331–340 of 504 posts
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Not sure a tiny island that’s 6-7’ above sea level is such a genius investment these days.
Do you think the ocean is going to rise SEVEN FEET?
> A number of later studies have concluded that a global sea level rise of 200 to 270 cm (6.6 to 8.9 ft) this century is "physically plausible".[8][2][9]
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.
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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…
Why?
Is it ok if I deride people who molest their own kids? I mean, it's how they choose to spend their time, who am I to judge right?
The way society works is by deciding collectively what's ok, and that's decided based on people's tastes.
My tastes are that no small group of people should have power over large groups of people without their ongoing consent. Any system that isn't like that is garbage and anyone interested in power over other people is human garbage.
Today's society is wage slavery in developed countries, colonialism and barbarism everywhere else - it is garbage and anyone with a modicum of power doing anything but attempting to change the status quo is clueless or human garbage.
Why would wage slaves not resent their masters, or people colonized, not resent colonialists? Anything but deep resentment and derision is surprising, frankly.
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> It's debatable if it's evil. But it's certainly lacking ambition and boring. He's the richest man on earth - who started one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet, I'd say he had plenty of ambition. Excuse him for having a little fun. "He could do this, that and the other thing." Well thank you for telling him what he should/could do with his money. You know what, why don't you go start a compa…
You have no moral compass. Your only guidance for what is right is money. If he has the money to do it then it is justified. There is something missing in your brain and that is why you will eagerly simp for a billionaire.
This has rapidly become my least favorite neologism.
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The question every time space exploration comes up is whether the money and effort is better spent in space or on more terrestrial problems. With government-sponsored exploration, you at least ended up with public research and development that resulted in spinoffs that are useful on land. With a private space race, technologies like these seem more likely to remain a trade secret. Also, when it comes to 'hard problem…
>For example, we'd have the capacity to eliminate hunger if it wasn't for the pesky problem of inequality, and billionaires aren't exactly lining up to help out with that. Hunger is basically a non-issue in all developed nations. See all the gray and purple nations on this map. In the US, for example, deaths from malnutrition are ~,1% of all deaths annually. Any money the billionaires might put into it would be bette…
…doesn’t that suggest it would be worth a billionaire trying to find an answer for the latter? A way to help local farmers feed their population? It seems like an interesting problem space to me. Certainly more interesting than replicating space flights NASA already did decades ago.
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are the members of the crew of Blue Origin 3 not 'crew members'?
If I drive onto the ferry am I part of the crew? I’ve been told (trained) on what to do and I’m equipped (my car), so am I a crew member? No, I’m just a passenger following the crew’s direction.
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Not sure a tiny island that’s 6-7’ above sea level is such a genius investment these days.
Do you think the ocean is going to rise SEVEN FEET?
Seems that between Musk, Bezos and Branson, we have in essence restarted a space race but this time it's billionaires in the private sector versus governments. Some will surely say that they have better things to spend their money on (Bezos for sure) but I gave to say it's still mindblowing. I would imagine if you're one of those guys, you've basically have enough money to solve any problem, so these guys it seems ar…
This is what "trickle down" technology looks like. We are watching space flight move a rung down the economic ladder. Nation states -> wealthy bigco -> billionare's pet project -> ????? -> normal people (some steps omitted for brevity)
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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 $10…
10k in space will get you what?
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Random thought:
If they were able to get enough water into space such that one could swim through a sphere of water in a weightless environment, what would the sensation of being encapsulated in water while weightless feel like (clearly needing scuba or some other air connection..)