Jeff Bezos reaches space on Blue Origin's first crewed launch
Source: CNBC
VAN HORN, Texas -- Jeff Bezos is the world's most wealthy person, and now the first to hold that title while not on the Earth.
Blue Origin launched him into spaceflight history on Tuesday, with Bezos riding his company's first crewed New Shepard rocket, alongside both the oldest and youngest people to ever have flown in space.
The capsule carrying the Blue Origin crew accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound before it reached 80 kilometers (or about 262,000 feet altitude), the boundary the U.S. uses to mark the edge of space. The crew will float in microgravity for a couple minutes, before the capsule returns and lands under a set of parachutes.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/jeff-bezos-reaches-space-on-blue-origins-first-crewed-launch.html
82 year old Mercury 13 program pilot Wally Funk
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... happy he's okay... but I happily turned off the news. My interest is low...
... I trust he pays his taxes every year... with the money he's worth, his contributions are important and needed!
But I know people like to obsess over billionaires who we have no control over nor who we will ever have control over. 
and he had been working on that for 17 years (which was when the company was created).
Launch
Apogee
(they went about 70k ft higher than Branson 
)
I could hear her yelling like the Slim Pickens character "Major Kong" in Dr. Strangelove. 
This is what she sounded like on the audio when they got around the apogee point -
in space...whooopdeef******doo...they are trying to get off this planet to who knows where. Meanwhile back on earth the unwashed billions are dying in droves from pandemics, corruption, evil orange people and his advisors, rising oceans, smoke from huge drought-wind driven fires, obvious climate change, racists hating on POC, and on an on to fates worse than death.
Yeah jeffieboy, I'm so excited about your riding a rocket...
did he lay off half the crew just before landing?
were nothing but "giant dicks".
That's why I prefer the shuttle-style, but even that rode 3 "dicks" -
Apparently there was an inefficient fuel expenditure situation with launching shuttles this way as well asother issues that the pilots had with the glider-style shuttles.
so he did. The super wealthy are exploring escape options for when we turn against them. 
Bezos and Gates, the 2 wealthiest guys on the planet, are divorced. So my lack of wealth is probably not the reason why I'm single. 
and agree that we are beyond the time for regulating what is going up in orbit.
But it's hard when you have things like this pandemic, along with climate change, which in turn impacts the weather (and thus the food production and has caused calamities around the world with extreme events), to somehow shoe horn something "space"-related into the conversations.
It is always a frustrating thing to look at someone who is wealthy and then expect them to change the spots (and ruthless streak) that got them to where they are. I have even said similar about all these multi-million dollar ballplayers and ask why they seem to like opening restaurants or designing sports wear and why not put the money into literacy programs or food banks or...
I eventually get to the point where I am resigned to the fact that it is pointless to expect it.
Yeah Tesla... Big news around these parts with a $130k model burst into flames leaving nothing left of the car, out on the Main Line (Haverford) about 3 weeks ago.
Regarding the taxes? I hate to say that horse left the barn a long time ago. As long as there is no election finance reform (and no one immediately took up the mantle to at least attempt to fix McCain-Feingold when it was struck down with the Citizen's United ruling over a decade ago), then a large chunk of our elected officials will be bought and paid for, and the tax structure will be loathe to change.
And regarding the funding of all those past space-related activities - that money went to guess who? Private contractors. That goes all the way back to the Mercury effort and continues today.
The web has allowed more people to see the "behind the scenes" with a coating of their flashy marketing P.R. But whether it's SpaceX or Northrup-Grumman (the same "Grumman" of lunar module fame), the government ceased doing its own stuff decades ago - generally after WW2.
I had posted this about Northrup-Grumman - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15642296 in nolabear's GD thread - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215641531
https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/space-legacy/
James Bernstein July 16, 2019
Astronaut Edwin E."Buzz" Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module pilot, is photographed during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity on the Moon on July 20, 1969. (Photo by Neil Armstrong/NASA Photo)
The vehicle that took a dozen U.S. astronauts to the moon starting a half-century ago would not meet anyone’s definition of beauty: It looked like a giant grasshopper with bugged-out eyes and spindly legs. But the Apollo Lunar Module, also known as the Apollo Lunar Lander, was arguably the most remarkable vehicle ever built, one that brought glory not only to its manufacturer, Grumman Aerospace Corporation of Bethpage, but to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and to the United States. The nearly 10-year project to build the LM was among Grumman’s proudest efforts, and the centerpiece of the company’s contribution to America’s space effort.
For the country, the Moon program — NASA called it Project Apollo — began on May 25, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy proposed before Congress that the U.S. “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” Those LM days are now taking focus again in the minds of Grummies, as they called themselves, as the anniversary of the first Moon landing in 1969 approaches.
Throughout July, celebrations are scheduled across the country to commemorate one of the most memorable days in world history. Several events are to be held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, which on July 20 will hold an “Apollo at 50 Countdown Celebration,” including a screening of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon.
Grummies are delighted to recall those days. “Everybody was enthusiastic,” says Mike Lisa, now 76, of Hicksville, who was an LM environmental test engineer. “Our job was to put guys on the Moon, and that’s what we did.” The work became all consuming at a company accustomed to work and pressure. Grumman signed a $2 billion contract — enormous at the time — with NASA in 1962. “We didn’t know anything about a clock,” says Sam Koepel, now 90, of Floral Park, who wrote and edited LM specifications. “We did everything exactly when the company needed it done.”
https://www.longislandpress.com/2019/07/16/long-islanders-recall-leading-role-in-moon-landing/
A "$2 billion contract" in 1961. Imagine what that would be in today's dollars.
who was a history/poly-sci major so "history" was a given in my household. She was also a CSPAN junky when cable finally came around the neighborhood.
My dad was a computer programmer for the government who was taught COBOL by the famous Admiral Grace Hopper, back in the '50s. He worked for the VA back then (was a WW2 vet), so I grew up with mag tape write protectors and punch cards around the house. His unit worked on the programming and processing of checks for vets. Nowadays, that work is contracted out and the only thing that the government workers do is project management stuff - defining the requirements and letting "private industry" carry out/create the end product or service.
I think my issue is that there seems to be an assumption that "private" industry only recently got involved in government work and particularly in the space program. But that is just nonsense.
What I think the Bransons and Bezos and Musks of the world know is that the deep pocket is in the contracting and when Branson and Bezos missed that boat, they had to find something to justify the expenditures - a fad-ish thing, not unlike the Concorde once was, that pays the bills until a "good government contract" comes along.
I haven't completely lost all hope given even what happened the past year (not counting COVID-19) with things that were upended and removed and changed that were previously untouchable and unmovable for over a century. But here we are.
But we are also in a period where technology has magnified discord and misinformation and the headwinds from that are strong, making it difficult to focus on meaningful goals that need to happen.
but also attempting to put it in the perspective of how (made up word) "gynormous" the earth really is is compared to the stuff that might be floating around it.
But one of my other concerns (not trying to be concern trolly ) is that you now have China in the fray since they have a space station under construction and are continually launching things on boosters that were apparently designed for or end up going into an uncontrolled re-entry. Of course we recall what happened with one just a few months ago with one - https://www.space.com/china-rocket-body-fall-implications
One of those "passengers" was 82-year old Wally Funk who was part of a group of women pilots who worked in the Mercury program in the '60s, and today she beat John Glenn's record as the oldest person to go up in space (where he did a final ride on Discovery at age 77).
But of course she was not allowed to actually be an astronaut back then and go on a space flight. Because. Woman. It took over 20 years later before the first woman (Sally Ride) would actually go into space - that was in the 80s.
The below was done 7 years ago (I didn't realize she was attempting to get on Branson's ship back then but I am assuming that never happened) -
Yup. Women are "yahoos". Always have been. Always will be.
