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Blue Origin first human flight

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Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#391

Post by 908087 »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #166
docdeek wrote: post #9

Incredible achievement. I had to catch myself as, at first, I was thinking “10 minutes? That’s it? And in space for a lot less than that?”. Quickly reminded myself that in the history of the world hardly anyone has gone where they have gone - 10 minutes isn’t much, but if I could I would.

I agree - it's incredible. First flight of Wright Brothers lasted about 8 seconds. For initial flights, I would not consider time spent in space as the most important metric.

The Wright brothers weren't achieving a fraction of something which had already been going on semi-regularly for over half a century, though. Not at all comparable.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#392

Post by freediver »

iso1631 wrote: post #46
_fat_santa wrote: post #22

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…

Mentioning Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the same breath as SpaceX seems disingenuous. It's like comparing an horse+cart with a modern car. Maybe Electron and Virgin Orbit are in the race, but these hop 100km (or 80!) up and about 5 miles downrange are nowhere near the same league.

This tweet summed it up well:

https://twitter.com/Charly923407591/status/14162863209561210...

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#393

Post by Ajedi32 »

RIMR wrote: post #351
quijoteuniv wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope people have better dreams. That is my dream.

For real, people straight up fetishize the experience of "going to space", but the reality is that you're crammed in stinky tin can for a while, and eat preserved food. The real magic of human spaceflight for me is the science that is done up there. Sending a bunch of untrained rich people into space for the fun of it is not especially inspiring. The idea of getting crammed like sardines into a giant rocket so I can…

Space is inspiring to a lot of people because it represents both the the peak of human achievement, and humanity's future. Space is the final frontier; the next logical step in humankind's unending quest to explore the universe.

For me personally? I just want to mess around in 0G for a day or two. That seems like it'd be a rather unique experience; well worth a few thousand bucks and a couple hours packed shoulder to shoulder in a ship with a thousand other people.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#394

Post by rossdavidh »

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.

Well in one sense you're right, however...if they decided that they wanted to go for orbit without first doing an up-into-space-then-down trip, that wouldn't be a very wise thing to do. Test at each step. It makes perfect sense to do up-into-space-then-right-back-down first, before you try for orbiting the Earth, for many of the same reasons that NASA did it that way.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#395

Post by aerovistae »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #292
Ajedi32 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I hope people have better dreams. That is my dream.

Oh man, struggling to channel dang here. How to respond constructively. Probably the best thing to do is flag and ignore, but I can't pass this up.

If people are interested in going somewhere, who are you to denigrate their ambitions? What is wrong with dreaming of orbiting the planet? How does that dream fall short? Is it a weak dream for a midwestern child, landlocked a thousand miles in every direction, to want to see the ocean? Is it a weak dream for a city child, blocked by light pollution, to want to see the stars?

What kind of comment is this? What does it even mean to have a "better" dream?

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#396

Post by [deleted] »

_fat_santa wrote: post #22

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…

[deleted]

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#397

Post by mam3 »

RIMR wrote: post #351
quijoteuniv wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope people have better dreams. That is my dream.

For real, people straight up fetishize the experience of "going to space", but the reality is that you're crammed in stinky tin can for a while, and eat preserved food. The real magic of human spaceflight for me is the science that is done up there. Sending a bunch of untrained rich people into space for the fun of it is not especially inspiring. The idea of getting crammed like sardines into a giant rocket so I can…

If you cant dream beyond what you eat and the distance you can go in each direction its totally fine but dont impose it to other people

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#398

Post by jedberg »

mulmen wrote: post #362
jedberg wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airplanes are pretty common and don't account for much of the overall pollution. According to the EPA, transport accounts for 29% of total emissions, and of that, only 10% are airplanes. On the other hand 75% comes from cars and trucks. If rockets became commonplace, they would most like replace leisure travel on airplanes and would eliminate car traffic once you arrive at your destination. The CO2 emission of the cu…

How do rockets eliminate car traffic at the destination? Every proposal for rocket transport I have seen basically puts an airport outside of town, so the traffic is a wash, no?

When I arrive in space I don't need a car to get around, and even if I did, the pollution wouldn't affect the Earth. :)

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#399

Post by nemo44x »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #135
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.

"An astronaut (from the Greek "astron" (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and "nautes" (ναύτης), meaning "sailor") is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft." They were trained (not as well trained as NASA astronauts, but still trained well enough for such a short mission) They were equipped with whatever equipments they needed for thi…

When I'm out rowing a boat I don't think anyone would consider me a captain. Or when I'm sitting on a ship, I don't think anyone would consider me a sailor.

When I'm on a flight I'm called a passenger, for example. They were passengers.

Re: Blue Origin first human flight

#400

Post by mulmen »

jedberg wrote: post #398
mulmen wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do rockets eliminate car traffic at the destination? Every proposal for rocket transport I have seen basically puts an airport outside of town, so the traffic is a wash, no?

When I arrive in space I don't need a car to get around, and even if I did, the pollution wouldn't affect the Earth. :)

Ohh, ha! I thought you meant replacing flights directly to Earth destinations. So instead of taking a 787 from Seattle to Taipei I would take a Starship.

Yes, there are environmental benefits to putting the actual destination in space, I hadn’t really considered that.

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