5 ms·

Agreed. Let’s say if I earned $200K/yr, and was close to “retirement”. I’d consider working an extra year to take a 90 min orbit in space. I would not make that

Agreed. Let’s say if I earned $200K/yr, and was close to “retirement”. I’d consider working an extra year to take a 90 min orbit in space. I would not make that same decision for a 3 min joy ride.

tlos 8y ago
You cannot save 100% of your pre-tax salary. That said, you make an interesting point
- mevile 8y ago
  > You cannot save 100% of your pre-tax salary Depends on the industry in which you earn your salary. Some are not above the board.
  - tlos 8y ago
    Interesting. Which industries in particular?
    - pmulv 8y ago
      Illegal ones
  - mabbo 8y ago
    And where you work. I've had Dubai-based companies try to sell me on "work here, pay zero taxes". (I politely told him I cared more about human rights.)
- adrianN 8y ago
  By the time your reach retirement age you should have saved enough to last you the rest of your life, so that effectively any additional income can be spent completely.
matte_black 8y ago
Would you be interested in a financing program that allows you to take your flight and pay it off throughout your life? No prepayment penalties. The earlier you do it, the longer you can live life sharing your experience and viewing everything through its perspective, instead of just fly and die maybe a decade later or so.
- MertsA 8y ago
  This sounds like a monumentally terrible deal for the creditor. There's nothing securing that loan, if the debtor went bankrupt the creditor would lose all of it. If it was secured by something like the value of a home then that's just a regular reverse mortgage.
  - rory096 8y ago
    Even the initial price is not far from the credit card limits middle class people with good credit can obtain unsecured. Obviously the interest rate on that would be usurious, but Blue Origin has enough marginal profit margin (and cash) that it could conceivably finance the program at reasonable/zero interest with tolerable risk.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Just noodling about the economics, 7 passengers at $200K each is $1.4M gross revenue. So assuming very low earth orbit (basically you just need to be above enough of the atmosphere that you won't re-enter before the end of your first orbit) that is still a very low cost for a Falcon9 launch given that the second stage is not recovered. So you need to recover both stages operationally "close" to where they lifted off so that you minimize refurbishment/transport costs. I'm guessing that would be that the second stage provides retropulsion to get you back to nominal zero velocity over the return point. So that would be launch, booster returns to the pad, and the second stage pushes you up enough to insure an orbit, then your orient for return. Enjoy the view etc, and then the second stage relights to cancel your velocity to 0 as you arrive over the launch facility (you'll have to scoot 1000 miles or so east as well given planetary rotation) and then separate for a parachute landing of perhaps both the capsule and the second stage booster. Sounds pretty complex. But you would have to recover all equipment if you wanted to have a chance as meeting the economics of that.
- thebluehawk 8y ago
  > Enjoy the view etc, and then the second stage relights to cancel your velocity to 0 That is not feasible. Your second stage would have to be roughly as large as an entire orbital rocket in order to slow itself down from orbital speeds to zero, which means your first stage would have to be massive in order to push the second stage into orbit. The reason every vehicle that re-enters the atmosphere uses a heat shield is because it's way easier to carry a relatively light heat shield that sheds off the speed than to carry the massive amount of fuel to shed off the same speed. See https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    If instead of a circular orbit you just went for an arc with a really high apoapsis you could probably burn a little fuel to reduce the forward momentum to zero, and then proceed to slowly plummet back to earth... which then means you need a really big heat shield as that gravitational potential energy turns back into kinetic and you smack into the atmosphere at a ridiculous velocity. Scratch that, too much Kerbal.
perilunar 8y ago
And for marginally more than the cost of a single orbit, you could stay up there for days or weeks.

tlos 8y ago

You cannot save 100% of your pre-tax salary. That said, you make an interesting point

mevile 8y ago
> You cannot save 100% of your pre-tax salary Depends on the industry in which you earn your salary. Some are not above the board.
- tlos 8y ago
  Interesting. Which industries in particular?
  - pmulv 8y ago
    Illegal ones
- mabbo 8y ago
  And where you work. I've had Dubai-based companies try to sell me on "work here, pay zero taxes". (I politely told him I cared more about human rights.)
adrianN 8y ago
By the time your reach retirement age you should have saved enough to last you the rest of your life, so that effectively any additional income can be spent completely.

matte_black 8y ago

Would you be interested in a financing program that allows you to take your flight and pay it off throughout your life? No prepayment penalties. The earlier you do it, the longer you can live life sharing your experience and viewing everything through its perspective, instead of just fly and die maybe a decade later or so.

MertsA 8y ago
This sounds like a monumentally terrible deal for the creditor. There's nothing securing that loan, if the debtor went bankrupt the creditor would lose all of it. If it was secured by something like the value of a home then that's just a regular reverse mortgage.
- rory096 8y ago
  Even the initial price is not far from the credit card limits middle class people with good credit can obtain unsecured. Obviously the interest rate on that would be usurious, but Blue Origin has enough marginal profit margin (and cash) that it could conceivably finance the program at reasonable/zero interest with tolerable risk.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Just noodling about the economics, 7 passengers at $200K each is $1.4M gross revenue. So assuming very low earth orbit (basically you just need to be above enough of the atmosphere that you won't re-enter before the end of your first orbit) that is still a very low cost for a Falcon9 launch given that the second stage is not recovered. So you need to recover both stages operationally "close" to where they lifted off so that you minimize refurbishment/transport costs. I'm guessing that would be that the second stage provides retropulsion to get you back to nominal zero velocity over the return point. So that would be launch, booster returns to the pad, and the second stage pushes you up enough to insure an orbit, then your orient for return. Enjoy the view etc, and then the second stage relights to cancel your velocity to 0 as you arrive over the launch facility (you'll have to scoot 1000 miles or so east as well given planetary rotation) and then separate for a parachute landing of perhaps both the capsule and the second stage booster. Sounds pretty complex. But you would have to recover all equipment if you wanted to have a chance as meeting the economics of that.

thebluehawk 8y ago
> Enjoy the view etc, and then the second stage relights to cancel your velocity to 0 That is not feasible. Your second stage would have to be roughly as large as an entire orbital rocket in order to slow itself down from orbital speeds to zero, which means your first stage would have to be massive in order to push the second stage into orbit. The reason every vehicle that re-enters the atmosphere uses a heat shield is because it's way easier to carry a relatively light heat shield that sheds off the speed than to carry the massive amount of fuel to shed off the same speed. See https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  If instead of a circular orbit you just went for an arc with a really high apoapsis you could probably burn a little fuel to reduce the forward momentum to zero, and then proceed to slowly plummet back to earth... which then means you need a really big heat shield as that gravitational potential energy turns back into kinetic and you smack into the atmosphere at a ridiculous velocity. Scratch that, too much Kerbal.

perilunar 8y ago

And for marginally more than the cost of a single orbit, you could stay up there for days or weeks.