[shadowgovt]

It's frustrating, because I'd like to get excited, but relative to even the regular things going on in aerospace this isn't interesting. Interesting enough, I guess. Guy went up and down. There are six people going around and around right now on the ISS and a second station is coming into orbit. He never left Earth? CNSA has a rover on the moon, and NASA has several rovers, some satellites, a helicopter, and a Will.i.am single on Mars.

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.

[mLuby]

> Step it up or step out, Bezos.

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.

[shadowgovt]

Absolutely true.

... 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.