[News] Jeff Bezos' rocket.

[Deleted member 22389]

This is all part of a bigger plan.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-transport-earth-travel

 

[nickbrighton]

That was a pretty poor effort compared to Virgin Galactic, it was like comparing a kid with an expensive bicycle pump and a lemonade bottle to a kid who was flying a remote control plane.

Except Bezos actually went into space.

There is no universally accepted definition to the start of space, however an internationally accepted definition (but not the only one) of the point that you are deemed to have left earth and entered space, its the Karman line, and is 100km above mean sea level, (62 miles, 330 000ft). Bozos crossed that line, The Virgin one did not. They crossed the 80km mark which is the FAA definition.

If I were paying however million $ I'd make bloody sure no one could come back later and say "nice try- but you missed by a few thousand feet"

So Bozos is more "space" than Virgin, but the one that will actually put an end to it is Elon Musk whose version actually flies customers around an orbit

All the above gubbins is from "theatlantic.com" and maybe total bs for all i know

 

[beorhthelm]

aside which got the right height, for me going up in a rocket is simply the proper way.

 

[Theatre of Trees]

From a series of tweets posted at the beginning of the month: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1411304471934685184.html

If any of you are under the impression that our billionaires might succeed in "escaping" to space, while the world burns, let me put those fears to rest with what I know from being the spouse of a NASA flight controller.

For a half-dozen people to exist up on the ISS, it takes a ground team of thousands of people, constantly problem-solving how to keep them alive. Their quality of life is bouncing around in a narrow tube with the same 5 people who can't really bathe for months.

Every minute of their day is micromanaged so they can survive. They follow strict exercise regimens to keep their bones from turning to goo. They spend a ton of time studying systems and conducting repairs on equipment that's continually breaking because SPACE WANTS TO KILL YOU

Their sleeping situation is akin to a floating coffin. Their pooping situation is a 20-something-step process in a port-o-potty where everything FLOATS and the door is a plastic curtain. The wifi cuts out at regular intervals. The food is NOT michelin starred, to say the least.

The only reason they're alive up there at all is because multiple countries have thousands of brilliant, highly-trained engineers and doctors and astrophysicists and computer experts whose full-time job is keeping the astronauts alive and the ISS functioning.

When something breaks, as it continually does, these teams SCRAMBLE to devise fixes and solutions. And these fixes, lemme tell ya, they are tedious. This year, working from home, I have seen the schematics and overheard bits of meetings, and oh my GOD is it tedious.

And the spacewalks where they go out to repair these broken things? It takes dozens of hours of study to do each one. And then it's maybe four, six hours in a suit, with stiff, bulky gloves, all "Drive bolt 7A into dock 31X" until their fingers are shaking with exhaustion.

So there's no future where Bezos and Branson are sipping champagne next to their space-pool on Low-Earth Maralago, ok? There's no way life in space could be remotely comfortable or preferable to life on earth in their lifetimes, or for many generations to come, or probably ever.

The longest anyone's lived in space was Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space, got home, and immediately retired. He'd spent all his life preparing and training to be in space, and found it extremely physically and psychologically grueling to up there for just one year.

So this billionaire "space race" is nothing more than a dick-measuring contest between Musk, Bezos, and Branson. They are not investing billions to forward science or the bounds of human possibility. They are doing it to be the first rich guy to bounce around uselessly up there.

And it's utterly despicable when you understand that they're funding it with the hoarded wealth of workers who are struggling just to exist. With ill-gotten money made from supply chains that enslave people and are destroying the future possibility of life on earth.

But if it troubles you that they might SUCCEED, that those three assholes might ever spend more than a week in space and ENJOY it, let me put your mind at ease. Not in this lifetime. With all their billions, they have no power to make space a better place to be than earth.

I don't know if they realize the futility, if they're AWARE that this whole space race is just a pissing contest to see who can get to zero-G fastest? Or if being a billionaire makes you so delusional that they really think they can buy a Mars colony in their lifetimes. IDK

Join me in enjoying the fact that they won't find anything up there but a lot of time to sit with the gaping void inside them, which space certainly won't fill, while forcibly holding their asscheeks to a suctioning toilet seat, bc they're constipated as hell from astronaut food.

The world is burning, and our billionaires are the people MOST responsible, but at least there's no escape for them. They will live and die (alone, like all of us) on this beautiful, precious, one-in-a-gazillion planet.
We should take our wealth back from them and use it better.

I've made a few errors (why I do scifi not science). The pooping protocol is about 10 steps, not 20. Scott Kelly didn't spend the longest time in space, that was Valery Polyakov. Also our astronauts don't just survive up there (although that takes a lot!). They're doing SCIENCE!

Oy vey. To the Muskophiles who've found this thread: Everything Musk can do, NASA could do better, if they had the funding. They don't always have the funding, because billionaires hoard our collective wealth, and use it to make redundant space agencies to boost their egos.
I got this wrong--Scott Kelly at the time was the USian astronaut who'd spent the longest in space at one time. Valery Polyakov spent 438 consecutive days onboard MIR before that.

 

[TugWilson]

The yanks are far more advanced than we see , why would you cancel the shuttle unless you had something better ? . How do you think they are getting their payloads up ? . Black NASA has been around since the 80s .

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

why would you cancel the shuttle unless you had something better ?

Money, and most of them had crashed.

How do you think they are getting their payloads up ?

To the extent that they couldn't use their own rockets, I believe they've paid the Russians to take it up for them.

Black NASA has been around since the 80s .

Are you actually an NPC from the original Deus Ex?

 

[Pint of Ale and a Burger]

This is all part of a bigger plan.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-transport-earth-travel

Hopefully they upgrade all the cold war nuclear missile systems before Elon starts launching his rockets into other countries.

 

[raymondo]

A great way to pollute the atmosphere and contribute to global warming (whatever the shape of the rocket) from one of 2 self-centred, billionaire, I-dont-really-give-a-feck-about-the-planet a*seholes. Credit Musk for Tesla, but don't spoil it with crypto and Mars projects.

 

[PTC Gull]

Your delivery is only 10 stops away!

 

[TugWilson]

Money, and most of them had crashed.



To the extent that they couldn't use their own rockets, I believe they've paid the Russians to take it up for them.



Are you actually an NPC from the original Deus Ex?

" most of them had crashed " , Challenger exploded and Columbia broke up , there were six so how many more do you know about or are you just shit at math`s ? . To be totally accurate NONE crashed .

 

[PTC Gull]

There is no universally accepted definition to the start of space, however an internationally accepted definition (but not the only one) of the point that you are deemed to have left earth and entered space, its the Karman line, and is 100km above mean sea level, (62 miles, 330 000ft). Bozos crossed that line, The Virgin one did not. They crossed the 80km mark which is the FAA definition.

If I were paying however million $ I'd make bloody sure no one could come back later and say "nice try- but you missed by a few thousand feet"

So Bozos is more "space" than Virgin, but the one that will actually put an end to it is Elon Musk whose version actually flies customers around an orbit

All the above gubbins is from "theatlantic.com" and maybe total bs for all i know

NASA go with 50 miles but acknowledge the Karman line.....https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/where-space

 

[The Clamp]

From a series of tweets posted at the beginning of the month: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1411304471934685184.html

If any of you are under the impression that our billionaires might succeed in "escaping" to space, while the world burns, let me put those fears to rest with what I know from being the spouse of a NASA flight controller.

For a half-dozen people to exist up on the ISS, it takes a ground team of thousands of people, constantly problem-solving how to keep them alive. Their quality of life is bouncing around in a narrow tube with the same 5 people who can't really bathe for months.

Every minute of their day is micromanaged so they can survive. They follow strict exercise regimens to keep their bones from turning to goo. They spend a ton of time studying systems and conducting repairs on equipment that's continually breaking because SPACE WANTS TO KILL YOU

Their sleeping situation is akin to a floating coffin. Their pooping situation is a 20-something-step process in a port-o-potty where everything FLOATS and the door is a plastic curtain. The wifi cuts out at regular intervals. The food is NOT michelin starred, to say the least.

The only reason they're alive up there at all is because multiple countries have thousands of brilliant, highly-trained engineers and doctors and astrophysicists and computer experts whose full-time job is keeping the astronauts alive and the ISS functioning.

When something breaks, as it continually does, these teams SCRAMBLE to devise fixes and solutions. And these fixes, lemme tell ya, they are tedious. This year, working from home, I have seen the schematics and overheard bits of meetings, and oh my GOD is it tedious.

And the spacewalks where they go out to repair these broken things? It takes dozens of hours of study to do each one. And then it's maybe four, six hours in a suit, with stiff, bulky gloves, all "Drive bolt 7A into dock 31X" until their fingers are shaking with exhaustion.

So there's no future where Bezos and Branson are sipping champagne next to their space-pool on Low-Earth Maralago, ok? There's no way life in space could be remotely comfortable or preferable to life on earth in their lifetimes, or for many generations to come, or probably ever.

The longest anyone's lived in space was Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space, got home, and immediately retired. He'd spent all his life preparing and training to be in space, and found it extremely physically and psychologically grueling to up there for just one year.

So this billionaire "space race" is nothing more than a dick-measuring contest between Musk, Bezos, and Branson. They are not investing billions to forward science or the bounds of human possibility. They are doing it to be the first rich guy to bounce around uselessly up there.

And it's utterly despicable when you understand that they're funding it with the hoarded wealth of workers who are struggling just to exist. With ill-gotten money made from supply chains that enslave people and are destroying the future possibility of life on earth.

But if it troubles you that they might SUCCEED, that those three assholes might ever spend more than a week in space and ENJOY it, let me put your mind at ease. Not in this lifetime. With all their billions, they have no power to make space a better place to be than earth.

I don't know if they realize the futility, if they're AWARE that this whole space race is just a pissing contest to see who can get to zero-G fastest? Or if being a billionaire makes you so delusional that they really think they can buy a Mars colony in their lifetimes. IDK

Join me in enjoying the fact that they won't find anything up there but a lot of time to sit with the gaping void inside them, which space certainly won't fill, while forcibly holding their asscheeks to a suctioning toilet seat, bc they're constipated as hell from astronaut food.

The world is burning, and our billionaires are the people MOST responsible, but at least there's no escape for them. They will live and die (alone, like all of us) on this beautiful, precious, one-in-a-gazillion planet.
We should take our wealth back from them and use it better.

I've made a few errors (why I do scifi not science). The pooping protocol is about 10 steps, not 20. Scott Kelly didn't spend the longest time in space, that was Valery Polyakov. Also our astronauts don't just survive up there (although that takes a lot!). They're doing SCIENCE!

Oy vey. To the Muskophiles who've found this thread: Everything Musk can do, NASA could do better, if they had the funding. They don't always have the funding, because billionaires hoard our collective wealth, and use it to make redundant space agencies to boost their egos.
I got this wrong--Scott Kelly at the time was the USian astronaut who'd spent the longest in space at one time. Valery Polyakov spent 438 consecutive days onboard MIR before that.

Thanks for posting that. A good read.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

" most of them had crashed " , Challenger exploded and Columbia broke up , there were six so how many more do you know about or are you just shit at math`s ? . To be totally accurate NONE crashed .

I was being "willfully oblivious to the precise detail".

On the subject of spurious rigour, only 5 of the 6 were fully operational, as Enterprise wasn't capable of space flight. At the point the programme was cancelled there were 3 remaining.

No, I'm not shit at maths. Indeed I'm confident enough to point out that it doesn't need an apostrophe, although close examination appears to show you've spelt it with an accent symbol.

Crash can be defined as "To break violently or noisily; smash" or "To make a sudden loud noise". It can also include "To dash to pieces; smash", or "If a vehicle crashes or someone crashes it, it is involved in an accident, usually a serious one in which the vehicle is damaged and someone is hurt:"

 

[beorhthelm]

...
So this billionaire "space race" is nothing more than a dick-measuring contest between Musk, Bezos, and Branson. They are not investing billions to forward science or the bounds of human possibility. They are doing it to be the first rich guy to bounce around uselessly up there.

apparently the objective is to open up space to commercial and industrial exploitation. then with all the industry up there, we can have a cleaner planet here.

...Oy vey. To the Muskophiles who've found this thread: Everything Musk can do, NASA could do better, if they had the funding. They don't always have the funding, because billionaires hoard our collective wealth, and use it to make redundant space agencies to boost their egos.

thats a daft, contradiction of a conclusion, firstly because they are doing their launches for a fraction of the cost of NASA, one of the drivers is to bring down costs. secondly it suggests wanting to divert tax revenues to space exploration, instead of all the other demands of government spending. still involves the "wealth of workers who are struggling just to exist", if you believe that guff, just goes through government fingers instead.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

What I find amazing is that someone stumped up $28m for a seat, but then had to be replaced at the last minute due to a "scheduling conflict". What on earth could be more important than going into space, especially when you've dropped that sort of wedge for the
opportunity.

Maybe he forgot to put it in his calendar and then agreed to something else? We’ve all done it.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

From a series of tweets posted at the beginning of the month: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1411304471934685184.html

If any of you are under the impression that our billionaires might succeed in "escaping" to space, while the world burns, let me put those fears to rest with what I know from being the spouse of a NASA flight controller.

For a half-dozen people to exist up on the ISS, it takes a ground team of thousands of people, constantly problem-solving how to keep them alive. Their quality of life is bouncing around in a narrow tube with the same 5 people who can't really bathe for months.

Every minute of their day is micromanaged so they can survive. They follow strict exercise regimens to keep their bones from turning to goo. They spend a ton of time studying systems and conducting repairs on equipment that's continually breaking because SPACE WANTS TO KILL YOU

Their sleeping situation is akin to a floating coffin. Their pooping situation is a 20-something-step process in a port-o-potty where everything FLOATS and the door is a plastic curtain. The wifi cuts out at regular intervals. The food is NOT michelin starred, to say the least.

The only reason they're alive up there at all is because multiple countries have thousands of brilliant, highly-trained engineers and doctors and astrophysicists and computer experts whose full-time job is keeping the astronauts alive and the ISS functioning.

When something breaks, as it continually does, these teams SCRAMBLE to devise fixes and solutions. And these fixes, lemme tell ya, they are tedious. This year, working from home, I have seen the schematics and overheard bits of meetings, and oh my GOD is it tedious.

And the spacewalks where they go out to repair these broken things? It takes dozens of hours of study to do each one. And then it's maybe four, six hours in a suit, with stiff, bulky gloves, all "Drive bolt 7A into dock 31X" until their fingers are shaking with exhaustion.

So there's no future where Bezos and Branson are sipping champagne next to their space-pool on Low-Earth Maralago, ok? There's no way life in space could be remotely comfortable or preferable to life on earth in their lifetimes, or for many generations to come, or probably ever.

The longest anyone's lived in space was Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space, got home, and immediately retired. He'd spent all his life preparing and training to be in space, and found it extremely physically and psychologically grueling to up there for just one year.

So this billionaire "space race" is nothing more than a dick-measuring contest between Musk, Bezos, and Branson. They are not investing billions to forward science or the bounds of human possibility. They are doing it to be the first rich guy to bounce around uselessly up there.

And it's utterly despicable when you understand that they're funding it with the hoarded wealth of workers who are struggling just to exist. With ill-gotten money made from supply chains that enslave people and are destroying the future possibility of life on earth.

But if it troubles you that they might SUCCEED, that those three assholes might ever spend more than a week in space and ENJOY it, let me put your mind at ease. Not in this lifetime. With all their billions, they have no power to make space a better place to be than earth.

I don't know if they realize the futility, if they're AWARE that this whole space race is just a pissing contest to see who can get to zero-G fastest? Or if being a billionaire makes you so delusional that they really think they can buy a Mars colony in their lifetimes. IDK

Join me in enjoying the fact that they won't find anything up there but a lot of time to sit with the gaping void inside them, which space certainly won't fill, while forcibly holding their asscheeks to a suctioning toilet seat, bc they're constipated as hell from astronaut food.

The world is burning, and our billionaires are the people MOST responsible, but at least there's no escape for them. They will live and die (alone, like all of us) on this beautiful, precious, one-in-a-gazillion planet.
We should take our wealth back from them and use it better.

I've made a few errors (why I do scifi not science). The pooping protocol is about 10 steps, not 20. Scott Kelly didn't spend the longest time in space, that was Valery Polyakov. Also our astronauts don't just survive up there (although that takes a lot!). They're doing SCIENCE!

Oy vey. To the Muskophiles who've found this thread: Everything Musk can do, NASA could do better, if they had the funding. They don't always have the funding, because billionaires hoard our collective wealth, and use it to make redundant space agencies to boost their egos.
I got this wrong--Scott Kelly at the time was the USian astronaut who'd spent the longest in space at one time. Valery Polyakov spent 438 consecutive days onboard MIR before that.

Brilliant [emoji106]

Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

thats a daft, contradiction of a conclusion, firstly because they are doing their launches for a fraction of the cost of NASA, one of the drivers is to bring down costs. secondly it suggests wanting to divert tax revenues to space exploration, instead of all the other demands of government spending. still involves the "wealth of workers who are struggling just to exist", if you believe that guff, just goes through government fingers instead.

To be fair, I expect NASA could reduce their costs if their aim was launch a single man into space for no other specific purpose.

That said, I don't doubt a single man with a pure vision and sufficient wealth could manage to launch themselves into space for less money than NASA can. I do seriously doubt that that's the best use of that wealth.

 

[beorhthelm]

To be fair, I expect NASA could reduce their costs if their aim was launch a single man into space for no other specific purpose.

That said, I don't doubt a single man with a pure vision and sufficient wealth could manage to launch themselves into space for less money than NASA can. I do seriously doubt that that's the best use of that wealth.

well thats a different point isnt it? i've never really seen the point of it, until came across the idea to move industry. sounds pretty far fetched and idealistic, but we did build an awful lot with rich mens dreams.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

well thats a different point isnt it? i've never really seen the point of it, until came across the idea to move industry. sounds pretty far fetched and idealistic, but we did build an awful lot with rich mens dreams.

We have a cleaner Britain, now that most heavy industry is based in China and the far east. Eventually it catches up with you one way or another.

We're never going to import phones, cars, jeans or cement from the moon (or if you're feeling pedantic, anywhere outside the atmosphere). I love the idea of space exploration, but it's not an alternative to investing in clean energy and production on Earth.

 

[highflyer]

Everything Musk can do, NASA could do better, if they had the funding. They don't always have the funding, because billionaires hoard our collective wealth, and use it to make redundant space agencies to boost their egos.

You got a thumbs up from me for that sentance alone.

The rest was great too though.