Rich guys in private spacecraft advertising seats for other rich guys.

[kairos12]

The Wrong Stuff.

[Elessar Zappa]

1. Better they occupy themselves doing this

rather than fucking up everything on Earth.

[Crunchy Frog]

26. They can walk and chew gum at the same time.

[TheBlackAdder]

41. Poof! What was that? My dashcam caught it.

.



.

[RainCaster]

2. I'm waiting for Bezos to crash on reentry

THAT would be great karma.

[TheBlackAdder]

42. While a bug zapper might be quicker, you won't hear the snap & pop. Oh, and no smells.

[DBoon]

3. Gil Scott Heron - Whitey's on the Moon

[MuseRider]

8. I do not know how

I have never heard this. WOW! I am so glad you posted this. Thank you.

[smirkymonkey]

50. That's great!

I've never heard it before, but I love it!

[csziggy]

4. The money they spend on this will not be held in their trusts funds

But will go to pay skilled workers to do high tech jobs.

Plus, if their rockets go wrong, there will be fewer billionaires polluting the planet. Chances are their billions will be distributed among various heirs, foundations, and other entities.

I see these as "win, win" for the world.

[Tribetime]

45. My take is he's an egomaniac who loves money

And loves free advertising for his next flights of others like him with big egos and too much money. I could care less.

[jalan48]

5. What these rich men and women can really do is jet around the world finding places to live

where climate change has had the least impact. Meanwhile the average citizen is left to deal with the problem. Going into space is just an ego trip for them.

[Ocelot II]

6. They're spending a shit-ton of money, which is being injected into the economy.

Engineers, tech people and mechanics have jobs. This is a good thing.

[tenderfoot]

10. If only those engineers and tech were working on projects that involved renewable energy...

rather than vanity travel at the expense of the environment.

[Ocelot II]

12. I recall the same complaint about the moon landing.

A lot of good research and discovery can come from these projects, regardless whether they're done by the government or private enterprises, done for vanity or otherwise.

[tenderfoot]

13. A lot of good research and discovery can come from these projects

Such as?

Like humans can't really live there? That being exposed to radiation is not a good thing?

I'm totally down with the space station that's out there now. This on the other hand, absolute waste of time and resources.

I wonder if Branson could see all the sea animals boiling to death from up there?

[Sympthsical]

18. Reusable rockets are a game changer

A lot of tech we take for granted came out of NASA trying to figure things out over the years.

Research for its own sake is a good thing.

Of course the billionaires are doing this out of vanity. But if it helps the human race along a bit, then it isn't the worse thing they could be doing.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

19. +100. nt

[tenderfoot]

20. Oh that's impressive... reusable rockets...

Earth is saved.

[Sympthsical]

22. If the human race is to survive, colonization will have to happen

And a lot of technology developed could be used for environmental solutions. Better satellites, better programming languages, different energy strategies. Just because it's not obvious on the surface doesn't mean the benefits aren't there.

Here's a neat article about some of the random things that came out of NASA:

https://sports.yahoo.com/25-everyday-items-nasa-invented-225418477.html

I don't get why one would be so down on technological advances, large and small.

[PortTack]

32. Colonize what?? Living on even the moon is a total pipe dream let alone mars

[Sympthsical]

34. As of now, yes

It's not like we're going to start tomorrow.

But I don't see any reason to frown upon long-term thinking.

[Owl]

47. Exactly.

[hunter]

27. This is better than wind turbines.

Wind turbines further entrench our dependence on natural gas.

Every wind turbine requires "backup" power because the wind doesn't blow continuously. This backup power is typically supplied by natural gas. In practice these natural gas plants become the primary source of electricity. (This is why the supposedly "green" Germans are having to make politically dangerous deals with corrupt Russian natural gas suppliers.)

Natural gas is destroying the world as we know it.

If wind turbines were bad for the natural gas industry they wouldn't be building them in Texas.

Engineers and scientists are not a limited resource. We can always make more, encouraging people to become engineers by creating interesting and exciting jobs that actually make the world a better place.

Vanity space programs don't seem like a bad thing to me, especially in comparison to things like natural gas fracking or useless fighter aircraft.

[hatrack]

7. I'd thought maybe an Apollo 8 moment was possible . . .

The Earthrise photograph did, to a degree, drive the realization for many of us of just how small and fragile this planet is, and powered the idea that maybe we should treat it accordingly.

Then again, not holding my breath for such a moment for Bezos, Branson, and their ilk. Not too sure they're wired for revelatory experiences, beyond "Man, I am so FUCKING RICH!!".

[edbermac]

9. Grew up during the Apollo era.

So I really can't knock the guy. If I had the bucks I'd buy a seat.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. That is a shortsighted view

An alternate perspective:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215612050

[hunter]

28. Like you, I don't think this is a bad thing.

Better to fund a vanity space program than a right wing racist political agenda.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Some one pointed out the similarities between now and Howard Hughes.

He was the equivalent of his days' billionaire.

His vanity flight program begat today's commercial air travel.

[brooklynite]

14. Income envy is always popular...

The computer you wrote this complaint on cost several thousand dollars more when the first models came out.

The TV you watched the flight on started out as a device that only wealthy families could afford.

The commercial plane flights you take started out as something only a few people could afford.


As technology and production advances they came within reach of more abs more people. That’s capitalism.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

17. +100. nt

[sarcasmo]

15. Our two tiered society has reached it's peak.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

16. Yeah? So?

It's their money, they can spend it however they want to, if they want to spend it on private space travel, that's their right to do so.

[tenderfoot]

21. At least we know their wealth isn't trickling down.

They get avoid paying taxes too.

[EX500rider]

37. The people who designed and built the rockets probably do think it trickles down to them. nt

[tenderfoot]

38. An avalanche of wealth!

Take that poverty!

[EX500rider]

39. SpaceX alone has 9,500 employees.

Blue Origin/Number of employees
3,500

[tenderfoot]

40. BFD, wal-mart has 2.3 million

eom

[EX500rider]

43. Feel free to compare the avg salaries between Walmart and the space companies.

[tenderfoot]

44. feel free to notice there are more people that paid a lot less

guess they should have tried harder in math.

[EX500rider]

46. "feel free to notice there are more people that paid a lot less"

I doubt there are many min. wage jobs at those companies.

guess they should have tried harder in math.
Yes a better education can lead to better job opportunities.

[DBoon]

23. The original lunar mission was for national prestige

and to show free societies can technically outstrip the Soviet dictatorship.

This mission supports the unbridled egos of the extremely wealthy.

This is how America has changed in the last 60 years.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" has vanished. We now have "winner takes all"

[smirkymonkey]

51. +1000

[BGBD]

24. Reading through these comments

And some fit into that deplorable category.

[Klaralven]

25. Explorers are generally rich or funded by rich people and wealthy institutions

Columbus' trip was financed by wealthy backers --

The ships for the first voyage—the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María—were fitted out at Palos, on the Tinto River in Spain. Consortia put together by a royal treasury official and composed mainly of Genoese and Florentine bankers in Sevilla (Seville) provided at least 1,140,000 maravedis to outfit the expedition, and Columbus supplied more than a third of the sum contributed by the king and queen. Queen Isabella did not, then, have to pawn her jewels (a myth first put about by Bartolomé de Las Casas in the 16th century).

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus/The-first-voyage

Marco Polo was not poor --

His father, Niccolò Polo, a merchant, traded with the Near East, becoming wealthy and achieving great prestige.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo

[sir pball]

31. Pennsylvania was founded as a proprietary colony nt

[Klaralven]

48. New Jersey was granted to Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkley as proprieters

Carteret was granted the north and east part, while Berkley was granted the south and west part.

[dalton99a]

29. They are risking their lives to expand our knowledge

We need to find out what it looks like above 50 miles

[WarGamer]

33. If it advances technology for future endeavors...

I'm all for it.

[Klaralven]

49. As a feat, it recapitulates Space Ship One in '04 and the X-15 in '63

Except that Space Ship One reached over 100 km altitude three times and the X-15 twice -- so they actually made it into space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15#Record_flights

[KentuckyWoman]

52. I disagree.

When airplane travel started it was for rich people. Someone like me could only imagine being on a plane. Now I can afford to fly almost anywhere. Granted I no longer put cardboard in my shoes, but for Americans, I'm in the bottom 3rd economically. I've been lucky enough to use my passport more than once, even though I had to eat lot of Ramen to be able to afford it. ... so to speak.

Maybe it takes 100 years but hopefully this is the start of a new kind of tourism.