Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Space / Another Launch! – Delayed until 11:15

Another Launch! – Delayed until 11:15

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Folks,

Some time around 11:15 or later Eastern, Blue Origin is doing a test launch of New Shepard, one of their rockets. This company is owned by Jeff Bezos, who gives 1 billion dollars a year to support it. Wowzers, that’s a lot of scratch!

 

Anyway, I’m very busy this morning, but wanted to put this here for interested folks.  If any other front pagers find a better link, feel free to edit.

 

 

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    Alain the site fixer

    At least for me, there’s no video on their site yet, so I left this Tweet up for folks to follow.

  2. 2.

    satby

    Think of how much good he could accomplish here on earth for only half a billion. Then we wouldn’t need to look for other habitable planets.

  5. 5.

    Chyron HR

    This company is owned by Jeff Bezos, who gives 1 billion dollars a year to support it.

    NASA IS BACK! NASA IS BACK!

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Now they’re saying 1115 AM EDT (thunderstorms in Texas).

    Thanks Alain.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Alain the site fixer

    Blue Origin is another space company with grand, big plans. One thing about Bezos and Musk and Allen, they dream big. I cant wait for asteroid mining and a space elevator, but those won’t be really started for a decade I figure.

  11. 11.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Baud: it is, but his goal is like a re-roll of classic space exploration, ever larger and better rockets to allow for missions around the solar system, where I’d say Musk’s goal is to begin colonizing Mars.

  12. 12.

    Cermet

    Such a waste – really; without a non-carbon energy source, space rockets are a luxary that will vanish as carbon based fuels become depleted. But then, at least he isn’t using it to fund the thug party like the Kock sucker brothers and their low-life brethren.

  13. 13.

    Cermet

    @Alain the site fixer: The deep space radiation issues make such ideas silly and pointless; as for deep space “around the solar system”, that can’t happen at all for humans without fusion based drives. I’d say that is a bit in the future.

  15. 15.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Alain the site fixer: I always thought of a space elevator as an “elevator”, standing around in a moving room. But I recently read a novel by Joe Haldeman (Marsbound) where he works out the numbers. It’s more like a week to get up to geosynchronous altitude. So you’re actually in a small moving hotel. With a couple dozen strangers.

    I’d still ride it. Would love to see this happen in my lifetime but I don’t see it. Aside from the unsolved materials problems, I don’t know how you’d solve the anti terrorist and disaster issues.

  17. 17.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Baud: yeah, but like Amazon and PayPal, that’s just seed money for grander visions. Mining and construction in orbit, many or most missions will be drones. We will have people near Earth and likely on Mars, in tunnels, shielded from radiation, and requiring less construction, less resources, less energy to maintain than on the surface. But our future exploration is robotic for the most part, and that’s ok.

  18. 18.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: yeah, it would be a long ascent. Or not. Maybe Musk will figure out how to vertically suspend a Hyperloop tube and make the pod go 600 mph using electricity generated by a station in orbit with solar panels. Ok, must give meds to kitty and return to duties.

  21. 21.

    David Evans

    @Cermet: Hydrogen and oxygen make a perfectly good rocket fuel combination, and can be made with renewable energy sources in a number of ways. Then there are ion rockets and solar sails. We won’t give up space exploration for lack of fuel.

  22. 22.

    Cermet

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: And exactly how does one survive the Van Allen Belts radiation? A few hours, yes; days, not gonna work at all. People just don’t understand the dangers of space when they create such ideas. Shielding requires a lot of parasitic weight and makes the idea far less useful. But then, reality has a habit of doing that.

  23. 23.

    Cermet

    @David Evans: In the not too distant future, billions will be going hungry and AGW will be causing extensive wars, and other issues; so, we might be busy doing other things for the near future. Still, for now, I see no reason low earth orbit or some moon exploration can’t continue while we have these cheap fuels but solar is not cheap nor going to be for a while. Wind, to date, works better but I don’t see a hydrogen market so far.

  25. 25.

    Cermet

    As for mining deep space for metals, one needs to realize that the materials of value are extremely low grade compared to Earth ores (living things have, over many millions of years, concentrated these very rare materials into ores that we can then exact economically. Now add space shipping cost (up, around, and down), and other issues, why would anyone believe these ideas are even feasible much less desirable – oh, wait. It is science fiction where reality is set aside for a good story (which I have always enjoyed but then, that is why – its fiction and not reality.) Again, reality does have a way of making these ideas utterly silly when one does the real math. Remember, there are trillions of tons of gold in sea water but extraction is an issue …lol.

  26. 26.

    Luthe

    @satby: Yeah, I want us to go to Mars as much as the next nerd, but if it’s a choice between “billions of dollars on rockets” and “lifting millions out of poverty,” I’d prefer the latter to the former. Of course, in a sane world Jeff Bezos would be taxed out the ass and his billions would be funding NASA, anti-poverty programs, and better schools for low-income kids. But, hey, CAPITALISM!

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    Another hour to go – No Earlier Than (NET) 1213 PM EDT – according to their Twitter machine.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Luthe:

    …a sane world Jeff Bezos would be taxed out the ass and his billions would be funding NASA, anti-poverty programs, and better schools for low-income kids. But, hey, CAPITALISM!

    …that sane world you describe is still capitalism, but with a strong constitutional democracy to tame its excesses.

  29. 29.

    The Other Chuck

    @Cermet: Van Allen belt starts well past geostationary orbit distance at equatorial lattitudes. But one imagines if the vehicle needs additional radiation shielding, you just armor it up with the same mythical material you build the elevator tether itself out of.

  34. 34.

    David Evans

    @Cermet: I’m hoping we keep enough space capability so that when the next asteroid appears on a collision course we can do something to deflect it. Also it may yet turn out that solar power beamed down via microwaves is a viable and non-polluting energy source.

  35. 35.

    David Evans

    I don’t see the point of blue origin when SpaceX has already demonstrated a more capable re-usable first stage. Looks pretty, though.

  37. 37.

    David Evans

    Good flight. I like the air brakes on the rocket. Seems like something SpaceX could have used with advantage.

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    This company is owned by Jeff Bezos, who gives 1 billion dollars a year to support it. Wowzers, that’s a lot of scratch!

    Amazon has ~566,000 employees. Bezos could play with his space rocket toy, or he could give every last one of his employees a $1700 bonus.

  40. 40.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @David Evans:

    Also it may yet turn out that solar power beamed down via microwaves is a viable and non-polluting energy source

    You already got solar power being beamed down via sunlight.

  41. 41.

    David Evans

    @Sm*t Cl*de: This is true. However when I first read of the idea in 1976 in Gerard O’Neill’s “The High Frontier” (read it if you enjoy weeping over lost opportunities) it was pointed out that power from space would be uninterrupted by night or clouds, therefore would not need storage. Also the receiving antenna would be open mesh. You could grow plants or graze cattle under it.

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