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Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any

Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any significant science in this.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
It's somewhat remarkable how much we've lowered the health requirements for people going to space. That's cool.
- pininja 5y ago
  Yeah, Hayley is the first person to go into space with a prosthesis. And it wasn’t special-designed for space of course.. she had her knee replaced as a kid while removing a bone cancer.
  - technick 5y ago
    This is great news as a cancer survivor.
actinium226 5y ago
You are too jaded. Isaacman could have taken 3 fishing buddies along and just made it a joyride. Instead he put all this work into promoting this mission as a fundraiser for St. Jude's.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Apparently isaacman also had cultured a habit of putting on airshows (and stunt flights) for charity since days when he was significantly less wealthy. I think that's a lesson a lot of aspirationally wealthy could learn.
naanbread 5y ago
And the 100 million he donated to St Jude Childrens Hospital? Or the 220 million target for donations during the flight? I do not understand how some people can be such a wet blanket. This is history. Civilians, further out from Earth than anyone has been in 20 years...and they were able to buy a ride. This is the beginning of commercial space flight. It's the equivalent of driving a gold spike in the Transcontinental Railway across the USA when it was completed. Now it can be used. Edit: Also, hello Hacker News. I have been a lurker for about 5 years and it was this comment that made me angry enough to make an account.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  No, the GP is right. > This is the beginning of commercial space flight. No it's not - it's the beginning of vanity rides. Well, until one blows up, that is. > this comment made me angry Sure, you're a space fanboi, we get it. You want to be entertained for free with rockets. Now go back to arguing who the best Star Trek commander was. Whoever said, "We should paint racing stripes on pairs of rockets and race them to orbit like NASCAR." had you in mind.
- interestica 5y ago
  It also now means we have a record for number of humans in space. https://mobile.twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1438298978454360064 https://mobile.twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1438298978454360064
  - aero-glide2 5y ago
    slight nuance, but record number of people in orbit, not space. When virgin galactic was in space, the total number was higher (16).
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  > this comment that made me angry enough to make an account. Wow. Well, you're welcome? Or, sorry? Welcome to HN. :)
- rektide 5y ago
  > This is the beginning of commercial space flight. Space felt like a great reaching out of humanity, a huge vast problem all mankind was venturing towards. Even amid the colossal commercialization of satellite imagery & commsats, it still felt like humanity was expanding some kind of net overall potential. This feels so lacking in the bonhomie. It further accenuates our class differences, rather than making me excited for humanity. And it feels frivolous, like we have touched greatness, begun a great journey, but have no idea what to do now, no vision remaining. The end of the "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" era.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Not much science, sure. But I'm somewhat inspired by regular people going to orbit without any professional astronauts on board. It feels more like the 1927 Charles Lindbergh flight than Apollo 11. A publicity stunt in one sense, but also the beginning of a new era of flight.
whoisthemachine 5y ago
I don't know, the bravery and courage it took for the "guests" to join this ride inspired me to donate to St. Jude. If it had just been billionaires (and a token scientist or aspirational astronaut), I may have agreed with your jaded opinion.
- simonh 5y ago
  I don’t see why anyone involved in this being a billionaire is relevant at all. Billionaire is thrown about as an insult these days. I don’t understand why being done by a very successful person detracts from the achievement. Isaacman has built a business that provides valuable services and employs a thousand people paying them a decent wage to do useful work. There’s nothing bad about that, but he’s talked about as if he was a criminal or had done something shameful.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    > Billionaire is thrown about as an insult these days. There are plenty that believe the very existence of billionaires suggests an obscene imbalance in our system of capital. (I happen to agree.)
    - aero-glide2 5y ago
      Some degree of concentration of capital is good. It helps fund long-term projects.
      - JKCalhoun 5y ago
        I don't disagree, would emphasize "some" degree.
    - simonh 5y ago
      Sure, it's a fairly commonly expressed sentiment. My question to that is, where are the big, successful, innovative products, services and companies going to come from? Who is going to create them, and who is going to own and control them? Let's take Isaacman as a fairly randomly selected example. At age 16 he identified poor practices in the payments processing market and started a business. Instead of having to wait a month for card processing to be set up for a business, he would have them up and running in 1 day. How much money has that saved the US economy? Apart from the company itself, how many jobs at other companies has that cumulatively supported? Aside from that, through his control of the company, Isaacman has steered it to greater and greater success, supporting every more jobs and customer businesses. Clearly he knows what he's doing and is the right person to run the company. So what's the sense in confiscating his share of the company? Who should it be given to, and therefore who instead of Isaacman should run it? Marxism says Isaacman shouldn't have had the opportunity to start the company in the first place. All capital allocation should be controlled by the state, putting bureaucrats in charge of everything. Collectivists say the employees should own it, but employees don't want to assume the risks that owners and investors do. They generally don't want to have to assume the responsibilities either. There's nothing to stop employee owned companies thriving in most developed countries, that doesn't happen because the dynamics of such enterprises just don't work in practice. Yes of course there are exceptions, great, but why are they so desperately few? I'm not against employees having a say in company affairs, they're legitimate stakeholders and should rightly have a voice, but control and ownership must be earned and it must come with responsibility and acceptance of risk.
dev_tty01 5y ago
How very sad for you. You are jaded. Yes, there is some science, but this is about the very early stages of opening space to a much broader swath of people. The income levels of these first few people is irrelevant. Who do you think flew on the first trans-Atlantic flights? Was it worth it for those people to fly and help airlines sustain a precarious early business model? Yes, it was. Now, most people can fly overseas with some planning and/or saving. Use your imagination to consider the longer term possibilities. All new things have a starting point.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
This is a part of a significant Science endeavor. It’s not the most or least important part, but it is a part. Whether you find inspiration or not is more a reflection of your current internal state than anything :).

Maybe I'm jaded but I find no "inspiration" in one billionaire sending another one into space. I know they took along "guests" but I can't imagine there's any significant science in this.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

It's somewhat remarkable how much we've lowered the health requirements for people going to space. That's cool.

pininja 5y ago
Yeah, Hayley is the first person to go into space with a prosthesis. And it wasn’t special-designed for space of course.. she had her knee replaced as a kid while removing a bone cancer.
- technick 5y ago
  This is great news as a cancer survivor.

actinium226 5y ago

You are too jaded. Isaacman could have taken 3 fishing buddies along and just made it a joyride. Instead he put all this work into promoting this mission as a fundraiser for St. Jude's.

dnautics 5y ago
Apparently isaacman also had cultured a habit of putting on airshows (and stunt flights) for charity since days when he was significantly less wealthy. I think that's a lesson a lot of aspirationally wealthy could learn.

naanbread 5y ago

And the 100 million he donated to St Jude Childrens Hospital? Or the 220 million target for donations during the flight? I do not understand how some people can be such a wet blanket. This is history. Civilians, further out from Earth than anyone has been in 20 years...and they were able to buy a ride. This is the beginning of commercial space flight. It's the equivalent of driving a gold spike in the Transcontinental Railway across the USA when it was completed. Now it can be used. Edit: Also, hello Hacker News. I have been a lurker for about 5 years and it was this comment that made me angry enough to make an account.

redis_mlc 5y ago
No, the GP is right. > This is the beginning of commercial space flight. No it's not - it's the beginning of vanity rides. Well, until one blows up, that is. > this comment made me angry Sure, you're a space fanboi, we get it. You want to be entertained for free with rockets. Now go back to arguing who the best Star Trek commander was. Whoever said, "We should paint racing stripes on pairs of rockets and race them to orbit like NASCAR." had you in mind.
interestica 5y ago
It also now means we have a record for number of humans in space. https://mobile.twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1438298978454360064 https://mobile.twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1438298978454360064
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  slight nuance, but record number of people in orbit, not space. When virgin galactic was in space, the total number was higher (16).
LeoPanthera 5y ago
> this comment that made me angry enough to make an account. Wow. Well, you're welcome? Or, sorry? Welcome to HN. :)
rektide 5y ago
> This is the beginning of commercial space flight. Space felt like a great reaching out of humanity, a huge vast problem all mankind was venturing towards. Even amid the colossal commercialization of satellite imagery & commsats, it still felt like humanity was expanding some kind of net overall potential. This feels so lacking in the bonhomie. It further accenuates our class differences, rather than making me excited for humanity. And it feels frivolous, like we have touched greatness, begun a great journey, but have no idea what to do now, no vision remaining. The end of the "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" era.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Not much science, sure. But I'm somewhat inspired by regular people going to orbit without any professional astronauts on board. It feels more like the 1927 Charles Lindbergh flight than Apollo 11. A publicity stunt in one sense, but also the beginning of a new era of flight.

whoisthemachine 5y ago

I don't know, the bravery and courage it took for the "guests" to join this ride inspired me to donate to St. Jude. If it had just been billionaires (and a token scientist or aspirational astronaut), I may have agreed with your jaded opinion.

simonh 5y ago
I don’t see why anyone involved in this being a billionaire is relevant at all. Billionaire is thrown about as an insult these days. I don’t understand why being done by a very successful person detracts from the achievement. Isaacman has built a business that provides valuable services and employs a thousand people paying them a decent wage to do useful work. There’s nothing bad about that, but he’s talked about as if he was a criminal or had done something shameful.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > Billionaire is thrown about as an insult these days. There are plenty that believe the very existence of billionaires suggests an obscene imbalance in our system of capital. (I happen to agree.)
  - aero-glide2 5y ago
    Some degree of concentration of capital is good. It helps fund long-term projects.
    - JKCalhoun 5y ago
      I don't disagree, would emphasize "some" degree.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Sure, it's a fairly commonly expressed sentiment. My question to that is, where are the big, successful, innovative products, services and companies going to come from? Who is going to create them, and who is going to own and control them? Let's take Isaacman as a fairly randomly selected example. At age 16 he identified poor practices in the payments processing market and started a business. Instead of having to wait a month for card processing to be set up for a business, he would have them up and running in 1 day. How much money has that saved the US economy? Apart from the company itself, how many jobs at other companies has that cumulatively supported? Aside from that, through his control of the company, Isaacman has steered it to greater and greater success, supporting every more jobs and customer businesses. Clearly he knows what he's doing and is the right person to run the company. So what's the sense in confiscating his share of the company? Who should it be given to, and therefore who instead of Isaacman should run it? Marxism says Isaacman shouldn't have had the opportunity to start the company in the first place. All capital allocation should be controlled by the state, putting bureaucrats in charge of everything. Collectivists say the employees should own it, but employees don't want to assume the risks that owners and investors do. They generally don't want to have to assume the responsibilities either. There's nothing to stop employee owned companies thriving in most developed countries, that doesn't happen because the dynamics of such enterprises just don't work in practice. Yes of course there are exceptions, great, but why are they so desperately few? I'm not against employees having a say in company affairs, they're legitimate stakeholders and should rightly have a voice, but control and ownership must be earned and it must come with responsibility and acceptance of risk.

dev_tty01 5y ago

How very sad for you. You are jaded. Yes, there is some science, but this is about the very early stages of opening space to a much broader swath of people. The income levels of these first few people is irrelevant. Who do you think flew on the first trans-Atlantic flights? Was it worth it for those people to fly and help airlines sustain a precarious early business model? Yes, it was. Now, most people can fly overseas with some planning and/or saving. Use your imagination to consider the longer term possibilities. All new things have a starting point.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

This is a part of a significant Science endeavor. It’s not the most or least important part, but it is a part. Whether you find inspiration or not is more a reflection of your current internal state than anything :).