If you can send 50-100 people on an actual orbiting jaunt, perhaps a night in 'space rocket hotel', rich folk would gladly pay millions, which makes the business case a lot more compelling.

Then they'd just need to get environmentally-friendly methane production going and we can all be a bit happier.

If Starship manages to hit the price and performance targets Musk has set for it (~$2 million/launch[1], max of 1000 passengers[2]) you could get a ticket to orbit for around $2000. Throw in some extra for profit margin, a stay at an orbital space hotel, and a few additional expenses, and it might well be possible to take a vacation in space for less than $10k.

I really hope that happens within my lifetime; it'd be amazing to experience.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/06/elon-musk-says-spacexs-sta...

[2]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1144004310503530496

As the cost of spaceflight comes down and launch frequency goes up, I suspect we'll start seeing reusable launch systems emerge that have had thousands of launches across dozens of rockets. Once that happens I think spaceflight's safety record will improve significantly.

If people are interested in going somewhere, who are you to denigrate their ambitions? What is wrong with dreaming of orbiting the planet? How does that dream fall short? Is it a weak dream for a midwestern child, landlocked a thousand miles in every direction, to want to see the ocean? Is it a weak dream for a city child, blocked by light pollution, to want to see the stars?

What kind of comment is this? What does it even mean to have a "better" dream?

It's an old story, as expressed by Dr. Seuss in his story Yertle the Turtle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_St...

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-blast-s...

If it makes everyone who can afford to go more circumspect about that, I think it’ll have been completely worth it, even ignoring all the useful stuff that’ll come out of it.

Also, off topic, but thanks very much for all the things you make, they’re wonderful.

There is something so unimaginative about this kind of thinking it's really off putting.

As a society one should always strive to do better in all areas, not only in the areas you deem worthy.

We are entering an age of global techno oligarchy

I want my masters to see the earth from space. Get a feel for the stakes, see the delicate ribbon of air, the vastness of space.

See it as the rare jewel we spent a short time on, and the obligation to treat it well

"It's small, I want to own the others" might be the Bezos response.

I’m more inclined to believe that there is something intrinsically profound in seeing all the known life in the universe in one field of view. I also am inclined to believe that billionaires are just the world’s most wealth-atypical people, not the world’s most neuro-atypical people, and thus would respond in the typical way to the overview.

But maybe that’s an optimism bias on my part.

I'm inclined to consider the Neil Armstrongs of the world more service-oriented than subjugation-oriented, as a general impression of their careers as astronauts.

It could end up being a very therapeutic endeavor for the average person if space-tourism becomes more accessible, putting people's problems in perspective.

The real magic of human spaceflight for me is the science that is done up there. Sending a bunch of untrained rich people into space for the fun of it is not especially inspiring. The idea of getting crammed like sardines into a giant rocket so I can experience this with the masses is just not a great dream.

For me personally? I just want to mess around in 0G for a day or two. That seems like it'd be a rather unique experience; well worth a few thousand bucks and a couple hours packed shoulder to shoulder in a ship with a thousand other people.

The carbon emissions of Starship already pale in comparison to the reforms we need to pass, but lack the political will to do so.

If rockets became commonplace, they would most like replace leisure travel on airplanes and would eliminate car traffic once you arrive at your destination. The CO2 emission of the current SpaceX rockets is about the same as one full plane across the Atlantic. So if you could take 300 people in one launch, you'd probably take those 300 people away from an airplane flight and it would actually be better for the planet.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566

And rockets need special start locations to reduce the amount of fuel to reach the desired altitude, additionally the landing places must be way outside of your flight location, so you need extra transportation to your destination too.

Yes, there are environmental benefits to putting the actual destination in space, I hadn’t really considered that.

"i do X high-carbon thing to bring awareness to the plebs"

It seems obvious to me that climate activists can use leverage, like anyone else. In other words it's perfectly reasonable to produce a small amount of carbon in pursuit of making the sweeping changes necessary. Climate change isn't going to be solved by parts of the population choosing to fly a little less often.

That's just a mathematical fact.

The reality of solving climate change is a separate topic. 70% of emissions come from large corporations -- that's where the impact is and always was going to be made.

10k in space will get you what?

---

Random thought:

If they were able to get enough water into space such that one could swim through a sphere of water in a weightless environment, what would the sensation of being encapsulated in water while weightless feel like (clearly needing scuba or some other air connection..)

And what if you’ve already done all that?

Private jets (well, fractional ownership) gets boring after a few years.

Or you can stay here on earth, go scuba diving and experience the exact same weightlessness... :)

What would the difference in sensation be for one who is submerged on earth, versus one who is encapsulated in a floating sphere of water...

Is what we need to invent then...

lol you would have to pay me to go golfing

The construction of a massive space port in one of the more desolate places in America is a pretty damn good starting point. Doesn't take a magician to round that out with an airport, hotels, convention centers, restaurants, etc. I believe there is already an uptick in real estate on South Padre Island and talks about some bridge to better connect the island.

I haven't done the math, but it seems like Starship is potentially an incredibly cheap heavy lift rocket even in total or partial expendable modes, e.g if SpaceX fails to realize their full reusability goals. At this point, I think BO and others are only falling further behind.

We aren't really sure exactly how far along a lot of their projects are other than "not really close".

So, IMO, you don't need to invoke Starship to illustrate the width of the current gap between SpaceX and a company like BO that has never flown substantial hardware in orbit or beyond, on their own launch vehicle or otherwise. When they do start delivering spaceflight systems, we can re-evaluate the competitive landscape. New Glenn could absolutely put some real pressure on Falcon 9, if they can deliver it before Starship eats its lunch.

I don't think any place on earth is a good spot to build when playing with geologic timescales.

> A number of later studies have concluded that a global sea level rise of 200 to 270 cm (6.6 to 8.9 ft) this century is "physically plausible".[8][2][9]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

Just probably not in our lifetimes. The maximum sea level rise will be hundreds, even thousands of years from now. In the absolute worst case scenario where all the ice melted, sea level would rise 230 feet. If we did nothing at all about climate change and kept burning fossil fuels until we ran out, that's actually a likely outcome. It has happened in the past when the earth was much warmer. It won't happen to us, because we're taking action. The final sea level rise would depend how we do with actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere, as it will keep rising long after we stop using fossil fuels.

7 feet by the end of this century is not impossible, but not in the conservative estimate. So far we've been tracking the aggressive estimates, not conservative ones.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

"Launch is scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 15, slightly earlier than the original announcement of the fourth quarter of this year. The spacecraft will remain in orbit for three days, flying in an orbit at the same inclination as the International Space Station — 51.6 degrees — but in an orbit as high as 540 kilometers, more than 100 kilometers above the station."

In 2000, Dennis Tito paid $20M for 11,400 minutes in space or about $1750/minute ($2765 in 2021 dollars). The Branson and Bezos models 20 years later are much more expensive per minute and are so short there is no real time to absorb the experience.

My version would have blackjack and hookers, obviously.

I absolutely dont care about Bezos or Branson being able to do these stunts - SpaceX already docked with the IIS ffs.

It's like McClaren winning the Gran Prix, and then Toyota and Ford showing that their CEOs can finish a few laps in Monaco.

The VG and BO launches were both underwhelming for me - but it's still exciting to see the different engineering approaches, it's like hedging a bet, and I am sure each of them will pay dividends - one way or another.

I would say some would but keep in mind that a few other things have to come together.

a) Willing to take the risk (non trivial example I would not do this no chance)

b) Your family/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend has to buy into the risk even if it's just you going into the orbit.

c) Potential negative publicity as in 'look how they are spending their money' since early adopters would most likely be publicized in some way.

d) Guilt maybe spending millions for a trivial short ride vs. other things you can spend money on.

Keep in mind with 'd' other things are considered more acceptable and have social proof. This seems (to me anyway) the ultimate extravagance and I am wondering if there is the classic difference between what people say they would do if given the chance and what they would actually do.

Add in the fact that you have a very viable competitor in Virgin Galactic and SpaceX who could leapfrog both and provide even better experiences, and I don't see how Blue Origin will ever be viable without government funding

I think the timing of the launch isn't coincidental - iirc, the investigation into the HLS decision is going to be done in early August, and it undoubtedly looks better for BO's case to have had a successful launch with humans onboard one of their rockets.

Not that it matters but I wonder which of these buys more social capital?

i suspect the market will be less corporate leaders and more the family of corporate leaders (and saudi royals)

Now, the US military, on the other hand? Starship as a somewhat-disposable space truck makes a lot of sense. Then it comes down to how cheaply SpaceX can manufacture the things.

Presumably, since I'm stinking rich to begin with, I'd have a fancy resort booked there for the next week.

I agree it's not a replacement for commercial jet flights.

Irrespective of nukes, I shudder to imagine what the impact of an out of control de-orbiting Starship would do at ballistic reentry over a populace... .

A ballistic point-to-point tragectory is an orbit which intersects the surface.

We've had tourism that blows all these attempts into irrelevance, for thousands of years.

Take 5 grams.

Edit: To be clear, I'm referring to the obvious feud with Jeff Bezos, I know he is friends with Richard.

So, Alan Shepard would not be the first American in space? Gus Grissom's first flight wouldn't count, either? I'm all for making a distinction between space tourists and astronauts; but, I don't know if orbiting the Earth is the distinction. (Yes, I know Shepard and Grissom orbited the Earth on subsequent space flights; but,those first flights have to count for something.)

Saying that someone has to orbit the Earth or do something while in space in order to be an astronaut seems like changing the definition. That would mean Shepard wouldn't become an astronaut for another 10 years. (Of course, then he would be in a very select group of astronauts, because he had walked on the moon.)

These are both neat but the billionaire pissing contest nature of it really cheapens it. Blue Origin originally rushed out and crowed about 'beating' SpaceX in (I think) launch and land reusability and now Branson rushing out to beat Bezos to barely cross into space. I'd honestly thought the whole Virgin Galactic thing had been quietly canned years ago because nothing was happening till there was this little race.

The booster landing looks pretty amazing. The capsule landing went without a problem. The deceleration when the braking chutes deployed looks a bit fast, from 205mph to 150mph in couple seconds. Must be hard on the body.

Edit: Ok, in the post-flight briefing, they mentioned that they didn't anticipate the 5G deceleration on descent and it was pretty hard. Must be when the braking chute was deployed.

Retrorockets fire immediately prior to impact to cushion the blow, but it's still a hard jolt.

The acceleration on New Shepard is much lower and even the max acceleration experienced during landing should be in the same ballpark of <2 g but only once and for a very brief period of time only compared to the vomit comet.

This could be a factor for some people.

I'm sure there is some innovation coming out of this, but compared to the insane progress of SpaceX it's super underwhelming.

I disagree that we should deride rich people for spending money the way they want. I splurge on things sometimes as well. Unlike a lot of modern social media, I don't think there's anything inherently immoral about being wealthy.

If someone has an argument about what these specific people did that was specifically immoral to achieve their wealth, then they should call that out specifically and suggest a systemic change.

I find the mindless rich-people-hate to be nothing more than juvenile hate.

And I say all this even not being a fan of the way Bezos has sometimes falsely claimed credit for “firsts” that were not really firsts, like when they landed a rocket (propulsive landing) while pretending that SpaceX had not done so in a much more challenging way already.

> I find the mindless rich-people-hate to be nothing more than juvenile hate.

maybe it's the fact that a small school's population of people own 60% of all wealth on earth that gives these vanity shows of wealth a bad taste in their mouths.

To rephrase: I felt that the entire flight was a bit underwhelming, and that it felt more like an amusement park ride (with a very expensive ticket price) than an actual spaceflight with astronauts, even though it was communicated that way.

He could hire the smartest people in the world to work on breakthrough propulsion, SETI, blue sky physics, and computing research. The money would barely be a rounding error in his wealth.

He could fund the greatest space observatories in history, fund game changing contributions to cancer research, genomics, and other experimental medicine, and set up international STEM education programs.

Instead he builds a toy rocket that looks like a penis and goes on a 2 minute joyride to the edge of space. And something something space hotels, maybe.

It's debatable if it's evil. But it's certainly lacking ambition and boring.

He's the richest man on earth - who started one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet, I'd say he had plenty of ambition. Excuse him for having a little fun. "He could do this, that and the other thing." Well thank you for telling him what he should/could do with his money. You know what, why don't you go start a company with a 1.8T market cap, and you can do all these noble things. All you need is some ambition to do something less boring, right?

This has rapidly become my least favorite neologism.

As for Bezos, he also started the $10 billion Earth Fund to support climate change solutions. He could do a lot more, but he can't do it all at once; most of his wealth is in Amazon stock, and if he sold it all at once then it wouldn't be worth $200B anymore.

I assume his future rockets can launch space telescopes, although they have spent 7 years not getting their engines to work.

Its not; the ambition is commercial ambition (which given Bezos shouldn't be surprising), but its certainly present.

Why?

Is it ok if I deride people who molest their own kids? I mean, it's how they choose to spend their time, who am I to judge right?

The way society works is by deciding collectively what's ok, and that's decided based on people's tastes.

My tastes are that no small group of people should have power over large groups of people without their ongoing consent. Any system that isn't like that is garbage and anyone interested in power over other people is human garbage.

Today's society is wage slavery in developed countries, colonialism and barbarism everywhere else - it is garbage and anyone with a modicum of power doing anything but attempting to change the status quo is clueless or human garbage.

Why would wage slaves not resent their masters, or people colonized, not resent colonialists? Anything but deep resentment and derision is surprising, frankly.

It's nowhere near orbit. Orbit is about 10km of delta-v, then there's the reentry problem.

Reaching the Karman line is about 2km of delta-v.

I very much doubt Blue Origin intends to freeze rocket development after this launch.

Blue Origin now has a successful manned flight under their belt, and a revenue stream.

While it might surprise some here, Amazon started by selling just books...

It feels like similar attitude comments on that would have been "They'll never compete with Walmart. Real retail stores sell all kinds of things."

As a company that started a year before SpaceX and funded by the richest man in the world, the company should have no problem with being aggressive.

Yes, walk before you run. SpaceX did this too, but their leadership has a sense of urgency. Blue Origin don't.

New Glenn would be great if it existed. As it stands it's likely to be eclipsed by Starship. B.O. are going to have to change into a whole new gear if they want to compete. I have far more confidence in rocketlab scaling upwards from electron than in Blue Origin scaling anywhere.

Walking is a precursor to running, though.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic's current spacecraft are dead-ends. They can't ever go to orbit. New Glenn can, but it's vaporware thus far; if it sees a development schedule like New Shepard's there'll be a SpaceX Mars base before it manages its first hop.

Eh... that's not really true, it's about 1.45x the revenue, not 2x. And that's not the whole picture.

Revenue for 2020:

    Walmart: $559 billion

    Amazon: $386 billion

    Walmart: $20.6 billion

    Amazon: $22.9 billion

    Walmart: $15.2/14.9 billion

    Amazon: $22.1/21.3 billion

a. Amazon solves brick and mortar b. Walmart solves online sales.

Given the way things are going with Amazon essentially throwing in the towel with counterfeit reviews and products, I would put my money on Walmart eating Amazon's lunch this decade.

Don't forget political influence as well. Walmart has a large fraction of congress on bankroll.

I don't think you understand just how insignificant the counterfeit issue is. Amazon reports it as 0.01% of sales, but even they're off by a factor of 100 that's just 1%. And 1% of their .com revenue is still less than 0.5% of their overall revenue because most of Amazon's profits come from AWS.

> Amazon solves brick and mortar

What is there to solve? Amazon has a logistics infrastructure that Walmart can't touch. If they decided to open a big box store do you really thing the counterfeit issues in their affiliate program would harm them? It's not like they'd put affiliate merchandise on the floor. I feel like they could figure out how to unload trucks to retail shelves and do in person payment processing at least as well as Walmart.

> Walmart solves online sales.

Walmart has been competing with Amazon in online sales for a decade, how's that going? Walmart has nothing to compete with Amazon's Audible, Echo, Ring, Blink, or Prime offerings. Sure they have free shipping with Walmart+ and an affiliate program but is that enough? They've tried countless times to compete against Amazon and failed, most recently they sold Vudo off. At the same time Amazon has launched countless brands and new products with great success.

Amazon.com's tone deaf Billionaire founder and their treatment of their workers are a far greater risk to them than Walmart. But bad reputation and consumer dislike aren't going to kill Amazon anymore than they've done so with Walmart who has infamy for destroying both small town America and America's manufacturing infrastructure.

Honestly I'm not sure why you'd want either of these companies to succeed.

I said "about" 2x. Ok, about doing some heavy lifting, so it's closer to about 1.5 for 2020, during a pandemic. What's a typical year? Ah but you are so focused on technically correct, you missed the forest for the trees. My point still remains. The gulf between what Amazon sells and Walmart sells is so wide, it's hardly seen as "competing". Amazon themselves have admitted to this fact (and have used this fact to shield themselves from anti-competitive legislation. One of their favorite moves is to point at Walmart and say "they are the big guys, not us") So these are just established facts, not moving any sort of goal posts. I am not here to defend a thesis or dissertation, we are having a casual conversation on the internet.

I guess you must be one of those guys who demands zero margin of error in their conversations? If so, you must be fun at parties.

> Honestly I'm not sure why you'd want either of these companies to succeed.

Speaking of fallacies, never did I say I want them to succeed, so here's your straw man back. I am observing the reality of what is, and what is likely to happen.

Your supporting arguments include counterfeiting and soon to be dead politicians as reasons why Amazon will fail but are reality based observations about what's likely to happen?

Also if you don't think Amazon/Bezos has any political sway then you're not paying attention to what's been happening with Pentagon or NASA contracts.

Walmart's affiliate program allows them to cater to the long tail market that Amazon has long dominated but that alone isn't going to convince people to switch to Walmart.com. Why not go to Ebay or Newegg instead?

Walmart+ costs 2/3 of Amazon Prime but doesn't offer any of the digital services available like Audiobooks, ebooks, Videos, Music, Gaming, and photo storage/backup. For many those services are more valuable than free shipping or pharmacy discounts.

What does Walmart.com offer that's going to convince people to shop their over Amazon, Newegg, Ebay or other online retailers?

While Amazon has stores for all regions of the world that count.

You don't need to go all the way around to have a story. Low earth orbit is apparently around 84 minutes per revolution. There's a lot of space in the middle for ballistic orbits of 5-15 minutes, right?

We got in a rocket in Texas and had a light dinner on a yacht off Morocco 90 minutes later.

For a 2,400km downrange though you'd need 4.2k of delta-v (a Thor IRBM). You'll be reaching a 450km apogee too. Forget Hawaii and Morocco, you won't even make Seattle from Dallas.

You'll need 5.6k to get to places like Hong Kong and Israel, with an apogee of 1500km. That's 3 times the New Shepard.

(delta-v calc from https://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/ABM/DeltaV_BMs.htm)

The first private manned suborbital flight occurred in 2004 with SpaceShipOne. It is 17 years later at this point and only now do we have paying customers for sub-orbital flight.

The gap between the Wright Brothers' first flight and Apollo 11 was about 66 years. (I realize aircraft and spacecraft are not very similar).

I think almost everyone interested in space flight back then would be pretty disappointed by the slow pace of development since Apollo, until things picked up recently.

I also suspect the pool of people willing to pony up $250k+ for a few minutes barely in space is going to be pretty shallow. I'd sign up in a heartbeat for a space hotel trip in that price range though, so here's hoping Axiom Space delivers (and gets the price range below the current projection of tens of millions).

The person who won that seat didn't actually end up going on the first flight (will go on a later one). Some 18 year old with a dad who runs a hedge fund went. How much he paid was not disclosed.

Also, SpaceX knows how to put on a show. In comparison this felt like an amateur video. (not to diminish the mission itself, just how it was filmed).

Also yeah they do also just barely make it to what the US had somewhat arbitrarily defined as space in the case of Branson's company.

Blue Origin landed their booster 23 Nov 2015. SpaceX landed their first booster 21 Dec 2015.

It really is apples and oranges until BO or VG gets to orbit. Rocket Lab is likely much closer to orbital booster re-use than BO or VG are.

Sticking rocket-propelled spaceplane under big aircraft and landing horizontally was also done in 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15

However, i'm glad BlueOrigin did this and had a successful launch/landing. It certainly helps inspire others and is good for the industry as a whole.

Given Bezo's bank account, you don't think you could put together a team to get a rocket into space?

Let's be realistic, no one person built this or any other rocket. Apart from Money, and perhaps short/bald man complex, Bezo contributed little overall. Yet all of the media has been about Bezos going into space.

When Richard Branson came along to steal his thunder with the SpaceShipTwo launch just before him, Bezo showed his colors by dismissing the achievement as not "real space". I have doubt Bezos is still salty about it and planning to get back at him.

IMO, none of these billionaires should be celebrated for these achievements. We should be celebrating the people who put them there but those individuals receive almost no mention.

It reminds me of what might happen on a tourist experience in Bali, where they have you hold a big spear and take a photo for Instagram as if you were a tribal hunter. I would take the Blue Origin flight if it was free, but I would wish they would treat me honestly: as a random schlub who knows how to sit in a seat and smile.

Max altitude of about 100km? Alan Eustance managed half that with a balloon, and then he jumped out of his capsule like Master Chief and fell back to Earth.

They're planning to build a moon rover in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. Three rivers, some department stores, a couple abandoned steel mills, more bridges than they can afford to maintain, and a mission control center.

I'm generally in favor of more people being involved in space technology and space travel; I still consider it a long-term existential need. But about this, it's just, kinda... Step it up or step out, Bezos.

It is nice to live in an era where this accomplishment feels mundane, though.

So much negativity in this whole topic, IMO due to Bezos's involvement.

Space is hard technically, politically, financially, so the more entrants in the space race the better. Every space program, government or private, has started off small and built on what they learn.

... but since we live in the era where multiple agencies have already done that, it's possible Bezos's dollars would be better spent on combined efforts with one of the front-runners to do something more ambitious than yet another capsule to high-altitude ballistic flight.

You know that NASA and other countries have been flying rockets and sending people and things to space before SpaceX, yes?

Translation: 'Other private companies building their own rockets and going into space is 'not good enough' unless it is by SpaceX' and doesn't count.

To SpaceX fanatics and downvoters: I'm sure you are deep fanatics of SpaceX but surely you have the funds and deep pockets to join Musk and friends on a space mission together right now? If not, just continue to watch livestreams of others going into space then.

It should not be just down to ONE company. Commercial space flight is going to get allot cheaper with the existence of more competitors and that should be welcomed. Even SpaceX welcomes this and so should you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Dismissing the achievements of a certain project to only bring up somebody else's one and promote this clear bias is how flamewars start.

I'm only just putting out the fires and celebrating the achievements of every other company competing and launching their rockets into 'space'.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've had to ask you repeatedly about this in the past. Would you please do a better job of sticking to the site guidelines? I don't want to ban you but some of these cases are pretty clear-cut.

Sure OK, I will do better at sticking to the site guidelines.

But what is also clear in the comments of the post and especially the top comment that most users were replying to, after reading the site guidelines they have completely violated this guideline in [0]:

> In comments:

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

You may disagree with this, but I see that as a known repeated symptom of creating 'flamewars' for other posts. I will be part of the 'good critical comment' club and do better at following the guidelines, rather than being the one posting shallow dismissals and flamebait at other people's work because they are a fan of someone else.

And as always, making my comment substantive. Not less.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The excitement and noise over suborbital flight is good, but in terms of achievement, Blue origin has yet to deliver on their major promises. I have confidence they will get there, but credit where credit is due, Spacex is getting it done.