4 ms·
your cynicism is outdone by a new method of getting into space for the general public, that will have implications for travel around the world, faster, cheaper
by mylons 5y ago
your cynicism is outdone by a new method of getting into space for the general public, that will have implications for travel around the world, faster, cheaper and more energy efficient. try looking up sometime, instead of down.
- alisonkisk 5y ago$250K/trip is not "general public". Try looking down sometime, at the billions of people who need better things than space travel.
- mylons 5y agoget over yourself. you think it’s going to be $250k in 10 years and the billions of people on the planet will not see benefit from the tech advances that come from that?
- machinehermiter 5y agoThe Concorde was inflation adjusted $12,900 round trip and failed miserably. It feels like every 10 years we bail out airlines when we hit a bad recession. I would really question how much of a business model there will be for this at this price point once you don't make a headline by just taking a flight on it.
- fighterpilot 5y ago> $250K/trip is not "general public". Almost every major hard-tech innovation was once prohibitively expensive. Look at solar panels, cars, phones, computers, etc. The cost comes (way) down later on with economies of scale and perfection of the production process.
- mylons 5y agoexactly. alison’s view is completely ignorant of history.
- neither_color 5y agoThe global middle class(about 2 billion people) can afford to fly in an airplane once in a while, something only the rich could do 100 years ago. That's worth appreciating. Technology has never advanced symmetrically for everyone and it likely never will. The only recent tech I can think of that reached everyone rich and poor alike near simultaneously is smart phones.
- fighterpilot 5y agoEven smart phones didn't if we think of their unbundled precursors. Mobile phones for example were once prohibitively expensive.
- Robotbeat 5y ago"We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt."
- Robotbeat 5y agoRight, and billionaires have been able to hitch rides to space on Soyuzes for decades, now. This is the first time an American middle class person could save up the price of a median house and buy a ticket to space. (And some Virgin Galactic ticket holders did just that.) Ironically, this is far more accessible than space has ever been. Hopefully it’s just a start. We want orbital flight and eventually flight to (and from) other celestial bodies to come down to this price (this is the goal for SpaceX’s Starship).