »

gameswithgo wrote: post #61
marshallbananas wrote: post #8

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.

Im very happy for Wally Funk

So happy! A proper injustice revisited.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#118

Post by BurningFrog »

detritus wrote: post #112
marshallbananas wrote: post #8

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.

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 ju…

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

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#119

Post by natch »

q1w2 wrote: post #99
jstsch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 speci…

It’s remarkable that such a mature, sane, and rational perspective has been downvoted at the time of this writing to the point of being dead. Like anyone I am alarmed by over-the-top displays of wealth but that’s not really all this was. There is a lot more going on here. Blue Origin needs a lot more test flights as they ramp up and increase their capabilities. They also need demonstration flights to hep increase confidence about their services. And it totally makes sense to allow some people with the resources to help subsidize the effort, while having some fun and enlarging their perspective. I think this experience was super meaningful for everyone involved, and we shouldn’t try to denigrate it. Sad to see HN not taking a more open minded view here, as evidenced by your post being hn-dead.

And I say all this even not being a fan of the way Bezos has sometimes falsely claimed credit for “firsts” that were not really firsts, like when they landed a rocket (propulsive landing) while pretending that SpaceX had not done so in a much more challenging way already.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#120

Post by Ajedi32 »

detritus wrote: post #112
marshallbananas wrote: post #8

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.

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 ju…

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

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