Jeff Bezos wants to take you into SPAAAAAACE!

My only job at the launch was to open the champagne, and I broke the cork off in the bottle. : ) Fortunately, our other valve operations went more smoothly.

Not very reassuring.

http://public.blueorigin.com/img/GFWEB200.jpg

And innovative too!

http://public.blueorigin.com/img/pic4.jpg

Http/1.1 Service Unavailable

there is another thread

I hope this goes well

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57386049

fingers crossed

Why do so many people want to go to space? Is it just that they are so rich they have literally run out of things to do?

important meeting with the Elder Gods

Cosmic rays give you fantastic powers

"Fantastic powers" is a terrible euphemism for "cancer."

Giving rays to Jeff Bez’ feels fantastic

Why do so many people (billionaires) want to go to space?

Guillotines need gravity to work.

It's not just billionaires that want to go to space!

https://i.insider.com/5858374bca7f0c5c008b69c1?width=1200&format=jpeg

Though yeah, undoubtedly right now it's only rich people that have the option. But perhaps also the only ones with the desire, too.

I'd go to space tbh

Me too, though not at the expense of $2.8m or being Jeff Bezos's brother.

Indeed.

i would love to go to space, that would be everything

but first i need to become one of the richest people

I don't get it, but I get that some people clearly dig the idea.

Going to space, that is, not getting rich. Me, given the choice? Just write me the check and I'm happy to stay down here.

There are no laws in space so you can murder Jeff Bezos and get off scot-free.

I’d much rather than go to space and have no money than the other way around. Money is bad

There are no laws in space so you can murder Jeff Bezos and get off scot-free.

Sure way to get Space Force on your tail, imo.

I'd rather explore the deep than space, really. James Cameron is the rich guy for that one iirc.

yeah, I'd rather go to the bottom of the ocean than to outer space.

idk they scare me about equally and in space there are no fish to laugh at me as I die

There’s nothing at the bottom of the ocean except for trash and blind minibosses. In space there is absolutely no trash, zero debris, and the lack of gravity makes you strong and hardy

@milo - not sure if the fact it's a private craft changes things at all, but:

According to Article VIII of the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies whenever one of the nations that's a party to the treaty launches an object — i.e., a spacecraft, satellite or space station — into space, or builds one on a celestial body, that nation retains jurisdiction and control over it.

So we need to wait for a rocket launched from Peter Thiel's floating microstate to start murdering?

Getting a letter of marque to assassinate Elon Musk on his rocket to Mars.

"Why did you murder Mr. Bezos?"
"I'm a legal scholar"

Karl, pretty sure space is *nothing* but orbiting trash.

Soon including Bezos.

(i know :))

anything within visual distance of earth is bound to be full of trash soon

(xp the lack of gravity makes one weak and cranky, too, i suspect)

the way he laughs

it's so incredibly infantilizing to see all these powerful people / media institutions celebrate this. truly a new low. it makes me furious. i just can't imagine the average american dude, who isn't a fucking lizard, witnessing this and not desperately needing to wipe the floor with this asshole's face????? it makes 'let them eat cake' look like a thank you card.

i have been holding this inside because no one wants to hear how much i hate this person but i hate jen psaki so much

Psaki on Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin: "The United States is the first country to have private companies taking private individuals to space. This is a moment of American exceptionalism. That's how we see it."

— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 20, 2021

We must properly celebrate our multi-billionaires and their hobbies.

A sub-orbital flight... just like Alan Shepard did sixty years ago...

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Was even wondering if he said "fix your little problem and light this Kindle."

They're making a big fuss about his 'private company' but all those U.S rockets were built by Chrysler, McDonnell, etc... sixty years ago

a friend of mine posted this, based on an essay from author David Gerr0ld, and ugh, I wanna be sick. dude has been a great friend to me for years, is a Trump-hating liberal, but man, this is such.....*vomit*:

"I am fairly disappointed in some of you.
No, this is not me being snarky. I'm serious.

A lot of you love sci-fi movies, and stories about the future. And yet, some of you sound like you've all been programmed by John Birch Society, go back to the 1950s, this is not God's will, anti-technology luddites.
Yes, it's funny that the vehicle Jeff Bezos took to the edge of space looks like a penis.

But so many of you mocking him for it, as if the entire thing that he did ends now that he took his ride, and it was all for the gratification of a billionaire's ego.

Yes, he's an asshole. Yes, he should pay his workers better. Henry Ford was an anti-semite. Thomas Edison was a thief. Gene Roddenberry had a bunch of affairs. Guess what, sometimes the people who push our society forward are assholes.

This is not about the fact that a really rich dude did something selfish to show he had a big dick. Yes, that's part of it, but this thing doesn't end with him, and almost every one of you is missing that.

This is about the amazing possibility of space flight, and what it means for the journey that our species needs to take.
Even the most conservative estimates on NASA from the 1960s and 1970s show that every dollar spent on the space program brought back eight to ten dollars worth of investment in the rest of the economy.

You use any of these things?
Memory foam mattresses
Scratch resistant glasses
Baby formula
Dustbusters
UV blocking sunglasses
Radial tires
Freeze dried fruit
Foil blankets
Invisalign
Solar cells
Pool Purification Systems
Home Insulation
Wireless headphones
CAT Scans
Computer mice
Camera phones
Portable computers
GPS
oh, and yeah, THE INTERNET.

Thank the space program. None of those existed until NASA and their partners had to invent them.
(And note that there was tremendous criticism of the Apollo program at the time for wasting money.)
Look what's happened to our space program from the 1980s to the 2010s. Less progress, less dreams, less vision. Private industry, rather than government, with goals, is obviously a part of our future. We've seen just how badly the government handles long term vision, especially when the GOP runs it.

We needed public investment initially to get us over and through the dangerous beginnings in the truly massive investment at the beginning. But now that the technology is more available, private investment is where we will get the diversity of applications that public infrastructure does not bring. Or at least does not bring easily.
The great inventors and progressive forces of the past were also likely the "billionaires" of their time in many cases. They had the CAPACITY to create and achieve - however it was possible for them. The same is happening now.
Yes, space tourism will be a thing for the rich for a while, but so was air travel. Seriously, until the late 1960s it was prohibitively expensive for anyone but the very well off to fly. (The average person in the 1950s would pay up to 5% of his yearly salary for a chance to fly one way from NYC to Chicago.)

Having private industry investing in space will create competition to provide lower prices and increased services — and that will be a good thing in the long run, for everyone.

Having more access to space means we can have more access to scientific progress.
We can talk about employers paying a living wage and
billionaires paying their fair share of taxes. Those are all valid conversations to have.
But it's also important to recognize that when billionaires invest in grand projects like this, it's not just a dick-measuring contest, it's not just a giant thrill-ride, it's a genuine expression of human ambition.

When people are hurting to pay rent and you don't go to the doctor because of the cost, I get why this shit can make you mad.
It's easy to see it as wealth-flaunting. It's easy to resent it. Especially when the long-term benefits are still beyond this horizon. The benefits of the Apollo program weren't immediately obvious either.

But technology does trickle down. And as a result of our investment in space last century, we have tools available to us today that will make it possible to design and build a better future for ourselves and our children.

As Alvin Toffler noted in his book Future Shock, not only is the rate of change accelerating, but the rate of acceleration is accelerating. One small example: In less than 20 years, we have gone from NTSC to 4K television. Microprocessors have made most of our machines far more efficient. And our computers give us near-global communication skills. 20 years ago, we could imagine this stuff, but people had to design, develop, engineer, and market these advances. The smartphone is less than 15 years old, but we not only take it for granted, most of us can't live without it.

So ... yeah. The privatization of space is one more piece of evidence that our technological abilities are advancing at an incredible rate.
And one more thing.
"He needs to spend that money on Earth!"
Um, he did.

His company created thousands of jobs — designers, researchers, engineers, developers, testers, and all the support systems and people running them necessary to test and retest every piece of necessary technology. And that made it necessary for the creation of additional support systems to create the spaces for all these people to work, designing, developing, engineering, testing and retesting. All of those jobs were filled by qualified, dedicated people.

And they're not just doing it for joy rides. They're doing it to demonstrate that space is accessible.
Those jobs that they created, all that expertise will be applied to creating the next generations of reusable craft which will make access to orbit easier and less expensive. It will enable larger payloads. It will enable additional explorations of the moon and probably Mars as well. This is the foundation on which future development will be built.

I would have hoped that those of you who grew up watching Star Trek would see past the simple media narrative of rich guys = bad and recognize that progress is sometimes made by people we don't like. And be excited for what this could mean.

typical "ready, fire aim", moment, but perhaps I should ask for this thread to be deindexed

wow that is impressively incoherent and historically inaccurate even before you get to the woeful "and one more thing" bit

I don’t agree with your friend, but I do think they’re coherent. Unlike most people who make arguments in public, at least there’s a logic to it and footholds where you make points. Your friend references real life objects and people that I recognize too. I really appreciate that in their writing, even if it’s adapted from some author I don’t know.

They kind of sound like me in the early 2000s! in my default state, before I joined antifa, I might have said things like that.

we’re often angrier at the people that are closest to us, or the ideas that are relatively nearby to our own. I know your friend’s words seem a million miles from what you think, but a million miles from what you think is real, it’s a tv station with fascists on it barking disinformation at a bunch of people who don’t even understand that they’re the prey.

Astronauts didn't eat baby formula, they ate TANG!

in space tang eats you

Karl, I think I understand where you're coming from, but there can be more than multiple kinds of incoherence or disinformation.

i feel like this person is trying to resolve some cognitive dissonance he is feeling from his friends saying this is bad while he thinks rich guys going to space is cool. sort of a bedtime story.

haha, yeah i think you're right harbl!

xp rob i think you're right about multiple kinds, but there are also multiple degrees of incoherence. i think i may have spent too much time growing up around the worst kind, because this facebook friend seems like he would be the mayor of my hometown :-o

I myself really won't be impressed until Bezos launches a ICBM strike on Microsoft or Cosco.

I wrote an absurdly long post explaining my take that no one needs to read, so let me focus on what matters here: citing Star Trek in defense of your belief that space should be privatized is very irritating! I did skip a few Ferengi eps of DS9 though, so maybe I missed something

reminded me of the time in high school choir when we were impeaching our Choir President for not doing anything on the job all year and her best friend wrote into the choir newspaper decrying the action, stating MUTINY WASN'T GOOD FOR THE BOUNTY, AND IT ISN'T HERE EITHER!

that...might just be the least cool post I've ever made anywhere

https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/bezos-2-630x545.png

MAKE IT SO!

reminded me of the time in high school choir when we were impeaching our Choir President for not doing anything on the job all year and her best friend wrote into the choir newspaper decrying the action, stating MUTINY WASN'T GOOD FOR THE BOUNTY, AND IT ISN'T HERE EITHER!

― making splashes at Dan Flashes (Neanderthal), Thursday, July 22, 2021 7:31 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

l
m
a
o

that is solid gold

yeah, that is amazing! lol

also just the impeaching of the choir president in general

yeah you've definitely made less cool posts :)

the choir president had abandoned any pretenses of holding office with integrity. it was as if she thought she was above the job

lmao

impeachment failed btw. she kept her job.

outrage.

the choir having its own newspaper is too many levels of extracurricular activities

my friend was the editor (even though she was terrible at spelling and grammar and editing). still friends with her, now she's married with a kid and is a neurologist.

if only her supporters had staged a jan. 6 when the new choir president took office

*image of choir reading the Choir Times newspaper in the choir room*

Neanderthal, you should pitch this as a series

xxpost

"Onlookers called it the least threatening mob in recorded history"

look, we can try to impeach the choir president. again. we know what happened last time. it will fail again. i hate to use this tired phrase, but...i kind of feel like we're preaching to the--

reluctant lol

sponsored by MeMayMahMoMooveOn.org

loooooooooooooool Karl

Neanderthal, you should pitch this as a series

i would like it to be one of those series where episode 6 is entirely about the day there was a substitute choir teacher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulhz75reeAw

sponsored by MeMayMahMoMooveOn.org

Part of a historic bridge in the Netherlands will be dismantled so that a superyacht built for Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, can pass through the river that flows through Rotterdam, the city said on Thursday.

Netty Kros, a spokeswoman for the city of Rotterdam, said that the middle part of the 95-year-old Koningshaven Bridge would be removed this summer so that the sailing yacht could pass. The bridge, known locally as “De Hef,” will then be restored, potentially on the same day, she said.

Mr. Bezos’s yacht should be able to fit under all the other bridges in Rotterdam, Ms. Kros said. She did not have an estimate of how much the deconstruction would cost but said that the shipbuilder, not residents of Rotterdam, would pay.

There will not be any structural changes to the bridge, Ms. Kros said, adding that the city had to weigh the economic benefits of having the yacht built in Rotterdam and the jobs that would create.

posted this in the Amazon thread before I saw this. Jesus christ that last line :(

yeah I wasn't sure which thread was best for this depressing example of modern capitalism, lots of options!

what gets me is it is both a depressing example of modern capitalism and of almost comically feudalistic insanity

lords of the manor: the original job creators

yeah this sort of thing was par for the course for early modern royalty. like if the princess was travelling with her 250-person retinue it would simply be understood that if he had to a truly gracious host would dismantle an exterior wall in order to carry her bed into the best room of the house

It's really the fault of Rotterdam's founders for not anticipating that a future billionaire's mega-yacht might need to get through, sheesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGhcSupkNs8