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"projects in the works to support moving heavy industry from the surface of our planet into space. ... To set humanity on this environmentally sustainable path" How is moving - literally - heavy industry into space environmentally friendly?
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He's said he plans to sell 1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund Blue Origin. That seems like enough to keep it going, and as long as Amazon continues at or above its current share price, Bezos does appear to be wealthy enough to keep this going as a hobby project for at least a few decades.
Wasn't there a recent controversy about him asking for a $10B US grant/loan/whatever?
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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.
At best what the Tue flight demonstrated is that Amazon will now be able to fulfill two hour delivers to the ISS. Everything else is unproven.
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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.
> 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,…
You could say this about Bill Gates he has actually eliminated disease, ventured into Nuclear, Renewables and food security, he has legitimately saved perhaps a few million of lives.
But how could you make such claims about Bezos? Of the big three cloud providers, AWS his the only one still spewing out carbon.
If we were to make "life/death" balalncesheet, did his Amazon and other Bezos companies save lives or contribute to people's deaths, net? It should be obvious that Amazon has reduced living standards and wages for so many people, some of them have suffered ill health and death as a result.
Wit this track record, how could anyone claim Bezos is "saving the planet" with some hypothetical projects that noone even comitted to? In my book, Bezos needs to pay off his debt to humanity and the planet first.
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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…
Bezos tossing extra money into it defiantly helps.
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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…
Space tech is also always considered to be a national security topic, so the available personnel does not just have to be talented but they need a security clearance as well.
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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.
Exactly. And "space" itself isn't a great place for industry, it has solar radiation for power, vacuum and no gravity for certain industrial processes, and lots of space to put things. I expect heavy industry (and mining) will be on vacuum worlds like the Moon, asteroids, and Mercury, with some specialized processes and assembly done in orbit. Space is mostly for power satellites and habitats.
> 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…
Yes, being greedy, envious, and jealous of other peoples use of material goods is wrong. Its time we start calling it out. That doesn't make you progressive, it's a poor behavior attribute and you should not partake in it.
As far is 'how did it advance spaceflight'. its called progress. 20% is better than 0%. Maybe next time they will be 40%.