Totally on topic because 'material for wound dressing.' The Long Beach down to Seaside area's biggest contribution to WWI war effort was collecting tons of sphagnum moss and drying it for use inside cotton bandages. Absorbant, antibiotic, what's not to love?
Thank you so much for your writing and dedication to justice.
“This inspires women”— oh yes, every little girl who watches this and thinks “maybe if I’m rich enough to be pals with a multibillionaire he can let me gloat about a space trip I took.”
Their mindset was “this thing we get to do is so cool, we have to share it with everyone, they’ll agree how cool it is” but they never figured most people who could never dream of having such an opportunity would instead see it as rich people showing off how fun their life is and that this not only inspires resentment (especially at a time when another rich asshole is in the process of impoverishing us all) but also is just not classy. Rich people with class don’t go around flaunting it, they act like they’ve been there before.
"“We duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Shepard did back in the day, pretty much. No one called that a ‘ride,’” King said. “It was called a flight, it was called a journey.”" Yeah. Similar to the Stockton Rush's unfortunate submariners being told, and then repeating, they were going to be "crew members" doing "important research" at the Titanic site. Oy.
But they didn’t. Shepard endured a “Ballistic” reentry which caused him to experience 10 fucking Gees! That is a crushing amount of weight. Makes 180 pounds into 1800 pounds…probably would kill Katy Perry…
Pity poor Gayle who wanted applause and didn’t get the worship she wanted as is so freely given in her “day job”. I’d think that worst than popping in your flight suit would having to endure Perry warble out “What A Wonderful World”.
For an entertaining read may I suggest “Packing For Mars” where they discuss what is needed for travels that far. One of the best lines is from them trying to solve the problem of recycling said waste. At one point someone firmly said, “We ARE NOT eating shit burgers on the way back”. Fun read.
Gayle will always be known for being “Oprah’s friend”, not for anything she has ever accomplished on her own. I am sure that it hurt that no one was impressed with her space tourism for the wealthy trip.
I'm sure passengers on the Queen Mary II compared themselves to the Norse longship explorers who reached North America in 1000 AD... it's the same voyage, afterall
"Why the fuck aren't we taxing the shit out of Jeff Bezos so NASA can build spaceships and send real astronauts to space instead of wasting millions on vanity flights for rich assholes? I mean, fuck, with his couch cushion money we could probably end hunger in America too," is probably one of those questions/statements that would get me fired if I were a journalist.
“NASA” doesn’t really build spaceships, and the ones they are most directly involved in (Artemis) tend to be overpriced and poorly managed. Instead, they contract launch services out to commercial companies, like SpaceX… and Blue Origin, whose New Glenn launch vehicle used technologies and lessons learned from the New Shepard vehicle.
If you don’t like launch companies run by billionaires, your alternatives are basically the giants of the military industrial complex (Boeing, Lockheed…) or Russia.
Space X uses plans developed by NASA. Space X can waste hundreds of millions on failed rocket launch after failed rocket launch to come up with a viable prototype. NASA cannot.
There are reasons why public-private partnerships can be beneficial. And if we are charging billionaires to go into space, gosh, 1) would want to make sure that a chunk of that profit returns to NASA, the one that made all this possible, and 2) would love to not hear from said billionaires
SpaceX does NOT use plans from NASA. NASA puts out proposals and SpaceX bids on them competitively.
Look up the COTS program for ISS resupply. NASA got two new rockets and two spacecraft (Falcon 9 / Dragon and Antares / Cygnus) developed commercially by SpaceX and Orbital for less than the cost of 2 Artemis launches.
NASA is the *customer*, that’s why they don’t make a profit.
SpaceX is getting paid to do things NASA aims to do. NASA has traditionally designed spacecraft that aerospace companies contract to manufacture. I’m familiar with the types of projects they have worked on, as I’m sure you’re familiar with the NASA-developed technologies that SpaceX uses that undergird their rockets, from batteries to guidance to materials, and their foundational work in partially-reusable components.
Cost to achieve an end therefore gets murky. What would have been the cost of not having those inputs (if, for instance, they were trade secrets instead of publicly funded knowledge)?
The “traditional” approach you describe is not what NASA has been doing recently outside of Artemis (the most bloated, behind schedule, politically captured project of them all). Instead, NASA sets out specifications for a capability they need in an RFP (e.g. “Deliver X tons of cargo to ISS”) and then companies provide proposals with their own designs in a competitive bidding process. NASA then partially or fully funds the development, providing payment and incentive fees at key demonstrated milestones. NASA reviews/independently verifies the designs, but they are hands off on the details.
This reduces cost and schedule and places more risk on the contractors. It’s been successful with COTS, commercial crew, and is in work for the new lunar lander and lunar gateway.
But even in the “traditional” approach, NASA was responsible mostly for the conceptual design and overall integration. The detail design was still contracted out. For example, the prime contractor on the Apollo command module was North American Aviation, and the lunar module was designed and built by Grumman. The shuttle had Rockwell (later Boeing) as the orbiter prime, with SRBs by Thiokol (later ATK) and ET by Lockheed Martin.
To the extent companies take advantage of NASA technology (less directly than you seem to think), supporting the development of commercial spaceflight and aviation through basic research and industry standards is literally one of the goals of NASA. That’s the system working as intended!
Cool! Noted, lots of potential benefits from public-private partnerships.
This whole “celebs in space” seems to have been the Obama admin’s idea for NASA to get out of the production side and be more a research fly on the wall on commercial ventures — would you agree with that?
As much as there are all kinds of places outside our atmosphere I would love to visit, I think at this point even if their technology allowed that (it doesn’t—the cans they built for that can send me briefly into low Earth orbit) and some billionaire offered to send me, I’d say no.
Pay the money it would have cost in taxes. Or send someone who can do real research with the opportunity. Thanks and oh shouldn’t you be doing those things anyway?
I honestly didn't have the energy to care. It was just "well they did that on one of Jeff Bezos' dick rockets, okay."
If they got over 100km above the ground, they made it to space. Space is very difficult. And hey better them than me; I sure don't want to go to space.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is gonna have a hard time deciding who gets the prize this year - Gayle King for glamping in space, or trump for e̵n̵d̵i̵n̵g̵ selling out Ukraine to Russia.
Totally on topic because 'material for wound dressing.' The Long Beach down to Seaside area's biggest contribution to WWI war effort was collecting tons of sphagnum moss and drying it for use inside cotton bandages. Absorbant, antibiotic, what's not to love?
Thank you so much for your writing and dedication to justice.
The Oregon Trail comparison 🤣👍
They’ve created their own absurd metaphors.
When I see this grandiose, narcissistic space-preening, all I can think of are the immortal words of Lemmy K: “C’mon baby, eat the rich”
“This inspires women”— oh yes, every little girl who watches this and thinks “maybe if I’m rich enough to be pals with a multibillionaire he can let me gloat about a space trip I took.”
I hope my daughter has more class than that.
Their mindset was “this thing we get to do is so cool, we have to share it with everyone, they’ll agree how cool it is” but they never figured most people who could never dream of having such an opportunity would instead see it as rich people showing off how fun their life is and that this not only inspires resentment (especially at a time when another rich asshole is in the process of impoverishing us all) but also is just not classy. Rich people with class don’t go around flaunting it, they act like they’ve been there before.
"“We duplicated the same trajectory that Alan Shepard did back in the day, pretty much. No one called that a ‘ride,’” King said. “It was called a flight, it was called a journey.”" Yeah. Similar to the Stockton Rush's unfortunate submariners being told, and then repeating, they were going to be "crew members" doing "important research" at the Titanic site. Oy.
But they didn’t. Shepard endured a “Ballistic” reentry which caused him to experience 10 fucking Gees! That is a crushing amount of weight. Makes 180 pounds into 1800 pounds…probably would kill Katy Perry…
Pity poor Gayle who wanted applause and didn’t get the worship she wanted as is so freely given in her “day job”. I’d think that worst than popping in your flight suit would having to endure Perry warble out “What A Wonderful World”.
For an entertaining read may I suggest “Packing For Mars” where they discuss what is needed for travels that far. One of the best lines is from them trying to solve the problem of recycling said waste. At one point someone firmly said, “We ARE NOT eating shit burgers on the way back”. Fun read.
Gayle will always be known for being “Oprah’s friend”, not for anything she has ever accomplished on her own. I am sure that it hurt that no one was impressed with her space tourism for the wealthy trip.
I'm sure passengers on the Queen Mary II compared themselves to the Norse longship explorers who reached North America in 1000 AD... it's the same voyage, afterall
"Why the fuck aren't we taxing the shit out of Jeff Bezos so NASA can build spaceships and send real astronauts to space instead of wasting millions on vanity flights for rich assholes? I mean, fuck, with his couch cushion money we could probably end hunger in America too," is probably one of those questions/statements that would get me fired if I were a journalist.
“NASA” doesn’t really build spaceships, and the ones they are most directly involved in (Artemis) tend to be overpriced and poorly managed. Instead, they contract launch services out to commercial companies, like SpaceX… and Blue Origin, whose New Glenn launch vehicle used technologies and lessons learned from the New Shepard vehicle.
If you don’t like launch companies run by billionaires, your alternatives are basically the giants of the military industrial complex (Boeing, Lockheed…) or Russia.
Space X uses plans developed by NASA. Space X can waste hundreds of millions on failed rocket launch after failed rocket launch to come up with a viable prototype. NASA cannot.
There are reasons why public-private partnerships can be beneficial. And if we are charging billionaires to go into space, gosh, 1) would want to make sure that a chunk of that profit returns to NASA, the one that made all this possible, and 2) would love to not hear from said billionaires
SpaceX does NOT use plans from NASA. NASA puts out proposals and SpaceX bids on them competitively.
Look up the COTS program for ISS resupply. NASA got two new rockets and two spacecraft (Falcon 9 / Dragon and Antares / Cygnus) developed commercially by SpaceX and Orbital for less than the cost of 2 Artemis launches.
NASA is the *customer*, that’s why they don’t make a profit.
SpaceX is getting paid to do things NASA aims to do. NASA has traditionally designed spacecraft that aerospace companies contract to manufacture. I’m familiar with the types of projects they have worked on, as I’m sure you’re familiar with the NASA-developed technologies that SpaceX uses that undergird their rockets, from batteries to guidance to materials, and their foundational work in partially-reusable components.
Cost to achieve an end therefore gets murky. What would have been the cost of not having those inputs (if, for instance, they were trade secrets instead of publicly funded knowledge)?
The “traditional” approach you describe is not what NASA has been doing recently outside of Artemis (the most bloated, behind schedule, politically captured project of them all). Instead, NASA sets out specifications for a capability they need in an RFP (e.g. “Deliver X tons of cargo to ISS”) and then companies provide proposals with their own designs in a competitive bidding process. NASA then partially or fully funds the development, providing payment and incentive fees at key demonstrated milestones. NASA reviews/independently verifies the designs, but they are hands off on the details.
This reduces cost and schedule and places more risk on the contractors. It’s been successful with COTS, commercial crew, and is in work for the new lunar lander and lunar gateway.
But even in the “traditional” approach, NASA was responsible mostly for the conceptual design and overall integration. The detail design was still contracted out. For example, the prime contractor on the Apollo command module was North American Aviation, and the lunar module was designed and built by Grumman. The shuttle had Rockwell (later Boeing) as the orbiter prime, with SRBs by Thiokol (later ATK) and ET by Lockheed Martin.
To the extent companies take advantage of NASA technology (less directly than you seem to think), supporting the development of commercial spaceflight and aviation through basic research and industry standards is literally one of the goals of NASA. That’s the system working as intended!
Cool! Noted, lots of potential benefits from public-private partnerships.
This whole “celebs in space” seems to have been the Obama admin’s idea for NASA to get out of the production side and be more a research fly on the wall on commercial ventures — would you agree with that?
While millions of people go hungry.
Space money ain’t gonna save them- you need Defense Department money for that…
Truly with Felon and Bezos wealth they could literally eradicate world wide hunger.
As much as there are all kinds of places outside our atmosphere I would love to visit, I think at this point even if their technology allowed that (it doesn’t—the cans they built for that can send me briefly into low Earth orbit) and some billionaire offered to send me, I’d say no.
Pay the money it would have cost in taxes. Or send someone who can do real research with the opportunity. Thanks and oh shouldn’t you be doing those things anyway?
Wigs in Space. (Including hair extensions.) Also, ‘Whigs in Space.’ For the history reference.
I honestly didn't have the energy to care. It was just "well they did that on one of Jeff Bezos' dick rockets, okay."
If they got over 100km above the ground, they made it to space. Space is very difficult. And hey better them than me; I sure don't want to go to space.
There's something heartening about the global derision of this stunt. And I am astounded that ANYone thought the response would be anything different.
Let us eat cake.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is gonna have a hard time deciding who gets the prize this year - Gayle King for glamping in space, or trump for e̵n̵d̵i̵n̵g̵ selling out Ukraine to Russia.