[jstsch]

Agreed. This really felt like an amusement park ride for rich people. Like a throw towards the edge of orbit.

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

[q1w2]

I agree that there's no scientific or engineering achievement here and that this ride is essentially joyriding.

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.

[natch]

It’s remarkable that such a mature, sane, and rational perspective has been downvoted at the time of this writing to the point of being dead. Like anyone I am alarmed by over-the-top displays of wealth but that’s not really all this was. There is a lot more going on here. Blue Origin needs a lot more test flights as they ramp up and increase their capabilities. They also need demonstration flights to hep increase confidence about their services. And it totally makes sense to allow some people with the resources to help subsidize the effort, while having some fun and enlarging their perspective. I think this experience was super meaningful for everyone involved, and we shouldn’t try to denigrate it. Sad to see HN not taking a more open minded view here, as evidenced by your post being hn-dead.

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.

[nemetroid]

I don’t think the comment deserves downvoting, but I cannot agree that this characterization - dismissing those who disagree as mindless and juvenile - is mature.

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

[weaksauce]

> 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.

[jstsch]

Sorry, I meant 'rich people' as a neutral term, I do not attach any value to it or intend to deride someone for their wealth. I think that in general people should do as they want, as long as they don't harm others.

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.

[a3n]

Wearing out the bodies and dignity of Amazon floor workers.

[alexashka]

> I disagree that we should deride rich people for spending money the way they want.

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.

[iso1631]

> Like a throw towards the edge of orbit.

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.

[ethbr0]

Walk before you run.

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."

[kiba]

Blue Origin don't need a revenue stream. They need Jeff Bezo to light fire under their ass.

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.

[iso1631]

20 yeas from founding to a suborbital demo flight, 15 years of development for the rocket itself. New Shephard will never make orbit, it's a dead end.

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.

[DennisP]

I mostly agree but BO does at least plan a variant of the New Shephard engine for New Glenn's upper stage.

[ceejayoz]

> Walk before you run.

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.

[dimitrios1]

Well to be fair, they don't compete with Walmart. Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year, and that was during the height of a pandemic, which naturally steered people towards more online orders, something you think would tip the scales in Amazon's favor.

[cptskippy]

> Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year,

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

Operating income for 2020:

    Walmart: $20.6 billion

    Amazon: $22.9 billion

Net Income (business/total) for 2020:

    Walmart: $15.2/14.9 billion

    Amazon: $22.1/21.3 billion

[dimitrios1]

Which one seems more likely to you:

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.

[cptskippy]

You started out by claiming "they don't compete with Walmart" because "Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year". But since that's not true you've moved the goal post and now you're claiming "Walmart eating Amazon's lunch this decade" is the most likely scenario because Amazon has a counterfeit product problem and Walmart has political connections.

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.

[l30n4da5]

have you _seen_ walmart.com? their online store rivals amazon easily.

[cptskippy]

Walmart.com is an extension of their retail services. There's some overlap with Amazon.com but both offer services and features the others don't and neither fully supplant one another.

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?

[dolmen]

Walmart.com ships only in the US. Not in Europe, Asia.

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

[hinkley]

What are the delta V's for a ballistic trajectory taking off in Texas an landing off the coast of Morocco? France? Western Australia? Hawaii?

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.

[iso1631]

If that's your goal than Virgin Galactic, which can take off from far more places in more weather conditions, is more attractive. Or you could use a Dragon capsule on an F9 which can do the job reliably today.

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)