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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin are looking to partner with NASA and ESA to help create settlements on the Moon. However, he implied that he would fund development of such a project himself if governments don't:
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin space venture will work with NASA as well as the European Space Agency to create a settlement on the moon. And even if Blue Origin can't strike public-private partnerships, Bezos will do what needs to be done to make it so, he said here at the International Space Development Conference on Friday night.
[...] To facilitate a return to the moon, Blue Origin has a lunar lander on the drawing boards that's designed to be capable of delivery 5 tons of payload to the lunar surface. That's hefty enough to be used for transporting people — and with enough support, it could start flying by the mid-2020s. Blue Origin has proposed building its Blue Moon lander under the terms of a public-private partnership with NASA. "By the way, we'll do that, even if NASA doesn't do it," Bezos said. "We'll do it eventually. We could do it a lot faster if there were a partnership."
[...] It's important to point out that moon settlement isn't just a NASA thing. Bezos told me he loves the European Space Agency's approach, known as the Moon Village. "The Moon Village concept has a nice property in that everybody basically just says, look, everybody builds their own lunar outpost, but let's do it close to each other. That way, if you need a cup of sugar, you can go over to the European Union lunar outpost and say, 'I got my powdered eggs, what have you got?' ... Obviously I'm being silly with the eggs, but there will be real things, like, 'Do you have some oxygen?' "
So how far is Blue Origin willing to go? Bezos has already committed the company to build rockets and landers. How about rovers, habitats and all the other hardware that a moon base will need? "We'll do anything we need to do," Bezos said. "I hope we don't need to do any of that. I want other people to do it. But if need be, we'll do it."
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross published an editorial in The New York Times (archive) emphasizing a return to the Moon and President Trump's recent Space Policy Directive 2 (here's the first one).
Just don't call it a colony.
Also at TechCrunch and Engadget.
Rebuttal: Dear Jeff Bezos: Forget About The Stupid Moon
Previously: Jeff Bezos' Vision for Space: One Trillion Population in the Solar System
ESA Expert Envisions "Moon Village" by 2030-2050
Related: How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
Bigelow Aerospace Forms New Company to Manage Space Stations, Announces Gigantic Inflatable Module
Blue Origin to Compete to Launch U.S. Military Payloads
2020s to Become the Decade of Lunar Re-Exploration
Blue Origin Conducts its First Successful Suborbital Test Flight and Landing of 2018
Lunar Regolith Simulants Damage Cells
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Serious About Returning to the Moon
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:53PM (14 children)
People can't live at 1/6 Earth Gravity. Short stints are too expensive.
The sharp dust particles have been shown not only to destroy lungs, but also to cause DNA mutations!
As yet, there's no business case for maintaining a colony there; of course, Bezos never worried about making a profit.
How can mankind spread out when its authority figures (scientific and otherwise) refuse to recognize the reality that we live in an Electric Universe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:57PM (10 children)
How about solid foundations for spreading out?
These guys should be pouring resources into building a space elevator; screw all this primitive rocket launching nonsense!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @06:33PM
Bollocks! I can spread out jolly good in my bed, why should I leave it for the Moon?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 28 2018, @06:46PM (7 children)
Unobtanium carbide molecular monofilament needed for the tensile properties and able to resist the radiation during solar storms and van Allen belts.
Humongous quantities of material to make the threas from. Have to actually drag an asteroid into Earth orbit, launching the material for the threads from Earth is too expensive.
On top of that, a space elevator is a (military) strategic nightmare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:12AM (6 children)
You build a non-tethered rotating one with a length of four or five thousand km. Stick it in an orbit at about half its length plus 50 km. Set it rotating so that the tip closest to earth has zero sideways movement. (The movement is basically that of two opposing spokes on a wheel that is rolling around the earth).
The tips of the cable will experience about 1.4 G. Your space vehicle has to ascend to the height of the tip (50 km) and grab on. it will be swung around at 1.4G until you let go at the top of the arc, (or at whatever point your velocity is closest to your desired one.) From the point of view of the vehicle the tip will descend vertically, decelerating at 1.4G until it comes to a stop and starts moving up again.
You could throw cargo to the asteroid belt with very little use of on-board fuel, and that could all be ion drive.
The delta V isn't free though, lifting cargo will drop the orbit of your elevator. You fix that with a big bank of solar cells and high efficiency ion drives at the halfway point (zero-gee hub). Conversely, catching inbound cargo and lowering it gently to Earth will raise your orbit.
The efficiency is lower than a tethered elevator, because you can't steal energy from Earth's rotation, but the engineering is possible with current materials and techniques.
The orbits/control/use calculations are conceptually more complicated, but I think that even if you had a tethered elevator you would be doing that just as much.
For future improvement you add more pairs of spokes.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:03AM (1 child)
1. Coriolis forces as you move up/down the cable - compensate or bust. Various strategies - from "rigid rod with compensation at ends (good luck with a rigid rod 4000-5000km long)" to "compensate-sideways-on-shuttle-as-you-go" (any limp cable will do, but then the majority of delta-V to reach the top comes from the compensation).
2. The equilibrium is unstable - any non-compensated delta-Pos is going to amplify if not corrected. The higher delta-Pos that needs compensating, the higher the energy expenditure.
3. Mass of the cable some orders of magnitude higher than the payload - to have delta-H for the cable+payload within something that you can compensate.
Somehow, I don't thing the cable can be less than 100m or so in thickness - which doesn't spell "cheap" when considering the perturbation that need compensated all the time - fuel (even ion engines need ejection mass).
- the lower end of the cable is well inside the atmosphere (rarefied, true, but "space" starts at 100km+)
- the distal end of the cable is exposed to radiation pressure. Second-order effects - such as Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effect [scholarpedia.org] - may create troubles (light energy absorption during day - pushes on the incident surface - then thermal emission of the heated surface at night - the heated surface during day will emit thermal photons like a rocket, impulse in the same direction as the absorbed photons).
Other things that may interfere:
- high energy electric discharges [wikipedia.org] - sprites/space lightning - 50-90km altitude.
- micro- and not so micro meteor strikes
- solar storms with variable magnetic field and induced currents
Maintenance and repair budget, baby, literally skyrocketing.
Nah, I don't think any of the current billionaires have the money to take on such a project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday May 29 2018, @08:26AM
You steal energy/momentum from the cable to get to orbital velocity in space. It changes depending on how you use it.
(Case A) - If you grab the end and climb to the centre and then let go, you will be in orbit at 2000km.
(Case B) - If you just hang on and then let go at the top, you will be travelling much faster, either escape velocity or an elliptical orbit with a much higher apogee.
1/ (Case A) When you grab the end, you increase the moment of inertia of the system, without increasing angular momentum. This slows the rotational speed. As you climb to the Hub the rotational speed increases back to what it was. Think of a spinning skater pullling their arms in. Coriolis forces are just a manifestation of this, and would be designed in. The system of cable plus vehicle will drop into a lower orbit. How much lower will depend on the relative masses.
(Case B) Your rotational speed will increase again when the vehicle lets go, but the cable on its own will drop into an even lower orbit than case A.
2/ Delta-Pos? Change in position or momentum? That's what the honking great solar panels and ion drives in the centre are for. You can use small climbers to send fuel and supplies to the hub. You would also have some drives well out from the centre to adjust the rotational speed.
3/ Yes, of course. That's what gives it stability. You impart some of the stored kinetic energy of the cable to the payload to throw it into space, then slowly recover that kinetic energy using solar energy and low-reaction-mass ion drives. Your payload doesn't need to carry fuel or massive engines. You can also recover some energy by gently landing incoming payloads. (Dropping something from 50km high might not seem gentle, but it beats the hell out of hitting the atmosphere at >7km/s)
The cable will most likely be a ribbon, one or two metres wide (not thick) at the centre, a few cm at the ends. Actual thickness would be measured in mm. Possibly fractions of a mm. Very rough BOTEC for a starter cable : 4000 km of cable, average 1m wide, 0.1mm thick, density of 1, gives you a cable mass of 400 tonnes, plus whatever mass your hub station has.
Large, but not impossible. You start with a small one and use it to lift the bits for a big one.
The lower end of the cable is only periodically in the atmosphere, and it travels effectively vertical both ways. If it worries you, raise the whole thing. It just means your pop-up rockets have to lift it a bit further. You can model the tip as an object that is travelling vertically at 1.4G upward acceleration. At 100km it has a downward V of 1.2km/s. If you raise the endpoint to 75km then your V at 100km is only 800 m/s. (One of the reasons for picking 50 km was you can just about get there using high altitude lighter-than-air vehicles. Makes hanging around waiting for the end a bit easier. Imagine something like a helipad on top of a huge hydrogen zeppelin. :) )
Seriously, reflective/emissive radiation pressure? That is so minor it probably wouldn't even be detectable amongst the other forces such a cable would be exposed to.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @10:13AM (3 children)
Hang on, are you in the Skyhook scenario [wikipedia.org]? '
Cause "The tips of the cable will experience about 1.4 G." suggests you are, but I'm baffled by "Set it rotating so that the tip closest to earth has zero sideways movement."
The latest seem to suggest that the rotational speed of your skyhook is 1RPDay (the proximal end of your cable hovers above the same point. with the mass centre of the cable being on a geosync orbit), but this doesn't fit with 1.4G experienced by the ends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday May 29 2018, @11:42AM (2 children)
I wasn't on wikipedia, I was actually cribbing that from a bunch of sources going all the way back to a Jerry Pournelle article, but that article provides a pretty good overview.
What part of matching the tip speed to the centre of mass orbital speed in the reverse direction is confusing you? That page you linked even has an animation explaining it.
It certainly isn't geostationary, that does require unobtanium tensile strength.
If you optimise the length, orbit, etc, you could set it up so that it always came down over the same points, but given a 4000 km length there would probably be about eight or nine of those points spaced equally around the equator. Haven't done the actual math on that, so I wouldn't be surprised at any answer between 6 and 12 TBH. Also haven't done the math on non-equatorial orbits, but I think you would be able to set it up so that it came down over the same points, there would just be more of them by a factor of rotations/day.
Actually the traditional space elevator is a special case of this. As the tether gets longer the orbit is higher, the tip G forces get smaller, the orbital speed gets lower, and the required tensile strength gets higher. Eventually the tip is at 1G, the tether is 72 000 km long, and it takes one day to go around the planet. At that point you tie it to the ground and call it a space elevator.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @11:52AM (1 child)
That bit drove me astray.
New approaches/computations [wikipedia.org] for the tethered elevator.
This... doesn't seem that expensive or technological difficult any more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:01AM
Yeah, until you read the fine print and find that you need to make multithousand km fault free graphite fibres, and the best they have done so far is fractions of mm.
The rotating tether can be built with spectra 2000 (tm), which is already in production by the tonne.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @11:42PM
What advantages does a space elevator have if it's less expensive to fly (rocket) to orbit?
When/if 100% reuseability becomes a thing, the limiting cost is the energy required and that is about the same either way.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:24PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @10:58PM (1 child)
Not flat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:44PM
No, the earth is perfectly flat. The moon is the hollow body. That's where the lizard people broadcast the matrix from. Mountains, hills, and valleys are illusions created by the matrix.
Presumably, the lizard person moon matrix also prevents the Shadow Object from being directory observed except during lunar eclipses.
Let me get some coffee in me, and I'm sure we can work the weather war into this.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday May 28 2018, @06:49PM (3 children)
When someone says they can do stuff _faster_ in partnership with NASA it is clearly bovine excrement.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @07:18PM (2 children)
I noted that immediately as well. NASA is only known for making decisions in favor of speed when it kills people or blows expensive things up, and then only in a negative sense.
Not only that, but consider Bezos' statement:
I don't accept this at all. Research would have to be conducted into the economic and practical feasibility of storing foods in various conditions (dehydrated/powdered, fresh, raw-frozen, precooked-MRE style, etc.) and data produced before anything of that nature becomes "obvious."
Maybe it's a small point, but it's a bad sign that the proponent of the moon expansion divisionTM seems to be going on assumptions instead of knowledge.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday May 28 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)
He was using an example common among neighbors on earth, of sharing resources.
That was not an invitation (he said so in the next sentence) for you to launch off on some poorly thought out rant about powdered eggs (which would work just fine on the moon, by the way).
So its not a small point, its an invalid point.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @11:03PM
are you new here?
I salute your insight, and agree 100%. Up until the part where he called powdered eggs on the moon, which you, by contrast, assume would work just fine, "obviously silly", which may be conversationally lubricious, but is a bad assumption-oriented instead of evidence-oriented way to run a space program. And making assumptions in fields of endeavor such as aerospace leads those otherwise not terribly useful accidental death and dismemberment policies to finally start paying out.
So instead I'll just say that you differing opinion is appreciated, and noted.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:08PM (24 children)
So the three people mentioned in TFS, Bezos, Ross, and Trump are all billionaires. Is it any surprise that the country is going to hell for regular people?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
I hear you can get a job unclogging toilets on the Moon colony.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snow on Monday May 28 2018, @09:04PM (1 child)
Unclogging toilets in .16G would be dangerous work.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @09:07PM
Bad for your love life too.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @07:24PM (19 children)
Lawrence Lessig explains the reasons for this in a semi-interesting video comparing our current political system with Hong Kong, and with Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall. He also proposes a relatively simple and promising solution.
The solution he proposes is
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:38PM (18 children)
Pretty much and this is why the people need to demand that all political campaigns to use only public funds. No donations from anybody at all, just whatever the state and local government is willing to give you for the race. Also, restricting campaigns to just a few months would be greatly appreciated. It's just so tiresome dealing with the bullshit for years at a time. It's only 2018 and we're already hearing about the 2020 elections. And the press is already declaring certain people to be front runners. It's disgusting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @07:55PM (17 children)
The billionaire Trump was able to get by without spending nearly as much as Clinton by manipulating the media (similar story during the primary [politifact.com]). It turns out you don't need all those TV ads when news networks will give you all the free air time you want.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @08:16PM (4 children)
Well, it turns out that this, too, is uneven and inequitable.
Many of the people desirable as public elected servants are not dumpster-fire assclowns who generate their own press by their undesirable antics (the two things being antithetical and all).
I think the idea is to mostly fairly and equitably present the candidates in a fair and impartial system.
Your observation does raise a way to "get around" such requirements. If, in addition to the usual-fair-and-impartial coverage, Candidate B also happens to say that everyone from a certain country is a rapist, for example, or that if he or she is elected, torture will not only resume but will get worse, or other such vaudville attention-getters, does the press not have some responsibility, or at least the first amendment freedom, to report on that, even if it unbalances the fair-and-impartial system?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:45PM (3 children)
We had something like that for a bunch of decades.
It was the FCC's Fairness Doctrine, established in the 1930s.
...then along came Ronald Reagan, who stopped enforcing it.
No USAian president since then has been enforcing it either.
Yay, Neoliberalism!
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:52PM
Pretty much.
But it's even worse than that, we've also allowed the total number of news outlets to shrink in the decades since. When I was a kid, we had 2 major daily papers as well as a number of smaller publications that were on differing schedules. We also had like 4 or so different TV stations covering the news. Now, we've got more TV news, but much of that is owned by the same people, and we only have one daily newspaper. The moment the other one went other, the surviving paper took a hard turn to the right as it no longer had to worry about losing customers to the left leaning paper they had been competing with.
Not to mention that Fox "News" managed to get itself declared as entertainment rather than news and can air whatever likes they want as long as they don't cross the line into defamation. But, even that doesn't seem to stop them most of the time as they're making so much money that paying off lawsuits isn't an issue.
The only bright side in all of this is that the internet has brought a number of outlets into existence that couldn't have existed previously. The big downside is that few of them have the resources to have their own people covering things like city hall where there might be no news for days or weeks until something major happens. Traditional news outlets would have somebody covering it on the off chance that something happened. As well as investigative journalists looking into suspicious things in case there's hidden corruption and the like. That's largely a thing of the past as the lack of competition has reduced the amount of money that news organizations are willing to spend looking into people in power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @11:46PM (1 child)
Why didn't Clinton start enforcing it again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:19AM
You missed an important word in my comment.
Here it is again: Neoliberalism [soylentnews.org]
Bill Clinton's 5 Major Achievements Were Longstanding GOP Objectives [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [truth-out.org]
The Dumbocrat ethos has been increasingly corporate-friendly + worker-hostile/consumer-hostile since the Donkeys got their asses kicked in 1972.
We haven't had a president that was actually Progressive since LBJ.
...and Nixon was more Progressive than anyone who has followed him--even if he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to e.g. sign the act which created EPA.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:39PM (4 children)
You left out "self-proclaimed".
Trump biographer David Cay Johnston (a former NYT tax reporter) has reckoned that Trump has $700M max.
Now, with Trump's daily violations of The Emoluments Clause(s), that may have changed.
when news[1] networks will give [an orange clown] all the free air time [he] want[s]
A sad commentary on USA's media in the 21st Century.
Even more sad is that to get actual political analysis you have to turn to comedians.
(A shout out here in particular to Jimmy Dore, who got his initial media exposure via Pacifica Radio KPFK in Los Angeles.)
[1] Using the term in the broadest possible context.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:54PM (2 children)
I'd be surprised if he had even $700m. People with that kind of money are unlikely bother with scams like Trump University, the money in that is just not good enough for somebody that's already worth 8 figures. For people who don't have much money, it can be worthwhile, up until getting caught, but somebody that's on the verge of becoming a billionaire is unlikely to be willing to take that risk.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @11:05PM (1 child)
Even if it was only $350m, I think it would not break the observation that rich people sitting around smoking $100-bill wrapped cigars are not likely to come up with anything that benefits the vast majority of citizens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:38AM
My point is that he is a perennial liar (as well as a self-agrandizing fraud).
He even lies when it doesn't matter at all.
His brain is just defective.
Why anyone would bother to report what he *says* is beyond me.
He proves at least 4 times a day that his word can't be trusted.
Putting his stupid name in the headlines just strokes his gigantic, undeserved ego.
Better to wait and see what he actually does|what can be proved via tax returns.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @11:57PM
+∞ Insightful
I'll get my dose of common-sense wherever I can. So comedians it is for the present.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:46PM (3 children)
Yes, but had Clinton not had the Democratic primaries rigged in her favor and had she not made some massive strategic mistakes, she probably would have won anyways. Besides, I doubt the press is going to make the same mistake any time soon with covering a crackpot.
A lot of the issues came from the media depending upon ad buys from the candidates. It's why you saw that empty podium on TV for so long, normally that's time that they would have spent on the Sander's campaign that they were purposefully ignoring.
Having more ads only works when you're not running a massive deficit in popularity. Most people hated Hilary and Trump, the ads themselves as well as the press coverage weren't really doing him any favors. Against virtually any other candidate the free publicity he was getting would have just dug him into a deeper and deeper hole. Sort of like now how he can't get anything done in part because of all the distractions.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @10:14PM (2 children)
It's tempting to believe this, but given that they are in a clickbait competition, they might end up doing it anyway. And of course, online media outlets that are more than willing to cover the fringe are on an ascent.
Also, Trump was more than a mere crackpot, he was a showman.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:17AM (1 child)
> ...more than a mere crackpot, he was a showman.
I'd stop short of "showman", but I'm willing to go as far as snake oil salesman. Willing to say whatever it takes to sell the product.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:26AM
Steve Earle - Snake Oil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqk5of8LgLE [youtube.com]
It was an anti-Reagan song.
Listen to the lyrics. Nothing has changed in more than 30 years.
Also, being a showman was the major part of selling snake oil.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 28 2018, @08:53PM (2 children)
Didn't work for Hillary, did it?
The News Media in the US was running Hillary for President. She was their candidate from beginning to end. [washingtonexaminer.com]
Yes, they (eventually) covered Clinton's scandals, (more dismissively than anything else). But she got the bulk and majority of the fawning press.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @09:14PM
1 of a number of media outlets purchased by a Reactionary to spew his Reactionary opinions.
Not a reliable source of information.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday May 28 2018, @10:26PM
President Trump did plenty to deserve his "negative" coverage. (Is reporting that Trump said something incredibly offensive "negative", or merely obligatory?) Apparently, negative coverage was not a bad thing for Trump, so the MSM did him a favor. Stuff like attacking the Khans or "grab 'em by the pussy" may have stung a bit later, but early on in the primaries, the negative coverage and Trump doubling down was simply beneficial and helped him stand out in a crowded Republican primary. On this fine Memorial Day, let's pause to consider: Who would have thought pre-2016 that a candidate could survive a "[McCain is] a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured" remark? I'll admit that I didn't at the time, and it was a good lesson for things to come.
Hillary got dogged by multiple email-related scandals for months, and the email leaks were conflated into one long, overarching scandal for voters. Benghazi was nothing compared to emails, emails, email server, a steady drip of WikiLeaks (just more emails). Although Comey may have been the deciding factor in the election, it was ultimately a situation of Clinton's own making.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @07:36PM
First off, only 2/3 of those folks are billionaires, it's highly unlikely that Trump is currently a billionaire, he's just too incompetent to be. He lost money operating a casino for crying out loud. I can only assume that he was using it as a front for money laundering.
Anyways, you're on point about how stupid this is. Bezos has accumulated roughly $130bn by screwing over his workers and undercutting competitors that were paying a decent wage. He literally has ambulances parked outside of his warehouses because that's cheaper than having AC inside to keep the temperature down to something reasonable.
And this is what he's allegedly going to do with the money. Never mind the massive waste if it doesn't go anywhere or that even if it does go somewhere the money being spent mostly doesn't benefit the average people. But, this is the excuse he has for accumulating the money rather than solving world hunger or homelessness in the US.
Disgusting piece of shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:56AM (4 children)
It's a capitalist space race! The first to a moon/mars base: Amazon vs. some dork on a couch!
I want to root for the dork on the couch. However, that means that Amazon will win.
In totally unrelated news, I think the Musky One's problem is that he is not [consortiumnews.com] chums with the CIA [theatlantic.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:21AM (1 child)
I'd be pretty careful signing up for Bezo's moon outpost. He's likely to renege on the return trip and leave you there.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:58AM
But it's got Free Shipping!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:38PM (1 child)
So if Blue and X really wanted to get humanity safely off this planet, they would be working together.
Instead, they are playing my thing is bigger than yours.
It kind of limits the credibility of Blue's long term story.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:42PM
Blue Origin isn't "playing" on SpaceX's turf until New Glenn [wikipedia.org] launches. SpaceX isn't playing an ego game or dick waving contest with Blue Origin, they are just getting things done. SpaceX can't lose customers to Blue Origin until Blue Origin has the right rocket(s).
Blue Origin could license its superior BE-4 engine to other companies, particularly ULA.
Some customers, particularly NASA and the U.S. Air Force, desire multiple launch providers. They don't want to be hit by months of delays if something goes wrong with one of them.
Bezos and Musk have different visions. Bezos wants to move heavy industries into orbit and is more interested in the Moon than Mars. Musk wants permanent colonization of Mars, and soon.
I guess you could argue that if Bezos invested a billion dollars in SpaceX, or bought a larger amount of services from them, then SpaceX would have more cash with which to accelerate BFR development. But SpaceX is continuing apace anyway.
Does it matter if SpaceX is one to five years closer to facilitating Mars colonization? Maybe it does if you think that humanity is on the verge of a global nuclear war or other species-threatening event.
You want some kind of cooperation instead of the competition that is happening. But we can already see that SpaceX has forced other launch providers, such as ULA and Ariane, to think seriously about reusability and launch costs. The competition is having a positive effect that will greatly lower the cost of access to space, and through lower $/kg, make colonies on the Moon or Mars much more feasible. Maybe SpaceX and Blue Origin really are "working together", having entered into an industry (in 2000-2002) that was previously stagnant.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]