17 ms·
Blue Moon
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI was waiting for this announcement. It is unclear to me how "real" this is; Bezo's claims they can meet the timeline of people on the moon in 2024. Since they aren't flying a heavy booster like the Delta IV heavy or the Falcon Heavy yet, and those platforms took about 10 years to go from concept to first flight. Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the first stage booster and building the upper stage{s} himself. Either way, its great to have someone pushing for more progress. The second successful FHeavy flight cut into the potential demand for New Glenn so the challenge is to remain relevant while building nation-state level infrastructure. Exciting to watch!
- Rebelgecko 7y agoSupposedly, New Glenn will be ready in 2021. I wouldn't be surprised if this requires New Glenn's bigass fairing— I don't think anyone is currently flying anything with the same size capabilities (although neither is Blue Origin, at the moment)
- hodder 7y agoUnlike Elon Musk, Bezos has a tendency to set more accurate timelines. This is not to say that Space X’s achievements are not incredible. They are. It is just that Elon Musk projection timelines are pretty much always bunk, while Jeff Bezos seems to be better at projecting achievement timelines. Again, what Space X and Blue Origin have achieved are incredible, and yes Space X has an entirely different set of technology that is capable of sending huge payloads to deep space... I’m just saying Musk’s timelines are completely unreliable. Bezos’ aren’t (historically).
- avmich 7y agoBut SpaceX still moves faster than Blue Origin, even though SpaceX promises to move much faster and then fails to do that.
- godelski 7y agoThey're going about it very different ways so I think from a typical bystander it is hard to see. We won't really know how accurate your statement is until we see New Glenn and if BFR ever becomes a reality. But historically BO has been right on the mark with their timelines while SpaceX (and a lot of other Musk stuff) is at least a year behind schedule.
- nickik 7y agoWrong. SpaceX is objectively faster. The New Glenn is about the size of the Falcon Heavy in terms of payload. The BFR is a whole different class that is gone be more in line with the hidden BO project the New Armstrong, but we don't really know what that is gone be. That said, SpaceX is ahead in rockets but this moon lander is something SpaceX doesn't have or is even working on.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Tepix 7y agoBy 2008, a publicized timetable for New Shepard indicated that Blue Origin intended to fly unmanned in 2011, and manned in 2012. How is that "right on the mark"? Blue origin is 19 years old and hasn't achieved orbit.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoHow 'fast' they each move is beside the point. However, a quick Googling suggests that Space X has ~3 times the number of employees Blue Origin has and may also have had more money ploughed into it. The point here is that Elon Musk is infamous for his widely optimistic forecasts while Bezos is more down to Earth (so to speak).
- zlsa 7y agoIn 2011, SpaceX said they'd fly Falcon Heavy in 2013. It actually first flew in 2018. On the other hand, Blue Origin hasn't yet reached orbit (something SpaceX did in 2008.) I do believe Blue Origin will be able to execute on Blue Moon, but they also need to demonstrate a _lot_ of hardware before boots on the moon.
- kermitismyhero 7y agoIn fairness to SpaceX, Falcon Heavy's long delays weren't a result of mismanagement or false claims. The delays were due to Heavy turning out to be largely unnecessary for routine operations and development being put on the back burner. Falcon 9's capabilities (particularly in the engines) were improved to the point where it could handle missions once thought to require Heavy. Those same continual improvements meant that it was a more efficient use of engineers' time to wait for the more-or-less final Falcon 9 design before starting serious work on Heavy. But I do share skepticism on Blue Origin. It's hard to develop rockets in total secrecy. If New Glenn was anywhere close to flying, even in an expendable test configuration, we'd at least know that much even if they chose to keep the details confidential.
- mlindner 7y agoUnlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done. Bezos still hasn't done anything that SpaceShipOne didn't do in 2004 (and that carried people, unlike their current rocket). Their little hopper rocket is leagues away from a proper orbital vehicle. Bezos hasn't given any timelines for New Glenn (their first orbital rocket). People give way too much praise to Bezos. That's not to mention all the blatant patent trolling and lobbying that Blue Origin/Bezos is engaged in which constantly tries to hinder SpaceX. (Ex: Trying to patent landing on a barge to stop SpaceX doing it. Ex: Successfully lobbying several congresspeople to delay down selection of launch vehicles for military launches (but failed to delay it).) Blue Origin is big on talk and little on action.
- partingshots 7y agoDo you have any more reading material on the political lobbying Bezos is having Blue Origin do? That sounds quite interesting.
- tracer4201 7y ago>Unlike Bezos, Elon Musk actually gets things done. As a betting gal, I disagree. source: $2MM investment in Amazon from back in 2014 has performed extremely well. Stock price isn’t exactly a golden metric, but Bezos knows how and what to prioritize and when to deliver. I would trust Bezos over Elon Musk with real money any day. Your post makes it appear as if Bezos is devoting the majority of his time to one specific company or venture, and therefore not being the industry leader is some sort of failure. That’s extremely short sighted from my perspective. The little hopper rocket you described is a better investment from my perspective than anything Musk touches. Hell, if all Bezos had was a literal tin can and merely a promise of using material from that tin can as part of a lunar lander 10 years out, I would still put more faith in Bezos. My only experience with Tesla is with purchasing a Model S, which was horrible. I no longer have that vehicle. Good riddance.
- killjoywashere 7y ago> I no longer have that vehicle. Fascinating. As a potential Tesla buyer, would you care to share your experience? Email welcome.
- goshx 7y agoI guess it is a lot easier to set more accurate timelines if you only reveal something after working on it for 3 years, like Blue Moon.
- mr_toad 7y ago> Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years. It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11. You’d think we’d be able to do things faster now.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoIts a fair point, just a matter of money and a limited number of manufacturers for the bits that make rockets fly. NASA had the advantage that as a single target they weren't overseeing three different SaturnVs, three different launch vehicles, etc. The horses here are Bezos, Boeing, and SpaceX.
- Robotbeat 7y agoThere was Red Stone, Atlas, titan, Saturn I, Ib, and V. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. multiple contractors at each phase.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI understand, I wasn't arguing that there weren't multiple contractors, only pointing out that NASA had all of its resources making one system at a time. If we combined the space launch R&D budgets of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Boeing into one pool and focused on one system, it might go faster.
- ghufran_syed 7y agoYou mean like NASA for the last 40 years?
- brycesbeard 7y agoStrongly disagree. If they were all combined, we would likely have the same level as any given Company’s progress, but no more due to the mythical man month factor. Instead we have multiple moonshots, bringing diverse approaches, and constrained by a budget. Since we know from Apollo that “if money were no object”, we can do this, it’s a good approach. The reason we never moved on from Apollo is because economics matter. We were able to beat the tyranny of the rocket equation; now we are seeing if we can do it for a much smaller amount. And we have multiple bets on different approaches.
- rory096 7y ago>Perhaps he's considering using the Delta for FHeavy as the first stage booster and building the upper stage{s} himself. Either way, its great to have someone pushing for more progress. In the past they've talked about launching Blue Moon on SLS. Not that I expect that to launch real payloads by 2024...
- maxxxxx 7y agoThat would be crazy expensive.
- jordz 7y agoHmm, no https?
- _Microft 7y agoWelp, then I am going to say it: it looks underwhelming, both in capability and looks. 6.5t of soft-landed payload to surface of moon and 2.5kW of power via fuel cells if Twitter can be trusted. A grand vision of O'Neill cylinders and whatever in space is nice but how? How? Less gradatim and more ferociter would be nice.
- Stratoscope 7y agoDo looks matter for a lunar lander? Of course it doesn't look as good as the awesome streamlined rocketship concept art I grew up with in the 1950s, I will grant you that.
- stcredzero 7y agoOf course it doesn't look as good as the awesome streamlined rocketship concept art I grew up with in the 1950s, I will grant you that. While SpaceX's concept for Starship does look that awesome. (In the form of animations and concept art, not in the form of steel water tower construction blown over on its side.)
- lutorm 7y agoStarship looks like it does because it has to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. If you don't, aerodynamic shells are just dead weight.
- dwaltrip 7y agoIt looks like a step in the right direction to me. What's your baseline here?
- shanxS 7y agoAt least someone is trying (and given the track record, will probably achieve it, Gradatim Ferociter indeed)
- nickik 7y agoYou are underwhelming by a privately funded moon lander? You realize how absurd this is? NASA has been shit for 40 years in terms of manned flight and that's why this stuff is happening. And its not a budget issue, NASA had and has quite a budget. They could fund way more interesting stuff, but they don't, so this is the best your gone get.
- IOT_Apprentice 7y agoWondering why this was posted. They are a known rocket company and owned by Jeff Bezos. Does he run this organization as mercilessly as he does Amazon? Are they using sawhorses and doors for desks?
- thrden 7y agoIf this is a lander what will they use to deliver the lander to lunar orbit? I'll admit I don't follow this sort of news very closely, but it seems quite exciting.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Rebelgecko 7y agoPresumably their New Glenn rocket
- zeristor 7y agoThey've got New Armstrong pencilled in after New Glenn for taking people to the Moon. I suppose after that would be New Sagan
- avmich 7y agoNew Glenn is quite heavy to carry some payloads to LEO which can later fl to the Moon. I'd perhaps have New Young after New Armstrong.
- yellowapple 7y agoWould New Sagan be the Amazon-sponsored lightsail-powered generation ship to Alpha Centauri?
- zeristor 7y agoAmazon Centauri, its been renamed as part of a sponsorship deal
- kermitismyhero 7y ago>I suppose after that would be New Sagan Oh, I don't know. Sounds like that sort of rocket would cost billions and billions of dollars.
- 7y ago
- twic 7y agoI'll take soft-serve over a soft landing any day: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/blue-moon-ice-cream-midwest-mystery https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/blue-moon-ice-cream-midwe...
- mlindner 7y agoThat was also my initial thought. It's hard finding it in California but found one place (Rick's Ice Cream in Palo Alto) that sells it in the bay area.
- libria 7y agoBlue Moon Brewing is also having a ball w/ this https://twitter.com/BlueMoonBrewCo/status/1126611467225247744 https://twitter.com/BlueMoonBrewCo/status/112661146722524774...
- Rebelgecko 7y agoI'm confused. Does this actually exist yet? The linked page says things like "Blue Moon is a flexible lander", and "Blue Moon can land multiple metric tons of payload on the lunar surface". Is there any actual hardware? Or is it entirely CAD drawings and renderings? They seem to be implying that the hardware currently exists and is ready to go (presumably for the Pence/Trump 2024 mandate), but the videos and pictures don't seem consistent with that. Edit: I found a bit more info elsewhere [1]. They built a nice nonfunctional model of it. It sounds like it's relatively early in development, let alone integration. They'll start testing the engines in the next few months. This sort of hyperbolic marketing copy that abuses verb tenses and grammar is a huge pet peeve of mine. [1]: https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-lander/ https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-lander/
- mlindner 7y agoNo it does not exist yet. This is a page devoted to pulling both private and public funding and something to wave in front of Congresscritters' eyes.
- username223 7y agoPretty much. President Trump wants to put a man on the moon before he's out of office (assuming he gets re-elected and makes it to 2024). Mike Pence obsequiously tells NASA to make it so. Amazon wants more sweet federal contracting money, and prepares to bid for that contract. I wish Bezos, Allen, Musk, etc. weren't burning their piles of cash to see who could be first to shoot other people at the moon, but such is the world we live in.
- T-A 7y ago> I wish Bezos, Allen, Musk, etc. weren't burning their piles of cash Allen did many things with his pile of cash (though none that I know of directly involved moon trips), but no longer: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/paul-allen-microsoft-spaceship-development-1.4870307 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/paul-allen-microsoft-spacesh...
- pier25 7y agoAstronauts train for years before going to space. Do these space tourism companies pretend that anyone with enough cash can do it?
- marstomorrow 7y agoElon's stated goal re: astronauts and training is that the technology should be sufficiently simplified to let anyone go up with minimal training. The idea of a heavily-trained astronaut is old, and the new thinking is that the people going to space should be able to spend their time up their doing whatever it is they are good at - even if just vacationing - rather than learning how to fly spacecraft etc. I know this is a Jeff Bezos / Blue Origin article, but I would fully expect the same to be true here. Jeff has stated multiple times that he sees millions of people moving to space stations for work and general life. Earth should be left void of manufacturing and mining and things, which could be moved to space (and asteroids, etc) leaving Earth to be more of a natural environment for life to thrive.
- pier25 7y agoI imagine that's the end goal but I have a hard time believing we will be there in just a few years. Time will tell.
- martronthrow 7y agoNobody's proposing "just a few years". Both Musk and Bezos have grand visions that require difficult, complex technical and financial problems to be solved. First up is lowering the cost of escape velocity such that "casual" flights are financially feasible. This includes reusable components, a very low failure rate, and an ecosystem of employees, engineers, and culture that supports it. If M/B achieves their stated goals in this domain, then the next steps can be practically executed.
- elihu 7y agoA big part of astronaut training is knowing how to fly the craft and knowing what to do if something breaks. If the machine is automatically controlled and reliable, you don't need as much training. (Maybe they'll send a trained person or two along with the tourists?)
- markdown 7y agoOT, but their web dev is an inconsiderate jerk. https://i.imgur.com/OCpESVs.png https://i.imgur.com/OCpESVs.png
- sixothree 7y agoI am still surprised by how often devs put full size images into thumbnails.
- jacobush 7y agoI have yet to gotten used to that 500x500 pictures are "thumbnail". I unconsciously expect them to be 32x32 or something... :-D
- erikpukinskis 7y agoIsn't that just what you need to do to support 2x screens?
- markdown 7y agoAbsolutely not.
- agildehaus 7y agoI'm all for anything that gets us back to the Moon, but this clearly feels underwhelming versus Starship. It'd also be good if they got to orbit prior to marketing these grand plans. Gradatim Ferociter indeed.
- mikeash 7y agoI’m glad to see a different approach. SpaceX has the “outrageously audacious” space well covered. It’s good to have a competitor working on something more incremental in case it turns out that the giant leap isn’t viable.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoBlue Origin is somewhat like the Waymo of space tech. They'll continue plodding methodically, indefinitely. And you can bet their safety/reliability record will be nigh near perfect. Yes, Waymo is the market leader in self-driving technology (unlike Blue Origin). And there's currently no analogue to SpaceX in the self-driving car market. The incredible, complementary leadership duo that Musk and Shotwell present is unparalleled in both markets.
- electriclove 7y ago"And you can bet their safety/reliability record will be nigh near perfect." Why do you believe this to be the case?
- jcriddle4 7y agoI think people believe Blue's much slower approach to space is because of more testing and planning. I am a skeptical person and believe you can learn much more by doing. As long as missions are unmanned then frankly why not take tons of risks and learn and grow lots faster. The approach Blue is taking feels like it should have diminishing returns in regards to safety and maybe even worse safety as the longer timelines may not play well with actual clearer and better thinking.
- 7y ago
- InTheArena 7y agoSo the question is going to be if you can lift this with a Falcon Heavy, given that New Glenn isn't even close to ready, and while the pace that Blue origin moves at is awesome compared to traditional space vendors, it's way behind where it needs to be for this, and where SpaceX is today.
- hanoz 7y agoHave I missed a lot of news recently, or is this some strange usage of the present tense that I wasn't previously aware of?
- AlanSE 7y agoHaving come from nuclear engineering, I'd say it's pretty typical for people speaking of large conceptual engineering designs. Paper reactors, paper spaceships, etc. are often spoken of in present tense. The design exists now and it has a name - that's the way I interpret it.
- azernik 7y agoLots of space technology companies do this, and it's really annoying; e.g. Axiom Space [1] has a "services" page and Planetary Resources [2] has a "products" page, as if these are companies actually selling something. When they actually have, respectively, bupkis and two technology demonstrators in orbit. [1] https://axiomspace.com/ https://axiomspace.com/ [2] https://www.planetaryresources.com/ https://www.planetaryresources.com/
- muricula 7y agoBlue origin can't build a moon rocket by 2024, so maybe they can settle for the lander. Here's the vision I bet they're aiming for: a Spacex rocket, a United Launch Alliance capsule, a Blue Origin lander, and a round of pork barrel in every Congressional district.
- johnvega 7y agoI'm seeing a lot of exponential technology. If Jeff B. takes more risk and focus, it could be possible. We'll see.
- elamje 7y agoNot sure why you got downvoted
- simonh 7y agoWhat on earth is exponential technology?
- OHNO_PIGONS 7y agoi think it's a buzz word for things that people think will gain internet scale cycle of development, one thing begetting another.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gjmacd 7y agoIt's like velcro, but better.
- deelowe 7y agoProbably a play on the SV 10x mantra.
- hcs 7y ago
- mediocrejoker 7y agoI didn't think Blue Origin had even put something in orbit yet. How feasible is this?
- lalos 7y agoAnybody willing to bet he will announce building an 'Amazon Sphere' like structure in the moon? Feel like that project was an experiment for later use on his other endeavors but using Amazon's deep pockets to pay for it.
- Aeolun 7y agoThat’d be some office.
- macmac 7y agoWhy does everything BO build have to be so fugly? Don't they care, are they not good enough that they can make it pretty and achieve their technical goals at the same time or are there hard constraints that dictate the ugliness?
- Dig1t 7y agoIts kind of in line with the rest of Bezo's other companies' UI/UX. Most Amazon apps are generally pretty fugly too (at least IMO).
- mitchtbaum 7y agoclassic trilemma, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilemma good, beautiful, real
- macmac 7y agoYeah, but then SpaceX.
- apendleton 7y agohttps://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7 https://www.blueorigin.com/engines/be-7 has a bit more information about the new engine, since there's basically none in the article. Looks like a small, restartable, low-thrust LH2/LOX engine meant for in-space use.
- Symmetry 7y agoThey say it's an expander cycle, given the ISP I assume a closed cycle expander rather than the open cycle expander they're using as the BE-3U.
- njarboe 7y agoNice to see some private LH2/LOX propulsion being developed, but I was hoping to see some pictures of some real hardware, not just simulations.
- cwkoss 7y agoI'd like to see us put two return rockets on the moon. Would increase the safety factor of all future manned missions significantly if a crash landing wouldn't necessarily mean death. If you could safely verify the return vehicle is ready to go before sending the people, you could potentially use a one-way lander, vastly decreasing launch weight.
- Aeolun 7y agoUnfortunately You’d have to have another launch for the return vehicle. From an efficiency perspective sending both in one go seems a bit more efficient to me (but I’m not certain, it’s possible it costs exponential amounts of fuel)
- darkerside 7y agoAnd it just sits there in the hopes of never being used? That's one expensive ass insurance policy
- mLuby 7y agoBetter safety factor would be having such regular visits that there's already another vessel in the area that can divert to assist.
- gdsdfe 7y agowait how can they claim having precise landing etc. if the thing have never been tested? did they land it on the moon before ?
- sidcool 7y agoTesting here on Earth could give them some idea I believe.
- joemaller1 7y agoDisappointed there wasn't an Amazon box in the payload illustration.
- electriclove 7y agoNice to see some advancements coming to landers from the private sector. Hope they will be able to work with other parties and move the technology forward and make it cheaper.
- Aeolun 7y agoIs there anyone else that feels like Blue Origin actually has a chance of making their own timelines, as opposed to SpaceX? Don’t get me wrong, I love SpaceX, but the down to earth way in which Blue Origin appears to be working also appeals to me.
- PHGamer 7y agobut hasnt spacex done more? i feel like blue origin is actually behind.
- bufferoverflow 7y agoConsidering the amount of money Bezos has, Blue Origin is far far behind. They only achieved suborbital flights with low-speed reentry landings.
- themodelplumber 7y agoBased on Bezos' psychology I'd guess that Blue Origin are under tremendous pressure to meet timelines, especially at the cost of trying anything fancy. Bezos is going to be solid in this game if he's able to apply his basic tool set. Plus I'll bet he's feeling fairly triggered by SpaceX. They will attempt to scale faster based on spreadsheet thinking. If SpaceX tries to compete with that, they will fail. They will need to refocus on innovation as soon as it becomes a numbers game.
- icelancer 7y agoBlue Origin is more likely to hit their targets, but SpaceX is more likely to actually do anything relevant.
- andygates 7y agoAnyone announcing that the first generation of their motor will start hot-fire testing this year and be ready for service by X date is a liar or a salesman. There's many a kaboom between test and ship. The other dates are to match the current NASA bid timescale, so they're pure marketronium.
- Robotbeat 7y agoI'm honestly underwhelmed. This is not more capability than Apollo (uncrewed variant of whose lander could land about 5 tons). A really high deck making egress difficult. Apparently expendable. Given Blue Origin's resources, they should be shooting far higher. There's a bunch of small companies pursuing expendable lunar landers of similar capabilities. I worry Blue Origin will just crowd them out. A reusable upper stage or reusable lander (or both) would be more interesting and more important. Bezos is/was the richest man and Blue origin is given roughly a billion dollars of capital every year, and a relatively modest expendable lunar lander is their big announcement? And even that they may have difficulty executing on in a timely manner. I don't think Blue Origin can't do this. I just think it's far too modest of a goal for a company with free rein over a billion dollars in additional annual capital. ...and I'm also skeptical of mass drivers (of the typical type) and lunar mining. Plenty of shade thrown at Mars, but Mars has vastly more resources. Additionally, the architecture of the lander is disappointing. A crasher stage (ala the Surveyor spacecraft which used a kick stage for deorbiting) for most of descent would be far more efficient. It'd allow a much smaller and cheaper descent stage and much lower to the ground, making egress much easier.
- azernik 7y agoOf course it's less capable than Apollo - we don't have anywhere near the lift capability of Saturn V anymore, and this program's budget is a rounding error in the $200B (inflation-adjusted) that went into Apollo. I think people underestimate just how insane the investment was in that program: in the neighborhood of 0.25% of GDP for a decade.
- sandworm101 7y agoI think people underestimate the rocket equation. In the last fifty years very little progress has been made on the basic ratios between rocket fuel, size and payload. If you want to land on the moon, in 1960 or 2026, you are still going to need the same amounts of fuel and supplies. Your landers will by necessity be similar too.
- 7y ago
- justinator 7y agoThis whole mini-site looks like an extremely audacious undergrad aerospace engineering group project. Except when I was an undergrad, it was all about going to Mars.
- themodelplumber 7y agoJoking aside...man, the antialiasing on those leg shadows...pay for a rendering team, guys!
- brandonjm 7y agoThe renders aren't that bad, but that is a terrible choice for the cutout image given the lighting angle with thin shadows.
- bemmu 7y agoThe cargo unloading sounded familiar: https://youtu.be/hmk1oHzvNKA?t=68 https://youtu.be/hmk1oHzvNKA?t=68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0nlO87evhY&t=949 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0nlO87evhY&t=949
- themodelplumber 7y agoI thought I was about to hear a Wilhelm scream but that's even better! Funny.
- jacobush 7y agoThat did a 180 for me. I'm now a Blue Moon fan!
- justinator 7y agoAlso the city I live in doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a "homeless" problem. The planet I live on also doesn't have a, "how to get to the Moon" problem, it has a climate change problem, a pollution problem, a corrupt political system problem. We've got lots of Hard Problems to solve before we need to go back to the Moon.
- mLuby 7y agoI would rather see two engines with enough TWR and gimbaling to be able to lift off with one failure. Plus then you can place the payload between them and not mess around with cranes. .O##O. /^[$]^\
- dang 7y agohttps://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-moon-lunar-lander.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-moon... has more information. (Via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19872667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19872667, which we'll merge into this thread.)
- chrstphrhrt 7y agoEpic vid, great audible sounds of space ;s
- patagonia 7y agoIt’s been said that in order to become a space faring species access to space, rocket launches, must become routine, common. Hats off to Bezos. He has certainly made it boring. You can put stuff on top of it! There is a club! The presentation opened with the most uninspired call to inspiration. And then pivoted to a call to fear. We’re gonna have to ration due to energy shortages! In a couple hundred years. Fusion? 1) It’s gonna be raw resources and real estate, not energy, that we run out of first. 2) Amazon, the company, is doing all it can to reap profits at the expense of the environment with seemingly no regards for the health of the real Amazon and other natural treasures. 3) Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty, so that argument falls flat. Not to mention the whole presentation managed to avoid mentioning SpaceX explicitly and ended with a self-referencing “Big things have small beginnings” photo of Bezos, kinda sadly insecure. I for one don’t want to live in a “manufactured” world that is “manufactured” by Amazon. My head just kept going to “Amazon Prime Planet”!! My god it will be efficient, cheap, on time, and chock full of externalities that we can all ignore because instead of being off-shored and hidden in warehouses, now they’ll be off-planet. This is how we get the dystopian future none of us deserve or want. (edit: Also, did Bezos just rip off the tag line from Prometheus, a movie whose central thesis is the inherent dangers in attempting to engineer life and worlds!? Bezos: “Big things start small.” Prometheus: “Big things have small beginnings.”
- golergka 7y ago> Amazon, the company, is a primary driver of some of the “immediate” social problems Bezos opened with such as poverty What. Amazon as a company have created enormous value for all of its clients, created thousands of jobs and value for it's trading partners. It's one of the forces that work to eradicate poverty in modern world, not the other way around.
- patagonia 7y agoYes, it has created value for its customers and investors. It has also generated enormous externalities. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, and the point is one of the main points of my argument. The other being, this is just uninspired and unoriginal. It’s a presentation by an ex-hedge fund guy on a profit play, that feels more like my know-it-all uncle lecturing the family during Thanksgiving about how we all finally see that his warnings about climate change are being proven true and that means we all have to buy Soylent Green from him. And everyone around the table just stays quiet because we are afraid he is serious and just want him to stop talking. Amazon’s unconstrained growth relies on a model that allows for limitless externalities and this requires limitless resources both as direct inputs to production and cheap or free pricing of waste handling and social costs, in order to capture the value creation and offload the costs for its customers and investors.
- jhacker123 7y agoNow everyone want to bet on future of future, but they forget the real problem like global warming (it's just one example its so many). Steve jobs have vision which is based on reality and solve the real world problem. Hope someone in tech industry solve the real problem instead problem which is never exists.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoMany of us are working on it. It's a very difficult problem because so many aspects of the carbon economy are intertwined and baked into culture now. The "halo" effect around petroleum is extremely strong and disincents many incremental advances. Could be solved top-down with a carbon tax but that's a big change and beneficiaries status quo have more of an advantage the bigger the system change being attempted. However many people are trying and failing anyway, and that creates a bed of appropriate technologies that eventually will stand on their own, and perhaps not too much slower than a top-down solution would work.
- cerealbad 7y agoat the rate this is progressing there won't be a permanent moon habitat until the 22nd century. probably a good thing since space humans will need to be genetically modified and quarantined for life.
- colinthompson 7y agoNitpick: the miss-alignment of the rendered shadow with the direction of shadows in the surface photos they comp over is maddening.
- lorenzorhoades 7y agoThere seems to be alot of hate here that blue orgin is not 'shooting high enough'. This will get 'America' back to the moon and this is a great thing! Congrats to Blue Orgin team, and I wish them all the luck.
- algaeontoast 7y agoWhen is the accompanying AWS service announcement for MoonDeliveryAsAService?