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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

#71

Post by dcow »

mnowicki wrote: post #63
dundarious wrote: post #50

> What the legion critics of Bezos and Blue Origin miss is that the company legitimately has the goal of ultimately saving planet Earth. > Bezos has a compelling vision for space, and it is entirely genuine. > He has the vision. He has the money. But at the age of 57, does he have enough years or willingness to ensure Blue Origin’s success? The central thesis of the article seems to boil down to the above quotations,…

This is just my own speculation, equally as invalid as the authors, but at most I'd say Bezos thinks his goals are entirely genuine, but it's entirely based on narcissism and wanting to be the only one smart/powerful enough to save us. If it came to the point where he had to sacrifice things he actually cares about to help others with no benefit to himself or his ego I would bet Bezos net worth that he wouldn't lift…

Just curious, has Bezos engaged in behavior indicative of an actual narcissist. Or have there been reports from people close to him? Or is your assessment mostly a projection of Amazon back onto him? I know a few people who actually have narcissistic personality disorder but I don't know Bezos at all.

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

#72

Post by dtagames »

PaulHoule wrote: post #38
laurowyn wrote: post #9

Has he some how gone bankrupt? I can't help but feel if he wants to keep Blue Origin running, he could use a handful of the cash he has laying around one of his mansions. or one of his yachts. or his Texas launch complex. Pretty sure he could bank roll Blue Origin for decades without seeing any significant hit to his personal wealth.

It's not about the money. It's about mental focus. Elon Musk is "all in" on making mankind an interplanetary species. He is not cruising around the world on a yacht but holing up in a cheap house in Texas. He went at an "impossible" goal by finding specific markets for launch services and satisfying them with Dragon. Starship is a bit ahead of the market, but the success with Dragon bodes well. Looking at the big pic…

The goal of making man an "interplanetary species" comes from religion, specifically the religion of Transhumanism to which both Bezos and Musk subscribe.

There is nothing in our history or present day evolution that would suggest people can or should live on other planets. Absolutely nothing. We are not even remotely close to such a "goal" when today people live barely below the threshold of space (LEO) and not in space at all.

Religious goals and magical thinking have driven human society for hundreds of thousands of years (see the fascinating and recent post here on HN about The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind). Jeff and Elon's fantasies about human habitation in space (or somehow improving life on this planet by leaving it) are more of the same.

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

#73

Post by cellularmitosis »

iab wrote: post #16
jjoonathan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fifth law of thermodynamics: thou shalt not go to space?

It’s the 7th I believe, “thou shall not covet another planets resources “

Nah that only applies to Europa. Attempt no landing there.

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

#74

Post by dcow »

losvedir wrote: post #65

Something I don't understand about the criticisms of the launch is that the rocket landed back on a platform. This was something SpaceX was (entirely justifiably) lauded for. Is it just old hat now? Or is the SpaceX version of it more technically challenging in some way?

I think people are just bored and disgruntled now.

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

#75

Post by mimixco »

GVIrish wrote: post #67
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.

Sure heavy industry in space wouldn't pollute the Earth, but the physics for this just don't work out. How would you get all the produced goods back to Earth? Lots and lots of rockets that would then have to fly back up to space. The energy involved with that would be massive and cost prohibitive on the scale that it would need to be in order to replace any meaningful amount of heavy industry on Earth. A space elevat…

Indeed. It doesn't take a billionaire to figure out that, the further away something is, the more it costs to get it to the customer.

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

#76

Post by deegles »

bberenberg wrote: post #62
cwkoss wrote: post #61

> Neither side is necessarily wrong. It is reasonable to both be uncomfortable with Bezos' extreme wealth and what that means for society but also recognize that Blue Origin has advanced spaceflight. How did a brief amusement ride into sub-orbital space advance spaceflight? To reach orbit, you need to go one part up and four parts sideways. This flight was only the vertical component - essentially just 20% of the min…

I would say the quote is probably a poor choice of words. It's not saying the flight itself advances anything. It's saying that having another group of people working on space tech is competitive, and competition drives advancement.

> competition drives advancement

Is this always true though? Space tech is highly specialized, if you can't hire enough people already, more competition just spreads the available talent thinner. I'd be curious if it's currently the case that SpaceX/NASA/BO's development is personnel constrained.

I've definitely heard of projects at FAANG companies being cancelled because they couldn't hire enough people for them, so I could see this also happening in other industries.

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

#77

Post by wmf »

iab wrote: post #16
jjoonathan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fifth law of thermodynamics: thou shalt not go to space?

It’s the 7th I believe, “thou shall not covet another planets resources “

Asteroids aren't planets; checkmate.

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

#78

Post by mimixco »

pyrale wrote: post #49
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.

Where does heat go, though.

Fantastic question. Lacking an atmosphere, it wouldn't go anywhere. The ultimate insulator. So whatever heat you produced in your space rock factory would stay right there. There's no such thing as air conditioning in space, bereft as it is of that first component, air.

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

#79

Post by aeturnum »

dcow wrote: post #71
mnowicki wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just my own speculation, equally as invalid as the authors, but at most I'd say Bezos thinks his goals are entirely genuine, but it's entirely based on narcissism and wanting to be the only one smart/powerful enough to save us. If it came to the point where he had to sacrifice things he actually cares about to help others with no benefit to himself or his ego I would bet Bezos net worth that he wouldn't lift…

Just curious, has Bezos engaged in behavior indicative of an actual narcissist. Or have there been reports from people close to him? Or is your assessment mostly a projection of Amazon back onto him? I know a few people who actually have narcissistic personality disorder but I don't know Bezos at all.

I think people can have narcissistic goals without having narcissistic personality disorder. It is tempting to see our passions as deriving from an objectively correct view of how the world should improve. Jeff likes space and, what do you know, it turns out Jeff's way of exploring space is at the center of a larger plan to save the world that Jeff feels pretty confident about.

Those of us who aren't billionaires just have to satisfy more people with our arguments about why our ideas are worth doing. When you're funding everything, it's a lot easier to attribute pushback to personal preference rather than your overall worldview being flawed. After all, if your worldview was flawed, why are all these people working at your space company? How did you make all this money? Etc.

I don't actually if Jeff has drunk his own cool-aid, but I think people in his position have fewer people to push back against their worldview than most.

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