Seriously? You dont see the progressive step of testing and proving a new suit? Of bringing more eyeballs (and thus funding) to space research?
Comments like this boggle me how someone can be offended about massive achievements simply because they think something else should come first... who are you to set others priorities?
We need this sort of excitement and progress to continue... all too soon the ISS will be gone.
No testing and proving a new suit is an excuse. The point of the mission is to bring a billionaire into space. Is this bringing more eyeballs to space research? No. This is bringing more eyeballs to space tourism. So that more crypto bros can have a cocktail in orbit at the expense of everyone else.
I am not offended by SpaceX achievements. I am perfectly fine with SpaceX internet constellation. It has quite a crazy cost, but somehow its utility is proven for a lot of folks, not just one random guy.
> This is bringing more eyeballs to space tourism. So that more crypto bros can have a cocktail in orbit at the expense of everyone else.
What is the problem with that? This is funding space research and development by SpaceX. This just feels like a generic "few can pay for it but I don't therefore it's bad", you're just being envious.
One might argue that we are not living under capitalism anymore but more under a techno feudalism or late stage capitalism where the concentration of wealth is so massive that you are closer to the period of king than what was known as capitalism in the 20th century.
Relying on an economic system to make moral decisions is like driving in screws with a hammer.
Capitalism is not perfect, but at least to me this is more of a moral issue than an economic one.
I think your CO2 point is a great example, why would a Communist or Socialist economic system be inherently more eco-friendly than a Capitalist system? You now have a system where there is a government willing to "plan" or "intervene" in certain aspects of the economy, but unless the government actually cares about pollution nothing will happen. You could even theoretically have a centrally-planned economy that WANTS to increase emissions.
The largest polluter in the world is a Communist country, and in the last 30 years their CO2 emissions have sextupled, while the US's emissions per year have remained flat.
Not talking about communism or socialism here. Just that the "version" of capitalism we're running now produces inequalities that allow people to pull up that kind of stunts.
Of course it's a moral issue, but give enough money to immoral people, and see what happens.
> The largest polluter in the world is a Communist country, and in the last 30 years their CO2 emissions have sextupled
I guess you're talking about China here, who has a supposed "socialist market economy" (with strong private sector, stock markets and foreign investments), high wealth inequality, authoritarian governance, private property ownership and very low social welfare.
The only way China could be considered communist would be because it's a one-party state with a self-proclaimed party with "Communist" in the name, but in reality and on the ground, China isn't communist at all so not a great example.
Space exploration produces around a drop in the water of our C02 footprint for now. It is probably the hardest things to make net zero but it's such a tiny amount that it doesn't really matter.
People flying around in these things all the time is likely so far away that a totally different set of energy technologies will be available.
> Just so that this billionaire dude can spend 10 minutes in space? How much human work did this feat cost?
circa 1930s:
Look! Rich people are starting to fly in planes! It must be stopped! All this human labour, research and engineering just to that a select few get to reach the sky! Shut it down!
capitalism:
an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
Which when you think about it is absolutely amazing. To have a private company achieve this has brought traveling to space as a private citizen much closer to the average person than NASA has in 50 years.
Trailblazers like this pay and pave the way to make this more affordable and more efficient for those to follow.
This is wonderful. It’s increasingly obvious that commercial spaceflight programs are going to get the most mass and people to the Moon, Mars/Venus and Europa/Enceladus. It’s really nice to see motivated and competent people get together to push the boundaries of human achievement.
There's a bunch more companies, Sierra Space with Dreamchaser, a space plane that will dock with ISS or whatever replaces it. But there's Gravity, Rocket Lab, Astra, Relativity, Stoke etc. It's never been such a vibrant sector.
Blue Origin seems to be a vanity project for Bezos. While he seems to be taking it more seriously than Branson does Virgin galactic, he hasn't seemed to try all that hard to make as serious a competitor as Elon has with SpaceX. Elon wants SpaceX to be more than just a glorified suborbital tour-bus and is making actual progress on commercially exploiting space for more than taking millionaires and celebrities up to see freefall for a few seconds. Boeing... well Boieng is lucky if their planes don't fall apart on take off or fly themselves into the ground this decade and their spacecraft show early signs of being victim of the same systemic issues from Boeings cost saving measures like not bothering to test their shit properly first or attach all of the nuts a bolts that are supposed to be there, or make vehicles that don't autopilot straight down unless you buy the deluxe package
I'm not sure that's a fair assessment of Blue Origin. You seem to be ignoring New Glenn, their heavy lift vehicle with a reusable first stage, which will be the first non-SpaceX offering of a reusable vehicle. It may launch this year!
Bezos' only mistake, as far as I can tell, is trusting his old space experts as to the necessity of moving slowly and minimizing risk. Still, they have made fantastic progress.
Blue Origin is basically the Scotty Pippen of launch companies. It's hard to judge them objectively due to their proximity to the GOAT. If it weren't for SpaceX, they'd be the hottest company in lift tech.
How is this research hospital related to this commercial spacewalk or SpaceX? "St Jude" isn't mentioned in the article, and the page you linked doesn't mention anything besides you get a patch/sticker if you're USAian.
Good job for spaceX and great achievements. Still i think people see Space as a frontier, so it doesn't make much sense to have mass space tourism. There's now 1 or 2 generations of people that don't remember a time not long ago when there were more than 1 space stations, when the moon was visited again and again, there was a thing called 'space shuttle' and spacewalks being carried out regularly. But it was all for a purpose, not for leisure. This feels insignificant to me
There are two space stations (ISS and Tiangong), and there will soon be more. SpaceX flies more Dragons every year than the Shuttle ever managed. Humans (probably the Chinese) will return to the Moon in the 2030s and this time we just might stay.
I've always been a strong supporter of space exploration and a big fan of SpaceX in particular, but my world view has taken a turn in recent years.
As a species, our emissions have to peak next year and then be halved by 2030 to prevent the worst of climate change. That won't even be enough if the recent "hot models" turn out to be accurate. Hundreds of millions of people (at least) are going to starve this century if that goal can't be met, and the less severe consequences will drastically roll back the average quality of life. We're living in the final years of a golden age.
I admire the aspirational vision the company and its employees are pursuing, but it's a naive one. All these brilliant engineers have been seduced by it but they will more likely spend their retirement in a refugee camp than on Mars if our priorities don't change.
SpaceX is one of the most competitive employers for engineers. They're vacuuming up young talent in the US faster than NASA and have a tremendous amount of funding from both the private and public sectors. Imagine if the same resources were being funnelled towards carbon capture projects.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadComments like this boggle me how someone can be offended about massive achievements simply because they think something else should come first... who are you to set others priorities?
We need this sort of excitement and progress to continue... all too soon the ISS will be gone.
I am not offended by SpaceX achievements. I am perfectly fine with SpaceX internet constellation. It has quite a crazy cost, but somehow its utility is proven for a lot of folks, not just one random guy.
What is the problem with that? This is funding space research and development by SpaceX. This just feels like a generic "few can pay for it but I don't therefore it's bad", you're just being envious.
I don’t know where did you get that. Or even in what sense you mean it. Is this a normative or a descriptive statement?
Other than that. I feel your frustration. I don’t know what capitalism was “meant to do” but this is clearly what it delivered.
Capitalism is not perfect, but at least to me this is more of a moral issue than an economic one.
I think your CO2 point is a great example, why would a Communist or Socialist economic system be inherently more eco-friendly than a Capitalist system? You now have a system where there is a government willing to "plan" or "intervene" in certain aspects of the economy, but unless the government actually cares about pollution nothing will happen. You could even theoretically have a centrally-planned economy that WANTS to increase emissions.
The largest polluter in the world is a Communist country, and in the last 30 years their CO2 emissions have sextupled, while the US's emissions per year have remained flat.
Morality != Economics
Of course it's a moral issue, but give enough money to immoral people, and see what happens.
This "stunt" was a major achievement for humankind, maybe this "version" of capitalism isn't that bad after all
I guess you're talking about China here, who has a supposed "socialist market economy" (with strong private sector, stock markets and foreign investments), high wealth inequality, authoritarian governance, private property ownership and very low social welfare.
The only way China could be considered communist would be because it's a one-party state with a self-proclaimed party with "Communist" in the name, but in reality and on the ground, China isn't communist at all so not a great example.
Space exploration produces around a drop in the water of our C02 footprint for now. It is probably the hardest things to make net zero but it's such a tiny amount that it doesn't really matter.
People flying around in these things all the time is likely so far away that a totally different set of energy technologies will be available.
> Just so that this billionaire dude can spend 10 minutes in space? How much human work did this feat cost?
circa 1930s:
Look! Rich people are starting to fly in planes! It must be stopped! All this human labour, research and engineering just to that a select few get to reach the sky! Shut it down!
capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.
Which when you think about it is absolutely amazing. To have a private company achieve this has brought traveling to space as a private citizen much closer to the average person than NASA has in 50 years. Trailblazers like this pay and pave the way to make this more affordable and more efficient for those to follow.
Boeing and Blue Origin aren't doing great (yet?).
Hopefully Boeing Starliner can start shipping astronauts to, and more importantly, from the ISS.
Hopefully Blue Origina can fly, eventually.
Bezos' only mistake, as far as I can tell, is trusting his old space experts as to the necessity of moving slowly and minimizing risk. Still, they have made fantastic progress.
Blue Origin is basically the Scotty Pippen of launch companies. It's hard to judge them objectively due to their proximity to the GOAT. If it weren't for SpaceX, they'd be the hottest company in lift tech.
As a species, our emissions have to peak next year and then be halved by 2030 to prevent the worst of climate change. That won't even be enough if the recent "hot models" turn out to be accurate. Hundreds of millions of people (at least) are going to starve this century if that goal can't be met, and the less severe consequences will drastically roll back the average quality of life. We're living in the final years of a golden age.
I admire the aspirational vision the company and its employees are pursuing, but it's a naive one. All these brilliant engineers have been seduced by it but they will more likely spend their retirement in a refugee camp than on Mars if our priorities don't change.