[HN Gopher] Branson and crew reach space, return in runway landing
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Branson and crew reach space, return in runway landing
Author : blackcat201
Score : 190 points
Date : 2021-07-11 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| alea_iacta_est wrote:
| I can't wait for that new wave of rich people telling us how
| "earth is beautiful from above" and how us peasants should "stop
| making kids and eat burgers" that they can continue jumping in
| their little rocket and enjoy being above us all.
| Vaslo wrote:
| When that happens we should just bombard their social media
| profiles. Won't do much to them but hopefully others will see
| it.
| Jyaif wrote:
| You just made me realize that there will eventually be social
| media exclusively available to the rich people.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It concerns me that we are so celebratory about these hugely
| energy wasting vanity projects.
| nosianu wrote:
| I think you just described life (not that of any one
| individual, but all of it, the biological meaning).
|
| PS: I usually hate snarky one-liners, especially on HN which is
| supposed to have more substance, but in this instance I stand
| by my one-liner because even after giving it some thought I
| think it's a valid reply. Asking for a reason is just useless
| after a few iterations.
|
| The first time I noticed this was when I was still pretty young
| and watched one of those nature documentary movies (The Living
| Desert, possibly). When, completely by chance, conditions are
| right life "explodes". There is no reason apart from that it
| can. And then it all goes away (meaning everything dies!) when
| conditions are not good any more. Stuff (and life) just
| happens.
| cjbenedikt wrote:
| Aren't we all so glad that a "billionaires" challenge was won.
| mylons wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| $250K/trip is not "general public".
|
| Try looking down sometime, at the billions of people who need
| better things than space travel.
| mylons wrote:
| get 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?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| > $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 wrote:
| exactly. alison's view is completely ignorant of history.
| neither_color wrote:
| The 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.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| Right, 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).
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| A much better way to spend that money than blackjack and
| hookers I say
| pstuart wrote:
| The technical term is "hookers and blow" ;-)
|
| Edit: I retract my counter -- Bender uber alles.
| Jailbird wrote:
| But there is a reason behind the phrase:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-going-to-build-my-own-
| them...
| pstuart wrote:
| I can't trump Bender -- I yield.
| neom wrote:
| "Air travel has evolved from the privilege of a few into a
| service for many." - https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-
| airports/history-o...
|
| Sure am.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Looking at the vast majority of rich people out there, this is
| at least kinda inspiring.
|
| Don't underestimate the motivational pull of such shows on
| kids. I'd rather the best brains of the coming generation to
| concentrate on space and aeronautics than on pushing even more
| intrusive ads on the rest of us.
| tzfld wrote:
| I think intrusive ads / kids dreaming to become influencers
| and other bad things are just a temporary derailment, typical
| to current generations, and disappear as the internet related
| technologies and ecosystem become more mature and settled
| down. Future generations will be more inspired by space
| travel, like in the 50s/60s. There are already signs of this.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Let us hope so. Most derailments are temporary. Certainly
| the technological window of opportunity in space seems to
| be opening again.
| shoto_io wrote:
| For that to happen, I believe the pictures must have been
| better. I watched the live stream and was quite underwhelmed
| to see how poor the footage was.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| True, but it adds a level of mystery to the activity. When
| everything is expected to be perfect, unexpected
| imperfections draw attention.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| I don't need kids dedicating their lives to building toys for
| billionaires.
| dageshi wrote:
| Yup, seems a pretty cool achievement.
| basisword wrote:
| Nice to see someone doing something exciting and inspiring with
| their money. Much more inspiring than people whining about
| billionaires on social media.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Wow, some of the negativity in the comments here astounds me.
| Hoasi wrote:
| Having differing opinions is healthy. Some of the negative
| commenters offer valid points that are worth discussing.
| king_magic wrote:
| Based on the comments in this thread, this is the most I've ever
| been disappointed in the HN community.
|
| What Branson & his team did today was _incredible_ and will pay
| off in spades for the future of humanity.
|
| I'd rather live in a world with folks like Branson instead of a
| world made up of the astonishingly short-sighted naysayers here.
| alea_iacta_est wrote:
| > What Branson & his team did today was incredible and will pay
| off in spades for the future of humanity.
|
| Terrestrial tourism has already pretty much destroyed this
| planet, what long-term good can you foresee here, seriously?
| veryoldaccount wrote:
| > June 3, 2020
|
| > Just created a new account just to tell you we're at least
| 2 conservatives in tech. Pretty sure I'll get angry and
| abandon this account very soon again because of the liberal
| bias here, and their adoration for the downvote button, but
| whatever, anything for a conservative colleague :)
|
| Glad to see your account is living its best life, and that
| you're using HN as an outlet for your anger. Really this sort
| of thing should last 3-6 months at most though, that's been
| the case for me anyway. Maybe you're in a rut? Cheers.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I agree. A new industry was just created today. Can't we just
| take that in?
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| Don't forget, this is not just billionaires and their toys, it's
| about Democratizing Space Tourism[0]. You have to admire the
| billionaires who act as guinea pigs in these endeavors. Soon
| people with a lot less money than Branson/Bezos will be able to
| fly to space and see the curvature of the globe, all thanks to
| the initial experiments by explorers like Branson/Bezos.
|
| [0] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/05/08/democratizing-
| space-o...
| alea_iacta_est wrote:
| It's a completely useless endeavour that only an unenlightened
| civilization would find attractive.
| maverick-iceman wrote:
| What's the point?
|
| Astronauts and cosmonauts who have been on the ISS's famous
| globe window...it's not like they were overwhelmed or collapsed
| onto the ground crying because of it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXi9PTh96w
|
| What makes our jaw drop is wired into our brain for
| evolutionary purposes.
|
| A wonderful wheat field = means abundant food
|
| An amazing lake/river = means abundant drinking water
|
| An incredibly attractive woman = means possibility to pass down
| genes
|
| If travelling at 600mph and 40000ft gets old so fast, I think
| so will the trip at 50 km or 100 or even 200.
|
| Bezos and Branson are happy and pumped because they are the
| people behind the effort and managed to allocate raw materials,
| human resources, goodwill, money...in a way which made them
| succeed at something so hard as space travel.
|
| But it's not unlike what the CEO of BioNtech and Moderna felt,
| or even Zuckerberg , Brin or Gates for their endevours.
| ciconia wrote:
| > it's about Democratizing Space Tourism[0].
|
| Sorry to be a party pooper, but why should space tourism be
| promoted and developed in the first place? Given the ongoing
| climate crisis is this responsible? I mean, what's the end game
| here? Having near space infested with tourists taking selfies
| and over-consuming like in pre-covid Venice [0]?
|
| [0] https://veneziaautentica.com/impact-tourism-venice/
| criddell wrote:
| Do your concerns extend to regular tourism as well? Is
| tourism between the US and Europe or Asia responsible?
| oezi wrote:
| Nice stats from the link:
|
| Cost of ISS Crew time: 130k USD per hour
|
| [This is if you bother them for their time I guess]
| tcbasche wrote:
| > You have to admire the billionaires who act as guinea pigs in
| these endeavors
|
| Or they could, you know, stop exploiting the working class to
| build their massive amounts of wealth and instead pay their
| workers properly, prevent wealth inequality, do something about
| climate change etc. etc.
|
| I honestly find it so egregious that anyone could support this
| crap because "ooooh space!"
| thehappypm wrote:
| It's a brand new industry that was created today. Sure, there
| are lots of problems to be solved in the world, but new
| industries are exciting and who knows what will come next.
| tcbasche wrote:
| I can tell you what comes next: yet more billionaires and
| wealth hoarding and still more problems in the world.
|
| I guess my point is does the average person struggling to
| put food on the table really care that a new industry was
| 'created'? Is there a place in this industry for those
| people?
|
| I think this touches a nerve though with the HN crowd, as
| this kind of argument tends to make them rankle
| ytNumbers wrote:
| Anytime a new industry is created, jobs for average
| people are created. Many people say they are angry that
| average people are struggling to secure a tiny slice of a
| finite pie, while most of the pie is hoarded by
| billionaires. I prefer to believe that when a new
| industry is created, a new pie is created, and some
| average people will wind up earning a slice of that new
| pie. Since average people are struggling to get by, you
| can't expect them to create a new industry. While some
| rich people play golf all day, I'm glad to see that some
| on HN are cheering a billionaire who instead decided to
| put forth the effort to create a new industry.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think that what's most impressive is seeing a billionaire put
| his money where his mouth is. The rich can live a life with near
| zero risk and live in absolute luxury for a longer than average
| life span. Or you can do things like this.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I remember in the 1980s Branson flew almost entirely across the
| Atlantic by balloon only to crash off the coast of Ireland.
| Plus the powerboats, Breitling Orbiter and most bravely I
| think: appearing in drag to promote his wedding business.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > appearing in drag to promote his wedding business.
|
| Even he now admits that "Virgin Brides" (actual name) wasn't
| his strongest idea :-D
| LeonM wrote:
| I remember Brandson talking about this in a podcast (I
| believe it was 'how I built this', not sure though), he
| said it was his worst idea but the best name he ever had
| given to one of his companies. I must agree with that one!
| stevep98 wrote:
| He was talking in a press conference after Virgin Brides
| was already closed down. The journalist asked him why it
| failed, and he said "no customers", which was pretty
| funny.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Most self-made rich people get that way because they have a
| higher tolerance for risk than your average person.
|
| (Also, in before "survivorship bias!!": yes, there are also
| many more risk takers who went broke - that doesn't change the
| fact that Branson/Bezos/Gates etc. have a higher tolerance for
| risk than most)
| newsclues wrote:
| It's easier to take risk if you have a safety net, and family
| wealth is a hell of a safety net for risk takers in
| capitalist markets
| simonh wrote:
| In context it should be pretty clear this is also about
| physical risk, not just financial. If the re-entry
| procedure failed again being a billionaire isn't going to
| cushion the impact much.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Without defining rich and "self-made" pretty tightly your
| statement is pretty weird. If someone with nothing risks $100
| is that an indication of more or less risk tolerance than a
| billionaire risking 200 million?
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| I think someone with next-to-nothing risking everything
| demonstrates significantly more risk than a billionaire
| risking a fraction of his wealth. One person has everything
| to lose, and the other isn't really risking that much (I've
| personally risked more than 50% of my entire net worth on a
| single bet when I was already doing well - it's a
| ridiculously comfortable position to be in and doesn't
| really demonstrate anything other than privelege).
|
| I think a more interesting question is comparing someone
| with $100 to someone with $1 billion risking their entire
| net worths - who has taken on more risk?
| endisneigh wrote:
| In your example they've taken on same risk. Arguably
| still the poorer person as you have to take into account
| the ability to regenerate wealth.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| I see it differently, although without context we're
| really just projecting our own assumptions.
|
| The poor person is likely to starve to death. I doubt the
| billionaire would ever experience that hardship even if
| he lost everything, he probably still has some lines of
| support. Hell, just his reputation alone can probably get
| him an enormous loan or job or something else that other
| people could only ever hope to have.
|
| Masayoshi Son is famous for losing more money than anyone
| in history, and he goes out and raises the largest VC
| fund in history (which is a laughable failure) and is
| doing it again (apparently logic doesn't apply). Once you
| reach that status people will worship you even for your
| failures. Nobody ever pays attention to the person who is
| struggling just to get by.
|
| https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/billionaire-
| news/...
| endisneigh wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're saying - it sounds like you're
| agreeing with me, then?
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| My apologies - I accidentally added a negative somewhere
| (I didn't get enough sleep). Yes, I think we agree.
| Cheers.
| xur17 wrote:
| But it's not just financial risk, it's the risk to his
| physical safety / life that he takes.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Ok, dangerous jobs are overwhelming taken by poor(er)
| people.
|
| The idea that rich people take more risks is laughable.
| Rich people simply gain more from having taken the same
| risk as a result of the compounding effect of capital
| investment.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| >>The idea that rich people take more risks is laughable.
|
| No one was arguing that. The point being made is that
| Branson is taking a significant risk given all he has to
| lose - which is far more than a non-wealthy person - if
| he were to die.
| endisneigh wrote:
| So what? Why does it matter if he is rich or not? The
| other crew members had just as much to lose if they all
| died, no?
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I think a 70 year old has less to lose and more incentive
| to take a risk on things he really wants to do than a 57
| year old. No matter how rich you are, you can't stop
| aging (yet).
|
| And when you risk sudden catastrophic death, I'm not sure
| that the wealthy person really has more to lose than a
| poor person, we all only get one life. His heirs will be
| taken care of either way, how can his life be valued
| higher than, say, one of his pilots?
| Applejinx wrote:
| Pretty sure everybody who dies loses 'everything', for
| all practical purposes.
|
| They lose the universe. I don't see a distinction, to the
| person. To the outside world it's bound to seem very
| different, but they're the ones left behind to care.
|
| I would also answer the 'as a mega-rich person he has
| much more happiness and satisfaction to lose than a poor
| man who is just poor and wanting to die!' question by
| asking: how do you think these hyper-achievers get to
| where they are?
|
| I think it's possible that the relative angst level
| doesn't change, either. It's just that the poor man
| punches the guy on the adjacent barstool and gets thrown
| in jail. The rich man punches a COUNTRY, or a class, or a
| demographic, and typically gets cheered for his trouble.
| RIMR wrote:
| Richard Branson can still live a life with near zero risk, in
| absolute luxury for longer than the average life span after
| doing this though.
|
| He's still a Billionaire. He didn't "put his money where his
| mouth is", he bought a custom spaceship using a fraction of his
| enormous net worth, and rode it out of the atmosphere as a
| stunt. He hopes he can make a business out of it for other rich
| people who want to do the same.
|
| This isn't inspiring. Virgin Galactic spacecraft are purely
| recreational. They offer zero scientific or business purposes
| outside of selling wealthy people tickets on a rare adventure
| to nowhere.
| Jabbles wrote:
| It's not true they offer no scientific value. A few minutes'
| continuous zero-g for relatively low cost is useful for some
| experiments.
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/features/nasa-
| support...
| SergeAx wrote:
| I am not sure about cost effectiveness of this. I may
| experience 10 episodes of 30 second zero-g in parabolic
| flight for equivalent of $3750. It is almost $6000 (5000
| euro) for non-Russian citizens plus ticket to Moscow plus
| accommodation, but still. Compare with $100-250k for 3
| minutes of continuous zero-g with Virgin Galactic.
| thehappypm wrote:
| You're right, besides its business purpose, there is no
| business purpose.
| cptaj wrote:
| I've never understood why most millionaires don't use the money
| to do interesting things at all
| xwdv wrote:
| Because being a millionaire simply is not enough to do
| "interesting" things. Most people in tech become millionaires
| around age 30. It's not uncommon.
| SeanBoocock wrote:
| No they don't? Most people in tech don't live/work in SV,
| or even the United States. Even for those that do work in
| SV, most aren't working for FAANG or elsewhere for
| comparable comp.
| odiroot wrote:
| David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs is an electronic
| music producer.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Some interesting things are scary, though.
|
| If I were a millionaire, I would still be afraid to try out
| deep diving or rock climbing, even though I greatly enjoy
| reading about them or watching the videos. My experience is
| that I will panic in certain situations and that could easily
| be fatal.
|
| Just yesterday we had a thread about the famous cave rescue
| here. Brrr, the very idea is attractive and repulsive at the
| same time.
|
| Perhaps Branson has a lower than average threshold of risk
| aversion.
| spfzero wrote:
| Well, he did wait until the fourth flight, so he is doing
| _some_ risk assessment.
| sobellian wrote:
| There's a joke that the quickest way to become a millionaire
| is to be a billionaire with a rocket company. Musk certainly
| bucked the trend in that regard.
| [deleted]
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Technically, my wife and I are millionaires. This is a
| combination of the (anticipated) value of our house, our
| pension funds and some investments. We are retired and living
| comfortably but within our means.
|
| Our funds have to last for the rest of our lives. There is no
| way we could suddenly use our 'wealth' to fund a
| 'millionaire' project.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| I have argued this point with my old married former union-
| employee relatives that see themselves as "poor". Combined
| they have a $6000/month pension. When I explain I will need
| to save $2M+ to achieve that income they suggest that I am
| just greedy/out-of-touch millionaire who should be giving
| more money away.
| Applejinx wrote:
| This math seems wrong. In particular, I can't tell
| whether your $6000/mo is meant to be interest: in which
| case you expect to be paid forever and die without ever
| touching the principal.
|
| If you earn no interest and expect to spend $6000 a month
| forever without ever gaining any passive money
| accumulation on your principal, you'd go for 27 years
| before you'd spent your two million.
|
| There are also many things you can do with your life if
| you have $2M (or indeed $1M) that aren't available to
| pensioners. I'll grant you, they've got some pretty sweet
| pensions: that seems unusual, but hey, collective
| bargaining gets better terms for workers and that
| certainly qualifies.
|
| They're not poor unless they're catastrophically bad at
| money management, but you are indeed a little out of
| touch: the idea of living off the interest on your wealth
| is pretty insane and unattainable to any remotely normal
| person.
| dboreham wrote:
| I suspect your math didn't account for inflation.
| fma wrote:
| It's called safe withdrawal rate...and usually 4% is what
| people use. $2 million safe withdrawal rate = $6666 per
| month. Not sure why you are seem to be offended and
| saying they are out of touch, or insane and unattainable
| when this is the goal for many people who wish to, and
| are, living financially independently.
|
| Also I'm not sure why you say someone with $2M can
| achieve something that someone with $6000 pension a month
| can't...you can definitely borrow against your pension
| and grab a large lump sump...
| ixacto wrote:
| This is the clashing of two different life paths
| ideologies' e.g. the union/public service employee. Of
| course people will have opinions on this, because they
| will be somewhat resentful of those on the other side.
|
| The elephant in the room is that say you have $2MM in the
| bank and are living off that interest, or are a retired
| union/public service worker and then you look at how long
| it took at how long it took to achieve your financial
| success.
|
| If you save 1/2 of salary in VTI (say 100k-150k range)
| coming out of a bachelors degree and work for 10-15 years
| at one of the large tech companies you will have 1.5-2MM
| USD, which is easily enough to retire on. And you'll be
| like 32-37years old and still be able to climb Mt.
| Everest, hike the PCT or AT and probably still have your
| health.
|
| However if you are a teacher starting out in California,
| that would be a 44-50k year range
| https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp which
| yes is really low. Then you work for 40 years and
| hopefully are able to make enough pension contributions
| to be able to retire at age 62 and have a decent pension
| of that 5-6k/mo. By this time lots of people are starting
| to have health issues and will not be able to go on the
| adventures that a 32-37y/o would be able to. Also you
| kinda have to work an extra 30 years.
|
| TL;DR: Incentive structure for being a teacher is not
| really there, also benefits are not really there. Maybe
| Scandinavian countries have a better compensation and
| work life balance?
|
| Incentive to work in tech industry or similar high-paying
| jobs is there, as financial independence is readily
| obtainable within 10-15 years.
| nly wrote:
| It still quite hard to achieve FI early, even on a tech
| salary.
|
| I can't speak for San Fran, but I'm on a pretty good (by
| UK standards) tech salary in London. The cost of living
| (rents mostly) still make putting a high % of salary away
| every month a challenge. If you have kids as well, it's
| almost a non-starter.
|
| The marginal tax rate means the only mechanism to do this
| efficiently are via pension contributions (similar to a
| US 401k), and these are locked until age 55 (60 by the
| time i get there).
|
| Financial independence in your 30s is an enormous
| privilege.
| nly wrote:
| > the idea of living off the interest on your wealth is
| pretty insane and unattainable to any remotely normal
| person.
|
| I'm not sure why you say that when this is now the
| dominant form of pension/retirement planning in countries
| like the US and the UK. People generally buy annuities
| with their pot, or keep it invested and go in to
| 'drawdown', living off the returns.
|
| The couple with $6000/mo pension are probably
| _guaranteed_ that income for life. It may even be
| inflation adjusted annually.
|
| Someone aged around 60 who wants a inflation adjusted
| lifetime annuity here in the UK is going to start on
| around 2%/yr these days[0]. This isn't unreasonable given
| a 3% inflation expectation, 30 years of life expectancy,
| and 30 year UK gov gilts yielding just 1.2%[1]. So
| $6000/mo on equivalent terms could require a $3.6M pot
|
| You can invest your lump sum more aggressively of course,
| but if you're not disciplined enough to keep withdrawals
| below a safe rate (widely believed to be 3-4% for a stock
| portfolio), and suffer a bad run of variance, you'll risk
| running out of money and dying in poverty.
|
| [0] https://www.hl.co.uk/retirement/annuities/best-buy-
| rates
|
| [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Bond/TMBMKGB-30
| Y?count...
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| If you have $1M and have it invested in a no-load S&P
| tracking fund (historically approx 9%, and hope you don't
| have a down year), then you'd have $90k/year income on
| the interest alone.
|
| After taxes (long-term capital gains, let's assume the
| 15% or 20% bracket, unless Biden gets his wish to
| increase that), most likely around $13,500 (@ 15%) per
| year, that would be reduced to $76,500/year, which is
| $6,375/month.
|
| On the other hand, if you have a "safe withdrawal rate",
| as fma suggested, (and which seems to be very wise to
| protect against down years which could permanently reduce
| your nest egg) then that income would be halved,
| requiring approximately double the initial investment to
| result in a $6k post-tax income.
|
| And as far as it being "the idea of living off the
| interest on your wealth is pretty insane and
| unattainable", this is just categorically untrue; many
| mid- to upper-class families in the U.S. with two incomes
| make in the $300k to $1M range, so even if they only put
| away 4% to 10% in their 401(k) or other retirement plans
| for 30 years, they'd easily make that number.
| mlyle wrote:
| Safe withdrawal rate accounts for inflation and taxation
| related effects, too.
|
| If you have $1M returning 9% per year, and withdraw
| $90k/year, you're either going to be spending less in
| real money in each year -- as inflation reduces the value
| of $90k and the amount of tax increases each year-- or
| you're going to be withdrawing more each year and
| depleting the principal.
| Applejinx wrote:
| "to any remotely normal person'. How normal is this in
| the grand scheme of things? Roll a million-sided dice and
| select a random person: let's say, somewhere in the USA
| to steelman the argument. How often will you get a person
| in a two-income family where the incomes combine to the
| $300k and up range?
|
| I'm not at all sure $300k will get you to that 'living on
| your interest' point in all places in the USA, either,
| and that makes it tougher on the argument. There are
| plenty of places where $300k will not let you put away a
| blessed thing in any retirement plan, and those are the
| places where people earn these 'insane' sums.
| [deleted]
| ausudhz wrote:
| Fear or loosing them all
| jdavis703 wrote:
| An average house in most Bay Area counties costs over
| $1,000,000. That's even outside SF and Silicon Valley. Being
| a millionaire is hardly enough money to do interesting things
| that require intensive capital.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > An average house in most Bay Area counties costs over
| $1,000,000.
|
| Not unless 2 (San Francisco and Santa Clara) is more than
| half of 9.
|
| > That's even outside SF and Silicon Valley.
|
| Nope, its pretty much exactly SF and Silicon Valley.
|
| https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2021-
| q...
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Land is expensive, not houses. Land is non depreciating,
| financed by loans, not substantially part of wealth.
| _Houses_ are mostly under $300K depreciating consumables.
| chacho wrote:
| In the US. Different story in Europe or other places
| mbroncano wrote:
| Most decently sized apartments in any major European city
| are in that range.
| akvadrako wrote:
| A million is not much for a flat in many major cities
| worldwide, but it is a lot for most places in the US.
| adamvalve wrote:
| Seriously, most billionaires are so fucking boring. Imagine
| all the interesting things you could do. Most of them just
| buy homes and yachts. Who's spending billions on a future
| tech iron man suit or building a utopia under the sea? Not
| that those are worthwhile but it would at least be
| interesting.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| That stuff is only interesting if you find it interesting.
|
| I like the idea of an undersea utopia, but I don't think
| I'd enjoy the reality of funding and developing it enough
| to want to spend my fortune on it. It sounds like a lot of
| work and more than a full time job, you can't just throw
| $100M at your cause and expect it to be done in a way that
| meets your vision, you need to be there to oversee and
| guide it and make sure your money is being spent wisely. (a
| good example is Disney's EPCOT -- Disney's vision was to
| make it a real living city, after his death it was turned
| into just another theme park)
|
| A home in the Mediterranean and a yacht sound much more
| inviting, not to mention less risky than living in an
| undersea habitat that I just built.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Do you happen to know most billionaires or something?
| Asking because this summary of "most of them just buy homes
| and yachts" sounds curiously like one of those straw man
| POVs.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| It's quite possible that billionaires are doing low-cost,
| low-profile activities that fly under the radar. But for
| the expensive ones that leave behind accessible evidence
| we see them owning sports teams, sailing and yachts and
| purchasing art.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Most people are boring. Even the moderately wealthy with
| plenty of disposable income.
| duped wrote:
| Why go to space when you can influence elections and
| government policy without accountability
| burlesona wrote:
| Most Billionaires are only Billionaires because of the
| value of the company they own a huge number of shares in,
| and they're busy running that company which consumes all
| their time and energy. They also can't cash out their
| shares (or at least not most of them) without risk of
| losing control of their company, so they don't actually
| cash in on their vast wealth. Instead they're happy to be a
| Billionaire on paper and "merely" live as a Millionaire.
|
| Edit since I'm getting downvoted: yes the ultra rich can
| and do live off debt with their stock as collateral, but
| that gets you to the "merely" living a luxury lifestyle
| point. It's not a viable mechanism for funding SpaceX, Blue
| Origin, Virgin Galactic, etc, which is the kind of
| "interesting stuff" this thread was talking about.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| This is not true. They can sell a fraction of shares, or
| get loans against collateral, and have $billion of cash
| is to spend.
| v7p1Qbt1im wrote:
| Not really. They just get loans at incredibly low
| interest rates, using their equity as collateral.
|
| They can deduct dept/interest payments from taxes and
| never actually have to sell a lot of their stock. That
| way their wealth can accumulate and they don't really
| generate income. Almost like the tax code is skewed in
| their favor.
| heliodor wrote:
| You too can take out a loan against some collateral and
| have the same tax treatment.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| How does the interest deduction work? I thought mortgage
| interest was the only interest people can write off their
| taxes.
| dempseye wrote:
| They have the ability to borrow vast amounts against the
| value of their equity.
| burlesona wrote:
| _Millionaires_ don't have enough money. Branson is a
| _billionaire_.
|
| Most Millionaires do all kinds of interesting things, it's
| just that those things are in the same realm that ordinary
| people can. Eg they go to Aspen and ski, which lots of non-
| millionaires do, but unlike the plebes they stay in a super
| high-end hotel or condo, or just buy a vacation home there if
| they visit often enough.
|
| Being a millionaire, < 10M net worth, is not actually that
| rare or exceptional.
| cheschire wrote:
| Billionaires' doors open like _this_ \o / and not like
| _this_ --o--
| nine_k wrote:
| Bringing SpaceX to the first spaceflight only took about
| $100M, firmly in the "millionaire" range. Falcon-1 was not
| capable of carrying a human to space though.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| That's 100x what you need to be a millionaire. I'm a
| millionaire, a few times over in fact, but there's no way
| I'm launching a space plane.
| nine_k wrote:
| Still $100M is a literal order of magnitude away from a
| billionaire status, mentioned upthread.
|
| In any case, a millionaire can technically have wealth
| spanning 3 orders of magnitude; no way this could be a
| homogeneous category regarding what's a "millionaire" is
| capable of financially.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Pretty much the only person who can throw $100M at a
| "fun" project that may never amount to anything more than
| a hobby is someone at the billionaire level.
|
| Few hundred millionaires are passionate enough about
| something to spend their entire fortune on it.
| lifty wrote:
| Are you doing anything else interesting? Genuine question
| out of curiosity.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| You could probably get to single passenger VTVL flights
| in Armadillo / XCOR style with a few million and starting
| from scratch.
| nine_k wrote:
| Maybe they do, but those things are not very interesting for
| us, or not very showy.
|
| (Also, a millionaire is technically someone with at least $1M
| net worth; thanks to inflation, this title is now more
| accessible than ever. Just owning a semi-decent house in the
| Valley affords you that.)
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Just owning a semi-decent house in the Valley affords you
| that._
|
| Of course, many of those people don't really own the house,
| the bank does... and for many of them, their million dollar
| equity in their house exists only on paper.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Rather owning _any_ house
| orzig wrote:
| Then you will love this documentary of an early Google
| engineer jumping from the edge of space in a custom suit:
| https://www.space.com/alan-eustace-stratospheric-skydive-
| fil...
|
| His wife's commentary is the best part
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Because a million dollars isn't that much money compared to
| the cost of interesting things.
|
| Multibillionaires are a different story.
| high_byte wrote:
| definitely. he's got amazing personality. gem from wiki:
|
| A series of disputes in the early 1990s caused tension between
| Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, which viewed Virgin as an
| emerging competitor. Virgin subsequently accused British
| Airways of poaching its passengers, hacking its computers, and
| leaking stories to the press that portrayed Virgin negatively.
| After the so-called campaign of "dirty tricks", British Airways
| settled the case, giving PS500,000 to Branson, a further
| PS110,000 to his airline, and had to pay legal fees of up to
| PS3 million. Branson distributed his compensation (the so-
| called "BA bonus") among his staff.
| vidarh wrote:
| Branson does have a long history of doing things that'd make an
| insurer break out in hives. E.g. assorted boating and
| ballooning record attempts.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Rest in Peace Steve Fossett
| avmich wrote:
| I think the biggest Steve's achievement was the non-stop
| flight around the globe in the plane, but balloons are also
| an important part of his life story.
| steve76 wrote:
| PUNK ROCK SUCKS!
| songzme wrote:
| Imagine the heat waves when space travel becomes more accessible.
| 10 years ago I would have celebrated this because it is an
| incredible technical achievement. But today, I just have a hard
| time celebrating such flagrant acts of pollution.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Imagine this were the reaction when Kennedy proposed the USA
| should put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, "not
| because it is easy but because it is hard".
| fallingknife wrote:
| It's a good thing the Nazis came up in the 40's because we
| would lose the war if it happened now.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| You're probably downvoted for invoking the Nazis but the
| sentiment holds and the question to be answered is what
| current generations would want to fight to protect. This
| used to be called "freedom" but that term has gotten a
| severe beating starting in the late 60's, especially in the
| USA. The end of the cold war also plays a big role here
| since it robbed "the west" of a clear direction by robbing
| it of its "enemy". After the demise of the Soviet Union
| those who fought its influence were left aimless while
| those who supported it were left (spiritually) homeless.
| The former group seems to be searching still while the
| latter group has proven to be more agile in (re)finding
| their cause, the results of which are showing more clearly
| by the day. This may eventually lead to the former group
| uniting around the cause of fighting the latter group,
| destabilising the country even more.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Doing it the first time is interesing.
| songzme wrote:
| I'm sorry I don't see your point. When Kennedy proposed USA
| should put a man on the moon, fewer people were concerned
| about climate change than there are today.
|
| How do you make sense of the intensifying forest fires,
| hurricanes, heat waves, and someone burning fossil fuels to
| go to space?
| the_third_wave wrote:
| People had another cause to worry over back in those days,
| this being the cold war between the west and the east. With
| the demise of the Soviet Union came the freedom (for some)
| and need (for others) to find new causes to fight for,
| climate change being one of them. The USA was hit by a
| number of record-setting heat waves in the 30's [1,2] which
| are probably best-known under the colloquial term "Dust
| Bowl" - _the 1930s (the Dust Bowl years) are remembered as
| the driest and warmest decade for the United States, and
| the summer of 1936 featured the most widespread and
| destructive heat wave to occur in the Americas in
| centuries_ [3]. There was no talk about climate change back
| then because people were too busy trying to survive the
| dust bowl and the resulting economic effects while still
| reeling from the great depression which preceded it.
|
| [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1815380C/a
| bstra...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
|
| [3] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/201
| 0/06/...
| giantandroids wrote:
| I don't know much about this project at all and that will be
| illustrated well with my following question. What are we talking
| about as far as going into space? This craft resembles a
| passenger plane more than a rocket.
| cptaj wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=352P0sLMnsw
|
| Quick explanation of orbital vs suborbital spaceflight
| ausudhz wrote:
| They idea is to have fast international flights by allowing the
| plane to go in the orbit for a short while and come down again.
| So instead of spreading 10 hours in a flight you may cut it
| down to 3
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Is it? I can't find any mentions of that plan. This ship was
| designed for space tourism, the burn is so short it doesn't
| really go much far - it even lands back on the same location
| it launched from.
|
| On top of that, a seat will cost half a million dollars.
|
| SpaceX and maybe Blue Origin can do that, but Virgin would
| need a different aircraft.
| sschueller wrote:
| Space X and blue origin can not do that. Sure they can get
| a rocket up but you can't launch a giant rocket at Heathrow
| Airport. You can take off in an aircraft carrying a
| payload.
|
| What space x proposed with their point to point listing
| cities such a Zurich Switzerland is insane. If you launch
| in the middle of Lake Zurich you will blow out every window
| in the city and probably permanently deathen part of the
| population. Zurich is a tiny city. Thinking there would be
| multiple flights like this per day when we can't eve deal
| with the plane noise is insane.
| ausudhz wrote:
| https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-
| unve...
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Yeah, that's a completely different design for high speed
| travel in the atmosphere.
| ausudhz wrote:
| It doesn't mean anything, virgin galactic was initially
| developed with this in mind. Space travel for tourist is
| just a side effect.
|
| Space X and Blue Origin are design for space exploration
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Your original reply was to this, and I'm commenting in
| this context:
|
| > What are we talking about as far as going into space?
| This craft resembles a passenger plane more than a
| rocket.
|
| Whatever plans they may have for international flights,
| they seem unrelated to the craft we saw today - the
| proposed design in the article you linked is for a new
| "conventional" supersonic plane, not going to orbit and
| back a la Starship with SpaceShipTwo.
|
| Also, I thought Virgin Galactic was founded specifically
| with space tourism in mind, not transportation?
| basisword wrote:
| I thought the point of it was space tourism (eventually
| "affordable) and how inspiring it would be for more people to
| get to see the earth from that perspective.
| ausudhz wrote:
| No, that's just a side business at least for virgin. Their
| main focus was to make high speed flight internationally.
| After all Richard Branson already own an airline (Virgin)
|
| https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-
| unve...
| basisword wrote:
| Interesting! Thanks for the link.
| jccooper wrote:
| It's a quick suborbital jaunt. Carried on another aircraft to
| 50,000ft, then on rocket power to (the edge of) space, and then
| back down after a couple minute in freefall. Glides and lands
| on runway.
|
| Apogee between 50mi and 100km (which are two "lines" of where
| "space" begins.)
| xamdam wrote:
| This is amazing and inspirational engineering.
|
| Can they scale this up to taking humans & large payloads to
| orbit? It seems hard to run this business sustainably on
| millionaire tourists, 4-minute science experiments and ads.
| Anyone have an idea of what their business plan is?
| gameswithgo wrote:
| no, the design isn't applicable to orbital flight
| jerkstate wrote:
| Proof that space travel is easier than Formula 1
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Less rules! you only have to obey physics and not the stewards.
| cj wrote:
| > If today's flight reaches space successfully it will set a
| record: there will be 16 humans in space simultaneously for the
| first time ever.
|
| I hope Moore's law applies to this!
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| Moore's law happens when the output of the system can be used
| to improve the system that produced the original output. In
| other words some recursion is required. It also requires that
| there is an economic need for more output.
|
| So yes if somehow putting engineers and labs in space allows us
| to iterate faster or spaceship designs then the first
| requirement is achieved. Then there's the question if the
| masses want to travel to space. Unlikely unless it just so
| happens to speed travel and reduce cost for getting from Earth
| point A to Earth point B.
|
| We'll see.
| phreeza wrote:
| > Moore's law happens when the output of the system can be
| used to improve the system that produced the original output.
|
| This is a thing that possibly facilitates exponential
| progress, but it is by no means a prerequisite. I have a hard
| time believing that compute power has been the bottleneck in
| chip design for many years now.
|
| Other current counterexamples include solar cells and
| batteries. They have been improving exponentially, but no
| recursion to speak of comes to mind.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| My understanding was Moore's law implied a form of doubling
| at at least every 24 months.
|
| Otherwise why not just say {qualifier} exponential growth.
| fallingknife wrote:
| > Unlikely unless it just so happens to speed travel and
| reduce cost for getting from Earth point A to Earth point B.
|
| I doubt that anyone I know would pass on a ticket if it was
| affordable.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| Many people would pass, including me and most of my
| friends, due to the environmental impact and radiation
| exposure.
|
| It also seems like a dumb way to die if you aren't
| contributing to a mission in someway. It's cool to die as a
| researcher, explorer, or pioneer like Branson. But as a
| popcorn eater who can afford to overpay for a roller
| coaster ride ?
|
| On second thought, if the marketing was good and I had
| kids, I admit I be tempted.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| SpaceX has a pretty strong economic motivator in the form of
| Starlink. Starlink is also facilitating Starship launches by
| providing telemetry during launch (or at least that's the
| goal).
|
| Eventually, Mars (or other places like the Moon or asteroids)
| may become a base of operations for launch due to lower
| gravity. This could, in principle, make things like space
| based solar feasible. Such large structures would probably be
| best built by mechanized astronauts just like Starships on
| Earth. ...and see experiments with EVA assembly of telescopes
| and other structures NASA did in the 1980s and 90s... orders
| of magnitude faster than space robotics, held back by
| insanely high cost of human spaceflight. So if you made human
| spaceflight cheap, that'd make large space structures cheap
| as well. Mars or the Moon or asteroids could provide lower
| cost and lower ecological footprint propellants, enabling
| more space travel and potentially reducing terrestrial high-
| impact industry.
| gspr wrote:
| Starlink has little chance of being the cash cow that the
| muskrats think. Look, it's low latency satellite internet.
| It's a giant "meh" for anyone not in very rural locations.
| That rural market exists, but is quite small -- as you can
| easily see from the revenue of the 3-4 established
| providers in the field. Yeah, Starlink will differentiate
| itself by providing a low latency service, and the market
| for that might be slightly larger, but it'll never be
| enough to pay for the launches and equipment and then be
| the cash cow the muskrats dream about.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _rural market exists, but is quite small -- as you can
| easily see from the revenue of the 3-4 established
| providers in the field_
|
| The existing providers suck. There are plenty of villas,
| chalets, _et cetera_ in places where Starlink would be
| the winning offering. These may not represent a large
| number of people. But they do represent a lot of dollars.
|
| This is before tapping the moving target market, _e.g._
| yachts, planes, backpackers, _et cetera_.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I don't live in a rural market, but my existing ISP is so
| unreliable that I'm on the waitlist for a Starlink
| terminal to use as a backup when my cable internet goes
| down.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Established providers' price tags are exorbitant (pun
| intended). Moving the price an order of magnitude lower
| will reach the audience two-three orders wider (it called
| demand elasticity).
| MPSimmons wrote:
| > That rural market exists, but is quite small
|
| Curious about your estimate on the market size here. How
| many potential customers are there, worldwide, in your
| estimation?
| sargun wrote:
| There have been various analayses of starlink, indicating
| it's transatlantic latency would be lower than
| terrestrial connectivity when the network is in certain
| conditions (I believe there is some routing algorithm
| decisions to be made on the optical link between
| satellites, and this depends on where each one is).
|
| The arbitrage opportunity alone is massive, and HFT
| companies have put a ton of money into it:
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
| talk/telecom/wireless/wall-st...
| mrfusion wrote:
| > Moore's law happens when the output of the system can be
| used to improve the system that produced the original output.
|
| Actually I've never understood how this was true for
| microchips. Anyone know? I understood it as the industry just
| Moore's law for planning iterations?
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| At the very least when you design a new microprocessor you
| design and simulate it using software running on a
| computer. Then when that new processor releases, you build
| a computer with it and then you can simulate and design an
| even more powerful microprocessor. The tools and production
| equipment in the fab are also likely designed and partially
| simulated using CAD tools as well so there's an additional
| benefit there.
| RIMR wrote:
| It's a little hard to care when there's such a vast difference
| between being "in space" vs being in orbit.
|
| I hope we accomplish more of the latter.
| ijidak wrote:
| Great point! It's not a far-fetched thought.
|
| I would love to see someone track this at 18 month intervals
| starting today.
|
| Although, depressingly, growing at the rate of Moore's law, it
| would still take 24 years to get 1 million people in space.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| Is that depressing? That would be a phenomenal achievement
| dmd wrote:
| But, at that same rate, all of humanity would be in space by
| the 2060s.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Hey, aren't we all into space already ?
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Thanks for helping me realize that I've fulfilled my
| childhood dream of being an Astronaut.
| agumonkey wrote:
| We just happen to share a very dense and very spherical
| ship. Take that Elon
| warent wrote:
| space is short for outer space, as opposed to the inner space
| between earth and it's atmosphere. Nice try!
|
| EDIT folks this is just a benign and playful post, the
| downvotes and flagging is completely unnecessary
| agumonkey wrote:
| Apologies for the undesired outcome. Have a good day
| Darmody wrote:
| In a couple years we all should be in Space then.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Or at least 32 of us.
| Darmody wrote:
| We're going to have more and more launches like this.
| Virgin did it today, Blue Origin will do it in a few days
| and others will come later.
| trothamel wrote:
| SpaceX will be launching the Inspiration4 flight sometime
| this year. I believe that will be the first private
| orbital flight. (Without at least one government
| astronaut or cosmonaut on board.)
| nabla9 wrote:
| Goodbuy to CO2 limits then.
| cjbenedikt wrote:
| I surely get down voted for this as well. Good thing we can
| openly debate things on HN.
|
| <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The
| lowest-hanging fruit for solving global warming+air pollution
| is REDUCING energy use<br><br>Instead, these bozos are
| wasting energy+polluting the troposphere+stratosphere.<a href
| ="https://twitter.com/richardbranson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ri
| c... launch to space looks to beat <a href="https://twitter.c
| om/JeffBezos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JeffBezo.... But all of
| humanity loses.<a href="https://t.co/nwREJ2muSU">https://t.co
| /nwREJ2muSU</a></p>&mda... Mark Z. Jacobson (@mzjacobson) <a
| href="https://twitter.com/mzjacobson/status/14142464542274560
| 05?re... 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async
| src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
| charset="utf-8"></script>
| aazaa wrote:
| > Branson, in remarks from his Virgin Galactic flight on Sunday,
| said the spaceflight was the "complete experience of a lifetime"
| shortly after the spacecraft successfully took off over New
| Mexico.
|
| The most striking thing about this is not the idea of suborbital
| flight (not new), nor the involvement of a private company (also
| not new), nor the idea of a spacecraft launching from a plane
| (also not new).
|
| What's new and mind-blowing is that space travel can be an
| experience that people will pay for. You're not taking a
| suborbital flight, you're becoming an astronaut.
|
| As the initial novelty of "being to space" wears off, there will
| be demand (and money) to fund ever more unusual space
| experiences.
|
| At some point, it will become clear that there's not just one or
| two space travel companies, but a space travel industry.
|
| Then what?
| coldcode wrote:
| The only people that can pay to be an "astronaut" atm are
| billionaires, or close to. Someday maybe it might be something
| ordinary people can do, long after I am dead. When Disney
| builds a park in orbit or on Mars and fills it up, then space
| travel is affordable (if you view Disney as affordable today!).
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I thought the cost of going up was going to be ~ $100k's? If
| so, that means it's accessible to millions of people, but
| definitely not billions.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| Then we go spend a week of vacation on another planet.
| isoskeles wrote:
| > What's new and mind-blowing is that space travel can be an
| experience that people will pay for. You're not taking a
| suborbital flight, you're becoming an astronaut.
|
| This is like saying being a passenger on a plane makes me a
| pilot.
| antupis wrote:
| Can that kind spaceship design get orbit in future or is this
| design dead end without somekind breaktrought in material and
| rocket science?
| x43b wrote:
| I think the tilting tail and minimal thermal protection system
| concept will always remain suborbital. But there are reusable
| space glider concepts like X-37 and Dream Chaser.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That exact design is a dead end but no breakthroughs are needed
| for orbital spaceflight. See what SpaceX is doing with reusable
| rockets, for instance. And Space Shuttle, although economically
| unsuccessful, showed that material and rocket science from 40
| years ago made it physically possible.
| Vaslo wrote:
| Is that really the crew? Or is this like a Milli Vanilli kind of
| thing?
| Liron wrote:
| Branson's decades-long passion and perseverance is an inspiration
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| I guess there's really a slippery, spectrum definition of
| "space." FL3300, FL2600, etc.
|
| The Karman line (FL3300) could be considered "space" since it's
| roughly where aerodynamic lift is no longer possible.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I am really surprised these billionares do not get more bad press
| for taking their greed and selfishness to suborbital levels!
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Is pushing the frontier of space such a bad idea?
| user-the-name wrote:
| Zero frontiers have been pushed here.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Space tourism, not space. There are two space stations
| orbiting overhead this flight today, which is very much more
| technically difficult.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| With them making such a big deal out of it I thought they were
| going into orbit and would stay there for a bit. I regret wasting
| time watching this, the celebrities and fake grandiosity didn't
| make it any more interesting.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Can you see past the showmanship of the stream and at least
| recognise the technical achievement?
| user-the-name wrote:
| The technical achievement happened years and years ago.
| astatine wrote:
| The launch event was revealing in itself. From NASA to SpaceX to
| Virgin, there is a huge shift in the launch coverage. Today's
| event was for the large part an ad for future passengers and I
| suspect that it was due to the rather "routine-looking" take off
| and landing. Despite the fact that this was path-breaking, the
| natural theatre of a launch was missing and had to be created by
| artificial means with the colorful space suits, the music launch
| and so on. In a way, this is great. It makes it very likely that
| we will have thousands of "astronauts" in the not too distant
| future and scheduled flights to space.
| [deleted]
| SergeAx wrote:
| It was a demo of quite expensive commercial entertainment
| product, of course it would look like that.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Yeah this is an interesting take. I felt the same, the
| "theatre" was a bit (very?) awkward at times, but you're right
| that this is really a sign that that we're on the way to things
| like this becoming increasingly "routine".
|
| Edit: I should add that I find any opportunity to hear Chris
| Hadfield talk about space is well worth the time.
| Donckele wrote:
| Congrats to the team but what a rushed job. The live stream was a
| disaster and I'm sure it had to do with Branson vs Bezos. It was
| so amateur and commercial. I bet Bezos will demand a far better
| demo of the new spaceport service.
| [deleted]
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| At peak altitude when the video/audio link failed, the
| commentator, referring to the lack of comments from Branson:
|
| "We'll be sure to capture his magical words and share them with
| the world when they are available."
|
| Had a hard time keeping my breakfast down. Geez. Seems they
| should have purchased time on the Starlink sat network for comms.
|
| This was followed by:
|
| "Remember the day, remember where you are, remember who you
| shared this with, and remember the name Virgin Galactic, because
| today, space is Virgin territory."
|
| If over-hype leads to business success, I guess they are on their
| way.
|
| The professional, highly trained pilot/astronauts were referred
| to as Dave and Mike. Every mention of Branson was Sir Richard
| Branson.
|
| Amazing tech, but $250K for 6 minutes of weightlessness? Not
| exactly democratizing space. It might work out eventually, but
| hard to see the payoff for the massive investment to date.
| avmich wrote:
| > It might work out eventually, but hard to see the payoff for
| the massive investment to date.
|
| I guess for many it was hard to see the payoff of "beep, beep"
| on October 4th, 1957. I likely wouldn't see its importance - by
| myself, but I've got good explanations. Now I see.
|
| Virgin Galactic flight is lower than what Blue Origin promises
| to do in several days. Both of those systems are examples of
| pretty good engineering, and both promise even better
| performance in the future. I think VG's approach is overall
| better on the grounds of more inherent safety. And the safer
| the flights are, the easier it's to make them accessible to
| everybody - thus the path to the democratization.
|
| The big investments are done today and last decades - remember
| SpaceShipOne? - but today we see another milestone reached, and
| even though it's $250K for 4 minutes (?) of weightlessness,
| it's way more than unavailability of the past. But we won't
| stop here, of course.
| SergeAx wrote:
| The actual message from "beep, beep" on October 4th, 1957 was
| that: hey, we can now deliver a bomb over the ocean in an
| hour and it is unstoppable.
| SergeAx wrote:
| More likely 3 minutes from what I heard on the stream.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| It is not clear who this benefits. A lot of commentary is
| cheering on science which is noble, but what exactly does "faster
| flights around the world" really help?
|
| I think most people can't think of situation for the near future
| that a rocket would help solve. The other side is people wishing
| money was better spent on issues of the world.
|
| I can't help but admit it is a bit solution in search of a
| problem.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| This map that shows how fast it takes us to travel from days in
| 1900s to hours in present time
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3385856/amp/...
|
| Eventually it will be minutes
| jpollock wrote:
| It's a business, it benefits the shareholders.
|
| Virgin Galactic believes there is a market for tourism packages
| to space at $250,000 per seat.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Yes, I felt better need to paint the rest of the picture.
| Essentially humanity is cheering on the equivalent of $0.25
| kiddy rides outside of a grocery store for the wealthy.
| xyst wrote:
| Is it ever mentioned how much pollution is generated per flight?
| I can't see suborbital space travel becoming common if each
| flight emits millions of pounds of GHG.
|
| With the rise of environmental awareness and even talks of
| introducing environmental crimes, I hope these companies address
| these problems before becoming generally available to the public.
| xwdv wrote:
| A single cargo ship pollutes an order of magnitude more than
| any of these space flights. On a one way trip.
| bashinator wrote:
| Whataboutism. A) cargo ships are also a problem, and B) a
| private vehicle carrying a half-dozen people creating "only"
| one tenth the pollution of a ship carrying hundreds of
| thousands of cargo goods for hundreds of thousands of people
| is not bragging rights.
| Jyaif wrote:
| A single cargo ship moves hundreds of thousands of goods
| across the planet. This space flight moved a handful of
| people up and down.
| akvadrako wrote:
| In terms of kg/km, cargo ships are very efficient, even in
| terms of pollutants. The only things better are slow trains.
|
| I'm not sure how spacecraft compare if you measure km as in
| maximum height reached.
| xwdv wrote:
| At the end of the world, the climate will not care how many
| goods you moved.
| jorge-d wrote:
| One can argue that a cargo ship is benefiting much more
| people than a spaceflight only enjoyed by the very rich.
|
| The carbon footprint per capita is quite incomparable.
| relativ575 wrote:
| The excitement and inspiration that something like Apollo
| or Falcon Heavy generate cannot be quantified. Many young
| people have chosen science career because of spaceflights
| they follow. That include climate and earth science.
|
| To use as an analogy, can you measure the impact of Chopin
| or Mozart's music? Mozart made a lot of money performing at
| private events sponsored by the riches, as well as from
| lessons for their children.
| jorge-d wrote:
| I have nothing against private space exploration, I just
| don't see how this applies to this kind of space tourism.
|
| They are not breaking any frontier or discovering
| anything, just using a huge amount of resources and
| energy to put very wealthy people in zero-g flights for x
| minutes.
|
| I don't see how we can justify that given how
| unsustainable that industry is.
| lattalayta wrote:
| Everyday Astronaut did a great video on rocket pollution last
| year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VHfmiwuv4
| geocrasher wrote:
| I think that what's rubbing so many people the wrong way in this
| thread isn't the technical accomplishment. That was _incredible_.
| On the other hand, the self-congratulatory rhetoric was _thick_.
| While I was watching it, I said to myself "their video probably
| isn't working because they knocked the antenna out of alignment
| when they pat themselves on the back so hard."
|
| It didn't help that the narration was just awful. When the stream
| buffer finally started playing and we got a mashed up snippet of
| Branson talking, she (the narrator/commentator) commented that it
| was late because it was really far away... what!? I know it was
| off the top of her head but that's just stupid.
|
| So: Congrats on the technical accomplishment, but the rest of the
| dog and pony show made it look like the worlds most expensive
| carnival ride.
| skrebbel wrote:
| > she (the narrator/commentator) commented that it was late
| because it was really far away
|
| Sounds like it might have been a joke? I'd giggle for sure.
| Schweigi wrote:
| But it is the most expensive carnival ride! What we saw today
| is the birth of space tourism. That's what made the live stream
| so exciting. Right now it's still expensive but with the super
| re-usable approach of Virgin Galactic costs will get lower and
| lower. In the future (years) it mit might only cost a few
| thousand bucks for a ride. That's also why the live stream was
| so "commercial" - to show you the future where going to space
| (even if briefly) is nothing more than a plane ride with Dave
| and Mike as your pilots.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I would not call it "space tourism". "Suborbital tourism" is
| better term.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| Didn't Branson already go to space in one of his Virgin Galactic
| craft years ago?
| totoglazer wrote:
| Nope, this was his first.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Why is this even remotely interesting in light of the fact that
| Scaled launched pretty much this same aircraft to a higher
| altitude, 18 years ago?
| nine_k wrote:
| The news is that it's still alive and successfully kicking.
|
| Oh snap, I was mistaken.
|
| ~~The death of Burt Rutan changed a lot :( As far as I
| understand, the original launch craft was lost in that crash,
| too.~~
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Wrong guy? A quick check on Wikipedia seems to show Burt
| Rutan is still alive.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Yeah, I had to quickly fact check that one too.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Rutan is alive.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Because you can too!
|
| For $250k. Including beverages.
|
| I'll be interested to see if Branson stops there or tries to go
| for orbit.
|
| The obvious long-term play would be a space hotel, because the
| Scaled craft is really just a fast car ride. And It's taken a
| very long time indeed to get that far.
|
| Orbit is an order of magnitude more difficult, and a full-time
| space station at least one or two orders of magnitude more
| difficult than that.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > Orbit is an order of magnitude more difficult
|
| See Virgin Orbit [0] (a separate entity to Virgin Galactic)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit
| kiba wrote:
| I get that we're all excited about space, this one rated a "meh"
| for me.
|
| SpaceX is doing more ambitious things and already launched people
| into space.
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