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Blue Origin first human flight

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Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#251

Post by vmception »

aardvarkr wrote: post #226
publicola1990 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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?

The point is that they don’t have to, the level of discipline is unnecessary, viable commercial space travel means it is supposed to become even more unnecessary

So the gatekeeping can go away

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#252

Post by weaksauce »

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…

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

maybe it's the fact that a small school's population of people own 60% of all wealth on earth that gives these vanity shows of wealth a bad taste in their mouths.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#253

Post by meepmorp »

thethethethe wrote: post #240
BurningFrog wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 busines…

> 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

No need to be snide. Prices will drop hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few years, well within the means of many millionaires.

Democratization of space FTW!

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#254

Post by hinkley »

iso1631 wrote: post #56
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.

> 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.

What are the delta V's for a ballistic trajectory taking off in Texas an landing off the coast of Morocco? France? Western Australia? Hawaii?

You don't need to go all the way around to have a story. Low earth orbit is apparently around 84 minutes per revolution. There's a lot of space in the middle for ballistic orbits of 5-15 minutes, right?

We got in a rocket in Texas and had a light dinner on a yacht off Morocco 90 minutes later.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#257

Post by decebalus1 »

mendigou wrote: post #128

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.

> 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.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#258

Post by agloeregrets »

simonh wrote: post #245
agloeregrets wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He was actually at the Virgin Galactic launch and is good friends with Richard Branson. He was having fun, but not for the reason you suggest.

I'm mostly referring to Jeff, who he has an extremely public feud with.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#260

Post by shadowgovt »

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.

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.

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