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Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

arstechnica.com

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Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#51

Post by mimixco »

I disagree with the entire premise of using space to fix earth's problem but, were that possible, how does sending a rocket straight up (to 1/4 the height of the International Space Station) and then straight back down help us get anyone to space?

We already have technology that does more than that. Even calling it "space" is really a stretch.

I do understand that big public projects drive technology interest and adoption as well as national pride, and everyone likes that. But I can't see how a short ride up and down 1/4 of the way to an existing "space base" is much of an accomplishment aside from those pride-based goals.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#52

Post by mimixco »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #46
sacred_numbers wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no environment in space, so displacing heavy industry on Earth (which does have an environment) with industry in space would theoretically be a good thing. This depends on exactly where in space you do this, though, and the number of rocket launches on Earth required to support heavy industry in space could have a significant impact on the environment.

I think it partially depends on how you go about it. If you’re moving heavy industry to Earth orbit and supporting it entirely with material shipments from earth, yeah that seems like a no-go. On the other hand, if it’s the moon, asteroid belt, or even Mars we’re talking about, you really just need enough launches to bootstrap the operation. The bulk of other materials can procured locally, reducing the number of lau…

I'm not in either industry, but doesn't mining (like oil) depend on getting the low-hanging fruit first? In other words, how can you profit from mining if your costs are exponentially higher than folks doing the same work here on earth?

Even if the entire mining operation were already setup (at a cost of thousands of dollars per kilo of weight sent up there), you would still have the costs of getting the mined materials back down here and those are likely to be astronomical, so to speak.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#53

Post by fallingknife »

anotherman554 wrote: post #39
fallingknife wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government and private industry find him very credible when purchasing launch services. Wall St and private investors find him very credible when raising capital. And those people are far more credible than you, an anonymous commenter on HN.

They don't necessarily find the things Musk says on Twitter credible. It's like that famous rich guy who said the media should stop taking a different famous rich guy "literally."

OK, yeah, but those are tweets. He uses social media like most people do, which, like most conversational speech, is not meant to be taken literally. His real business isn't done over Twitter.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#54

Post by alisonkisk »

SonicScrub wrote: post #42
SteveCoast wrote: post #24

Bezos should give BO to SpaceX (or maybe Rocket Lab) to run, much like Buffet gave the bulk of his money to the Gates Foundation. It will a) put the best person on the job, b) close down an unnecessary spat and c) remove the opportunity cost and let Bezos focus on other things. It would be a win for everyone on Earth apart from ULA.

Right, because of that famous economic principle that monopolies create the best and most efficient technologies, and competition is bad.

Monopolies are efficient, that's why they exist and survive. The bad part is that they can capture all the economic profit from an activity. But there doesn't necessarily matter for leisure activities like space travel.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#55

Post by GVIrish »

al2o3cr wrote: post #2

(in re: "put heavy industry in space") Bezos is theoretically right about all of this. Apart from minor implementation details like the laws of thermodynamics, sure.

Yeah I just read stuff like that and tune out because it so resolutely silly. It takes a huge amount of energy to get into orbit. Other than satellites and a space station, we have nothing in space. But we're gonna move heavy industry into space on any sort of foreseeable timeline? Sure, if we figure out anti-gravity or cold fusion or something.

Meanwhile, it is actually achievable to reduce the environmental impact of heavy industry and agriculture on Earth, reduce consumption, etc. It would also be a lot more impactful to invest billions into stuff like that instead of space access.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#56

Post by lrdswrk00 »

dionysus_jon wrote: post #11
lrdswrk00 wrote: post #10

Yet another in a number of Bezos fluff pieces I’ve seen in the last few days. Oh, he wants to save the planet? Maybe his garbage spewing engine named Amazon could do something there. Bezos is smart enough to know the odds of him saving Earth or an asteroid hitting in 30 years are about even odds right now, so sure, sell that but also figure by then he’ll be too old to miss out. Humans sure love to live in the fantasy…

Did you read the article?

Yes. It’s not what’s in the article but what it lacks; real criticism.

It does nothing to constructively challenge why we should let Bezos be in charge of saving the planet.

His billionaire adventures are doing quite a bit of damage to begin with, perpetuating shallow consumerism.

It neither denigrates nor deifies him. It’s a flaccid “both sides” emotional piece, leaving conclusions up to the reader.

Mine were that he’s part of the problem he’s trying to solve so why expect him to be anything else?

Bezos can’t escape being human and humans are destroying the planet.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#57

Post by colinmhayes »

robertlagrant wrote: post #25
laurowyn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is he could buy a lot of time to save the business. He's not "running out of time". The entire article just feels like: woe is the billionaire's pet project failing because it's not profitable in an unreasonably short amount of time despite plenty of cash availability if said billionaire wants to continue and achieve their original goals.

Equity in Amazon is not the same as cash.

Well luckily we have markets that can quickly turn equity in Amazon into cash. Bezos has in fact been doing that to the tune of billions of dollars a year to fund Blue Origin. I don't see him stopping any time soon.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#58

Post by specialist »

comprambler wrote: post #40
drawkbox wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos flying with his brother Mark on the first manned flight of Blue Origin is the ultimate dogfooding event. Surprised people are so against it, it is an iterative step and was massively risky but proves out the technology. Blue Origin will be a formidable competitor and working with ULA, JPL and NASA will be great for the space industry and new perspectives on sustainability on Earth. ULA will be launching Am…

ULA has contracted Blue Origin for their BE-4 engine to power their Vulcan. Future heavy lift launches will fund Blue Origin for a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4

Viable biz model, ability to execute is all I care about wrt Blue Origin.

Competition, good.

Living in space, colonizing Mars, mining asteroids, neurotic billionaires... Whatever. Just infotainment.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#59

Post by kitsunesoba »

mimixco wrote: post #52
kitsunesoba wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it partially depends on how you go about it. If you’re moving heavy industry to Earth orbit and supporting it entirely with material shipments from earth, yeah that seems like a no-go. On the other hand, if it’s the moon, asteroid belt, or even Mars we’re talking about, you really just need enough launches to bootstrap the operation. The bulk of other materials can procured locally, reducing the number of lau…

I'm not in either industry, but doesn't mining (like oil) depend on getting the low-hanging fruit first? In other words, how can you profit from mining if your costs are exponentially higher than folks doing the same work here on earth? Even if the entire mining operation were already setup (at a cost of thousands of dollars per kilo of weight sent up there), you would still have the costs of getting the mined materi…

I’m not in either industry either, most of what I’m saying is based on what I’ve gathered as a space enthusiast.

The cost issue is multifaceted.

Most of it is sunk into launching itself, which is where things like space tourism come into the picture as a way to provide an initial business case and eventually, economy of scale. Addressing that alone will improve the economics of off-world industry quite a lot just on its own.

For the other part, initially companies will just have to eat the cost to get things up and running. This really isn’t that unusual — we just haven’t had much in the way of truly new frontiers in many years and have grown accustom to business ventures being relatively low cost and low risk. That said, this could also be partially subsidized by researchers and tourists, since there is certain to be interest from universities and other organizations to send people to study these other bodies, and there are most certainly a surprising number of individuals both wealthy and crazy enough to want to go stay on Mars for a couple of years.

Re: Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

#60

Post by messe »

specialist wrote: post #58
comprambler wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ULA has contracted Blue Origin for their BE-4 engine to power their Vulcan. Future heavy lift launches will fund Blue Origin for a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BE-4

Viable biz model, ability to execute is all I care about wrt Blue Origin. Competition, good. Living in space, colonizing Mars, mining asteroids, neurotic billionaires... Whatever. Just infotainment.

> mining asteroids,

I agree about the living in space and colonizing mars which are mostly pipe dreams (that I'm admittedly optimistic about as a spaceflight enthusiast), but I think mining asteroids is a feasible proposition. The material is there, and in-situ resource extraction and return has been demonstrated. It's really just a matter of scale-up and putting in the upfront investment.

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