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> Sir Richard says he has spoken to Jeff Bezos on the phone and they have wished each other well in their space endeavours. But there is no doubting there is so

> Sir Richard says he has spoken to Jeff Bezos on the phone and they have wished each other well in their space endeavours. But there is no doubting there is some edge in the relationship. Other would say that there is a billionaire space dick contest going on between Branson, Bezos and Musk...

inglor_cz 5y ago
Yet another would say: they are still people and as long as their dick contest contributes to human knowledge and technology, let them have it. Most other dick contests on the planet are far less meaningful. I for one will reach for my organic, non-Amazon-supplied popcorn and watch the entertainment. Hopefully no one dies, but given that their own skins are at stake, the flights should be safer than whatever the governments in the 1950s and 1960s did with their pool of obedient and expendable military men.
- Certhas 5y ago
  Kind of agree with the first half of your comment, but I think the second half seriously sells both the efforts to make things safe and the character of the first astronauts short. People didn't become test pilots through obedience, and I don't think they were particularly treated as expandable either.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    These are now distant times for us. Back then, the overall tolerance for loss of life among pilots was much higher. Not least because there were either active conflicts going on (Vietnam) or very fresh memories of other conflicts with large death toll (WWII, Korea). I don't think that the first astronauts were as expendable as paper tissues, no, but their level of expendability almost certainly exceeded the norm of 2021. We are being much more careful now. Even civil aviation was much less safe than today and the expectations of deaths around anything that flew were simply higher. As far as obedience goes, I can believe that test pilots are on average less obedient than an average member of the military. They might be better motivated/manipulated through feelings of national pride etc., though.
    - redis_mlc 5y ago
      > As far as obedience goes, I can believe that test pilots are on average less obedient than an average member of the military. They might be better motivated/manipulated through feelings of national pride etc., though. That's false for a number of reasons: 1) military test pilots followed orders. Chuck Yeager also said that it was a sense of duty that motivated him. Test pilots follow a "test profile", so there isn't a lot of time for showboating. If you watch some YT videos on military test pilot training, you'll understand how they're the opposite of cowboys. 2) civilian test pilots demanded 6-figure bonuses for test flights, so they were the "less obedient" ones. Though Scott Crossfield held back in the X-15 to avoid setting certain space records first by a civilian instead of the military, as requested. 3) the X-Planes program stopped and the space program started. Astronauts (often test pilots or instructors) were obedient in space with rare exceptions (the Atlantis tile near-accident resulted in a rift between the astronauts and ground control during re-entry.)
    - Certhas 5y ago
      Sure, but there is a big difference between "obedient and expendable" and highly trained to do risky things that might well kill you (and would certainly kill anyone not as highly trained). From a cynical resource investment perspective this is true, too: Infantry that you spend a week training, put in the cheapest boots possible and send to front to soak up bullets is expendable. Test pilots that are among the most highly trained pilots in your military and have decades of experience are not. I just don't think the picture where engineers build death traps and the generals order obedient pilots to fly them really applies to the type of experimental flight programs that eventually turned pilots into astronauts, where engineers and pilots would have worked closely with each other.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Yeah, I might have used too harsh words. I am not a native speaker and I am not always certain about emotional value of particular expressions. Experimental pilots of that age had a significant mortality, though. A realistic commander would have to take that into account.
- kijin 5y ago
  The space race of the 50s and 60s was an international dick contest, too. We got a lot of useful inventions out of it.
- mywacaday 5y ago
  Did Bezos step down as CEO in case anything goes wrong and the subsequent share price impact?
- skissane 5y ago
  > as long as their dick contest contributes to human knowledge and technology, let them have it Both New Shepard and SpaceShipTwo are basically dead-ends on the technology tree. In themselves, they don't really get us anywhere useful. The best that can be said is that New Shepard may have given Blue Origin's engineers some experience which may have helped them towards developing New Glenn. On the other hand, maybe New Shepard has been a distraction which has held back progress on New Glenn. What SpaceX is doing is completely different. Starship is giving us a whole new level of capability in terms of going to space compared to what we've had before. No other vendor is anywhere near as close to achieving the same capability level. New Glenn comes the closest, but the capabilities it offers are less and we don't really know how close Blue Origin are to delivering, their development process is much more opaque than SpaceX's.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    "The best that can be said is that New Shepard may have given Blue Origin's engineers some experience which may have helped them towards developing New Glenn. On the other hand, maybe New Shepard has been a distraction which has held back progress on New Glenn." This best is actually pretty good. We need several competing space corporations and learning by doing is what young space engineers need. Plus, a lot of the technology developed for NS and SST is likely to be reused in other applications. "What SpaceX is doing is completely different. Starship is giving us a whole new level of capability in terms of going to space compared to what we've had before." SpaceX absolutely has better results. Which actually is a great comeback to the "money buys everything" trope that circulates on HN or reddit so much. Compared to Bezos, Musk was a wannabe also-millionaire back in 2002. TBH I don't really understand why Blue Origin is so slow. Too much micromanagement? Bezos is famous for being an obnoxious micromanager, but maybe that works in retail and does not work in research.
    - skissane 5y ago
      > TBH I don't really understand why Blue Origin is so slow. Too much micromanagement? Bezos is famous for being an obnoxious micromanager, but maybe that works in retail and does not work in research. One theory is that it is less micromanagement than bad strategy. SpaceX bootstrapped themselves using an incremental approach. BO tried to copy that by going from New Shepard to New Glenn, but a crewed suborbital vehicle was a poor stepping stone. Being crewed, it has to work near perfectly before it can be used in revenue operation. A cargo vehicle can be used when less perfected, since you can risk loss of cargo. But there isn’t much market for suborbital cargo. Also suborbital isn’t that great as a stepping stone to orbital, you can only learn so much. They would have done much better starting with expendable orbital cargo, just like SpaceX did, and then push for reusability and crew later. Another theory is that Bezos’ choice of CEO, Bob Smith, brought a lot of slow OldSpace culture into BO. Bezos tried to poach Gwynne Shotwell from SpaceX but she refused. (It isn’t that anyone who comes from OldSpace has that culture - Shotwell started out in OldSpace too; I think the argument more is some OldSpace people say “this slowness sucks” and others are fine with it, and maybe Shotwell was the former but Smith is the later.)
BelenusMordred 5y ago
Nothing wrong with that. It's how we got good at building skyscrapers too.
tigershark 5y ago
Musk has a ginormous 120m dick though..
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't do this here.
awestroke 5y ago
How is it a contest? How can they even be compared? The first two have vanity projects that dream of one day sending payload to orbit. The third have a successful space company that have sent over a hundred rockets, including some with astronauts on board, to orbit
thom 5y ago
History often goes in the direction rich guys' dicks are pointing, regrettably.

inglor_cz 5y ago

Yet another would say: they are still people and as long as their dick contest contributes to human knowledge and technology, let them have it. Most other dick contests on the planet are far less meaningful. I for one will reach for my organic, non-Amazon-supplied popcorn and watch the entertainment. Hopefully no one dies, but given that their own skins are at stake, the flights should be safer than whatever the governments in the 1950s and 1960s did with their pool of obedient and expendable military men.

Certhas 5y ago
Kind of agree with the first half of your comment, but I think the second half seriously sells both the efforts to make things safe and the character of the first astronauts short. People didn't become test pilots through obedience, and I don't think they were particularly treated as expandable either.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  These are now distant times for us. Back then, the overall tolerance for loss of life among pilots was much higher. Not least because there were either active conflicts going on (Vietnam) or very fresh memories of other conflicts with large death toll (WWII, Korea). I don't think that the first astronauts were as expendable as paper tissues, no, but their level of expendability almost certainly exceeded the norm of 2021. We are being much more careful now. Even civil aviation was much less safe than today and the expectations of deaths around anything that flew were simply higher. As far as obedience goes, I can believe that test pilots are on average less obedient than an average member of the military. They might be better motivated/manipulated through feelings of national pride etc., though.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    > As far as obedience goes, I can believe that test pilots are on average less obedient than an average member of the military. They might be better motivated/manipulated through feelings of national pride etc., though. That's false for a number of reasons: 1) military test pilots followed orders. Chuck Yeager also said that it was a sense of duty that motivated him. Test pilots follow a "test profile", so there isn't a lot of time for showboating. If you watch some YT videos on military test pilot training, you'll understand how they're the opposite of cowboys. 2) civilian test pilots demanded 6-figure bonuses for test flights, so they were the "less obedient" ones. Though Scott Crossfield held back in the X-15 to avoid setting certain space records first by a civilian instead of the military, as requested. 3) the X-Planes program stopped and the space program started. Astronauts (often test pilots or instructors) were obedient in space with rare exceptions (the Atlantis tile near-accident resulted in a rift between the astronauts and ground control during re-entry.)
  - Certhas 5y ago
    Sure, but there is a big difference between "obedient and expendable" and highly trained to do risky things that might well kill you (and would certainly kill anyone not as highly trained). From a cynical resource investment perspective this is true, too: Infantry that you spend a week training, put in the cheapest boots possible and send to front to soak up bullets is expendable. Test pilots that are among the most highly trained pilots in your military and have decades of experience are not. I just don't think the picture where engineers build death traps and the generals order obedient pilots to fly them really applies to the type of experimental flight programs that eventually turned pilots into astronauts, where engineers and pilots would have worked closely with each other.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Yeah, I might have used too harsh words. I am not a native speaker and I am not always certain about emotional value of particular expressions. Experimental pilots of that age had a significant mortality, though. A realistic commander would have to take that into account.
kijin 5y ago
The space race of the 50s and 60s was an international dick contest, too. We got a lot of useful inventions out of it.
mywacaday 5y ago
Did Bezos step down as CEO in case anything goes wrong and the subsequent share price impact?
skissane 5y ago
> as long as their dick contest contributes to human knowledge and technology, let them have it Both New Shepard and SpaceShipTwo are basically dead-ends on the technology tree. In themselves, they don't really get us anywhere useful. The best that can be said is that New Shepard may have given Blue Origin's engineers some experience which may have helped them towards developing New Glenn. On the other hand, maybe New Shepard has been a distraction which has held back progress on New Glenn. What SpaceX is doing is completely different. Starship is giving us a whole new level of capability in terms of going to space compared to what we've had before. No other vendor is anywhere near as close to achieving the same capability level. New Glenn comes the closest, but the capabilities it offers are less and we don't really know how close Blue Origin are to delivering, their development process is much more opaque than SpaceX's.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  "The best that can be said is that New Shepard may have given Blue Origin's engineers some experience which may have helped them towards developing New Glenn. On the other hand, maybe New Shepard has been a distraction which has held back progress on New Glenn." This best is actually pretty good. We need several competing space corporations and learning by doing is what young space engineers need. Plus, a lot of the technology developed for NS and SST is likely to be reused in other applications. "What SpaceX is doing is completely different. Starship is giving us a whole new level of capability in terms of going to space compared to what we've had before." SpaceX absolutely has better results. Which actually is a great comeback to the "money buys everything" trope that circulates on HN or reddit so much. Compared to Bezos, Musk was a wannabe also-millionaire back in 2002. TBH I don't really understand why Blue Origin is so slow. Too much micromanagement? Bezos is famous for being an obnoxious micromanager, but maybe that works in retail and does not work in research.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > TBH I don't really understand why Blue Origin is so slow. Too much micromanagement? Bezos is famous for being an obnoxious micromanager, but maybe that works in retail and does not work in research. One theory is that it is less micromanagement than bad strategy. SpaceX bootstrapped themselves using an incremental approach. BO tried to copy that by going from New Shepard to New Glenn, but a crewed suborbital vehicle was a poor stepping stone. Being crewed, it has to work near perfectly before it can be used in revenue operation. A cargo vehicle can be used when less perfected, since you can risk loss of cargo. But there isn’t much market for suborbital cargo. Also suborbital isn’t that great as a stepping stone to orbital, you can only learn so much. They would have done much better starting with expendable orbital cargo, just like SpaceX did, and then push for reusability and crew later. Another theory is that Bezos’ choice of CEO, Bob Smith, brought a lot of slow OldSpace culture into BO. Bezos tried to poach Gwynne Shotwell from SpaceX but she refused. (It isn’t that anyone who comes from OldSpace has that culture - Shotwell started out in OldSpace too; I think the argument more is some OldSpace people say “this slowness sucks” and others are fine with it, and maybe Shotwell was the former but Smith is the later.)

BelenusMordred 5y ago

Nothing wrong with that. It's how we got good at building skyscrapers too.

tigershark 5y ago

Musk has a ginormous 120m dick though..

dang 5y ago
Please don't do this here.

awestroke 5y ago

How is it a contest? How can they even be compared? The first two have vanity projects that dream of one day sending payload to orbit. The third have a successful space company that have sent over a hundred rockets, including some with astronauts on board, to orbit

thom 5y ago

History often goes in the direction rich guys' dicks are pointing, regrettably.