So what? It’s a 121 degrees F in British Columbia; we have important problems that require expensive, technically complex solutions. Meanwhile billionaires take minutes-long trips to space to gratify their egos and childhood fantasies. I’m not impressed.
The reason Amazon workers work for Amazon is they get a better deal than they would get working for someone else.
The guy that brought you the first private maned space launch (Elon Musk, SpaceX) also made the electric car a reality. Without billionaires willing to pour money into a dream you’d still have nothing to watch except another Boeing Starliner delay, US astronauts launching on Russian rockets, and GM make incremental improvements on the EV1.
Then the right answer must be to control what they do with their money to be sure they spend it on things you believe are important. Better yet, take it from them so there is no doubt how it will be spent. Geez.
Yep. It’s his money, in any case.
Note the shape of the Amazon logo, as well.
I didn’t say anyone should take their money, it’s their’s to do with as they choose. I don’t have to be impressed with their choices.
Very early launches used monkeys on top of a V2 rocket. It appears the rockets are much better now for launching more advanced primates.
“Another rhesus monkey named Albert II, for example, became the first primate to reach space, achieving an altitude of 83 miles (134 km) aboard another V2 in June 1949. He survived the launch but died after a parachute failure caused his capsule to slam hard into the ground”.
No, the guy who brought us the first private, manned space flight was Paul Allen, who funded the SpaceShipOne project. Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites actually designed and built the thing, along with the WhiteKnight launcher. On June 2, 2004, I was one of around 11,000 people who turned out to see test pilot Mike Melvill earn his astronaut wings (without an asterisk; he cleared 100km) at Mojave Spaceport. A truly extraordinary event.
I’m a big fan of Musk and SpaceX, but they had nothing to do with SS1.
I believe the ‘Space Rides’ most resemble “Barnstorming”. We just need to come up with a really cool name like ‘Barnstorming’. Everybody in Aviation should learn our Barnstorming history. Flying stunts cut a lot of peoples lives’ short but, many of our greatest Aviation engineers and pilots were inspired by these same death defying thrill seeking stunts. Watch documentaries and movies if you don’t like reading. Quite a few of the advancements in Aviation came from the competitiveness of upping each other in the name of entertainment.
Just like today’s Aviation Vloggers, folks like the Flying Cowboys are giving Aviation the next level boost that it desperately needs. If you think all this high adventure and risk is over the top and unnecessary? DON’T WATCH, sorry, bad things sometimes happen.
Southeast Alaska was always a very risky place to travel before moving map GPS. Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) was way too common place. These pilots who experienced CFIT became the justification needed for funding of the Capstone Electric Flight Instrument (EFIS) project. The EFIS technology was coming to the cockpit sooner or later but, the multi-million dollar Capstone Project pushed that time line. That was only 18 years ago.
I give Jeff Bezos credit for emulating Elon Musk in advancing private space travel. In addition to his New Shepherd “toy” he is also developing the much larger New Glenn rocket that, if successful, will do some serious launch activities. His company also designed a moon lander system that was in competition with Musk and his Starship. NASA chose the Starship over Bezos’ design, but it was more an economic decision than one of technical capabilities. I’m pretty sure we haven’t heard the last of Blue Origin in deep space ventures. In any case, I congratulate him and his team for this first accomplishment and look forward to more.
I read today that Musk won’t get Astronaut wings–the FAA changed the criteria the day before to “crewmembers only”. If that’s the case, Wally Funk STILL won’t have astronaut wings–you can bet a lot female pilots will be “up in the air” over THAT!
Musk hasn’t flown yet - did you mean Bezos?