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A comment on Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres. Parent comment

Re:Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and... by maccam94 on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @05:35PM (#27912514)
I think it's viewed as wasteful because it doesn't actually get people into orbit, AND it is expensive. Thus, it's only really appealing to rich people with cash to burn. These vehicles aren't even stepping stones to orbital rockets, and orbital launch prices are dropping. It's much more likely that SpaceX will offer tickets to orbit for $25k in the next 5-10 years than it will be for Virgin Galactic to do so. Blue Origin at least has an orbital rocket in development, but who knows if/when it'll even start being fabricated.
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Re:Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and... by xorfish on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @06:12PM (#27912839)
Safety won't be high enough for orbital flights for tourists.

Sending rockets to space is still very prone to failures. Failure rates for unmanned rockets where lower 40 years ago than they are now if you look at the trailing 10 year failure rates. Around 1 in 20 unmanned mission fails.

Failures for manned missions are less frequent, however noone can guarantee you, that the rate is lower than 1%.

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/8566/what-is-the-s...

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Re:Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and... by shkkmo on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @07:11PM (#27913332)
Blue Origin is building and firing the BE-4 engines that will be used by New Glen and I rather doubt that there isn't work being done to fabricate other systems given the work that has been completed on their Florida manufacturing facility.

Do you have sources that indicate fabrication has not started?

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Re:Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and... by maccam94 on Thursday July 22, 2021 @08:15PM (#27925899)
Aha I have found footage showing a New Glenn first stage in the factory earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXOXKfarFhg

I believe I was recalling another video tour, probably from last year, where they said "And this is where the assembled rockets will be stored" and the factory floor was empty. It's pretty cool that they've made so much progress since then!

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