Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blue Origin first human flight

blueorigin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 504 posts

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#261

Post by ezconnect »

daveslash wrote: post #216
ww520 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

I watch it and slowed the clip and it seems there's a rocket boost just before touchdown, if the seats have shock absorbers they probably felt little of the touch down.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#263

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

kiba wrote: post #161
enraged_camel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I hate to break it to you but Musk is just as unlikeable. I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. That's not to say that excuses his terrible treatment of other people, but it sure explains it.

I had long suspected that he's on the spectrum, and earlier this year he came out and openly talked about his Asperger's diagnosis. I don't think that confirms he has Asperger's. He said it on SNL as a joke.

>He said it on SNL as a joke

Source?

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#265

Post by meepmorp »

holoduke wrote: post #78
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

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.

Waiting for youporn to have their first facial in space.

You're getting downvotes, but we're going to real porn shot in space within the next decade. Personally, I'm hoping to see some really shameless public handwringing and outrage by politicians and religious leaders.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#266

Post by dev_tty01 »

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…

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.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#267

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

mavhc wrote: post #171
q1w2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Problem is you only get rich by taking money for other people's work. But as long as everyone also pays to clean up the pollution they cause, not terrible.

Jeff Bezos could vaccinate the entire world against Covid without changing his lifestyle even slightly.

He could hire the smartest people in the world to work on breakthrough propulsion, SETI, blue sky physics, and computing research. The money would barely be a rounding error in his wealth.

He could fund the greatest space observatories in history, fund game changing contributions to cancer research, genomics, and other experimental medicine, and set up international STEM education programs.

Instead he builds a toy rocket that looks like a penis and goes on a 2 minute joyride to the edge of space. And something something space hotels, maybe.

It's debatable if it's evil. But it's certainly lacking ambition and boring.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#268

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

tawan wrote: post #191

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 sto…

>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

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#269

Post by rrss »

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?

Basically yes, that’s what they signed up for in project mercury. The initial plan had nothing for the human to pilot. Mercury only got manual controls and a window because the astronauts fought for them.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#270

Post by a3n »

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…

Wearing out the bodies and dignity of Amazon floor workers.
Post reply on HN