Jeff Bezos can now taunt Elon Musk: I'm building a moon rover for NASA, when can Tesla do that? Elon Musk may have launched hundreds of rockets and sent his own Tesla Roadster into space, but rival billionaire Jeff Bezos will soon be able to boast he’s built a moon rover. Firefly Aerospace, the private space company that recently landed its Blue Ghost craft on the Moon – more on that later - on Tuesday announced it …
Did they considered Starship Technologies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Technologies
Handy if Amazon want to start a distribution hub on the moon - though NASA may find it impossible to cancel Amazon Prime
"An underground volcano lair on the moon for Mr Bezos."
There are what appear to be entrances to lava tunnels on the moon's surface that many scientists would love to explore. Even a modest cave would be a good start to a well protected habitat and a fantastic start to a permanent base. Bugger the south pole. (Figuratively, obviously).
"And I thought the shape of Blue Origin was supposed to be Jeff Bezos's attempt at space willy waving."
The funny thing is that I was watching a video by "The Common Sense Skeptic" on Elon and there was a photo of him standing in front of a display with a model in the background that looked much more like a John Thomas than the New Glenn rocket.
Fireball XL5 still showing on Talking Pictures TV, Sat 14:25.
Next episode: an Amazonian Queen has ben exiled into Spaaaaace![1]
[1] probably all to the best, as if she were undersea she'd have to wait for Stingray to be invented, in a few years' time (Supercar is only a two-seater, so where would an Amazon stow her bow?)
I'm moving more and more left in my thinking since retiring and getting old. Just think what all the money spent by fantasists like Musk, Bezos, Gates etc on going to the Moon, Mars, or on equally useless and cliquey projects, could do for world health, welfare and peace if applied locally. There is no Planet B, as the expression goes.
> Just think what all the money spent by fantasists like Musk, Bezos, Gates etc on going to the Moon, Mars, or on equally useless and cliquey projects, could do for world health, welfare and peace if applied locally.
Not as much as you might think. Don't forget, there isn't any "money going into space", there is only a few lumps of (exquisitely crafted) metals, plastics etc.
All[1] of the money being spent is ending up, basically, giving people jobs - feeding, clothing, housing, improving physical and mental health, providing dignity[2]. Even if you don't believe that there are any other benefits, either short[3], medium[4] or long[5] term (or, for the hopelessly romantic/optimistic, the very long term[6]).
Go and have a look at the old idea of the Eccentric British Landowner, who spent their money on having Follies built: these provided the locals with work and wages. And all within The System, no need to try and Tear Down The Man[7], just that daft old buffer spending the family money on a pointless Summer House in the North Forty.
Yes, the modern lot could go about it with less of an eye on making a buck in return, and a healthy dose of humility (and "old bufferism") would go a long way to making them more palatable, but take what we can get.
[1] yes, yes, there are no doubt boondoggles and backhanders and all the rest, but so long as that also gets spent.
[2] even if current events puts paid to the idea that - certain people - actually have "giving people jobs" as one of their life goals, that is the (unintended) result.
[3] e.g. we may be pissed off at aspects of it, but satellite launch capability gives us Good Things, and the improvements in lift required for Moon/Mars/Manned missions can then be used for other things.
[4] There is no Planet B, but there are honking great lumps of rock out there, with our names on them; it would be nice to have a way to send up something big to give them a nudge
[5] materials science in space - along with all basic science - is valuable research, that all feeds back into the good of the human race (and other denizens of Earth).
[6] There is no Planet B, so there is merit in looking to settle the neighbourhood (Solar and stellar).
"[6] There is no Planet B, so there is merit in looking to settle the neighbourhood (Solar and stellar)."
Nothing has been found and anybody that thinks a colony could settle Mars should look into the problem of it not having much in the way of Nitrogen. Water it has, Oxygen it has, but lacking Nitrogen is a major show stopper. Maybe someday when nuclear propulsion is perfected and shuttles can swoop through Titan's atmosphere and bring some back to Mars.... It would have to be continuous since Mars won't be able to hang onto it for very long and the travel time between the Saturnian system and Mars can be years.
What we have learned in studying about trying to live off planet is what it takes to live, in much better detail. That should help us have a deeper understanding what we are doing that hastens our killing ourselves off through ignorance.
"Just think what all the money spent by fantasists like Musk, Bezos, Gates etc on going to the Moon, Mars, or on equally useless and cliquey projects, could do for world health, welfare and peace if applied locally."
That's been tried and nothing changes except a load of consultants buy shiny new cars, boats and planes.
"I've launched many thousands of payloads into orbit and beyond - when can Blue Origin do that?"
No, I'm not a Musk simp, but one (as yet unbuilt) rover versus around 7,500 deployed payloads is hardly the calculus of success.
As someone who's worked on several successful commercial satellites, and whose flight heritage is in many others, I'm all for any spacetech company to succeed. However, Blue Origin is struggling to achieve anything beyond lobbing rich people just past the Kármán line for a few seconds' float time and golf club bragging rights.
That's not spaceflight. It's playing in the sandpit. Blue Origin needs to turn New Glenn into a reliable, fast-turnaround, reusable, super-reliable launch platform in the same way Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy already have been for a decade. Right now, they've only managed one launch, and lost control the of the first (booster) stage they intended to land.
This is not to say that Starship isn't having troubles too. However, SpaceX's "Fail fast and iterate" model appears to be working better than Blue Origin's "Slow and cautious wins the race", and they've got full order books for Falcon and a shockingly good launch cadence.
