Anyone following the billionaire space pissing contest?

Haych

I didn't watch but I did see a bit on the news about it.

I'm ambivalent about it.  On the one hand competition is good and the general one-upmanship encourages progress, to a point.

However, imagine what could be achieved if the likes of Bezos, Branson and Musk put their collective heads and wealth together - I reckon they'd beat NASA to Mars, although that's ironic in itself.

The only things stopping that is ego and a commercially viable end product - no, sorry, the end product would be commercially viable but one maniacal billionaire wouldn't be able to lord it over the other maniacal billionaires in a pissing contest.

So to me it's school yard mentality for the über rich, only instead of bragging about which sweat-shop manufactured, mass-produced, over-priced footwear they have this week, it's who's the first to build their own rocket and sell tickets to space.

So, a bit like the results of the recent tribal, competitive event, it affects me not one bit.

Hottubes

Why bother going green, ? if these assholes are allowed to develop space tourism.

So the plebs pay for climate change, but billionaires can just do as they please. And sod the environment.

Cirrus

I honestly don't see what the fuss is about. It's strapping a rocket to an aircraft and pointing the nose up until you run out of juice. By the time it gets up to the apex at 280,000 feet, there's no energy left and it starts to fall back to earth.

In contrast, if you actually want to get into orbit, take the space shuttle - at 280,000 feet during a space shuttle launch, it'd be going a hair over 4,000mph and still going up at a 45 degree angle, heading towards a low earth orbit of around 4x that altitude at 17,400 mph.

What's the point in just, almost, barely making it to space if you've not put the effort in to stay up there?

Snap

Bod said:

The money being spent on this willy-waving exercise could help so many people.  It's utterly abhorrent.

You could say the same about just about everything to do with exploration.

Do we know how much money Branson has put into the world economy, indirectly or directly, through all the businesses he has set up? Hard to say. What has everything Virgin related done in terms of employment, economies, tax, jobs etc etc done? Answer - a lot. 

Cirrus

Snap said:

You could say the same about just about everything to do with exploration.

Do we know how much money Branson has put into the world economy, indirectly or directly, through all the businesses he has set up? Hard to say. What has everything Virgin related done in terms of employment, economies, tax, jobs etc etc done? Answer - a lot. 

I don't disagree with all that, but I'm not sure if it's really exploration. He's not really doing anything that a jet fighter couldn't do, in principle - just strapping a rocket to an aircraft and pointing the nose up falls (literally) a long way short of actually getting into space in a meaningful way.

Grumpyrocker

At least Bezos and Musk are doing proper space stuff - things that can benefit people such as satellites etc. Branson is just pissing around with a toy for his rich friends to pay for a ride in. 

Snap

Cirrus said:

Snap said:

You could say the same about just about everything to do with exploration.

Do we know how much money Branson has put into the world economy, indirectly or directly, through all the businesses he has set up? Hard to say. What has everything Virgin related done in terms of employment, economies, tax, jobs etc etc done? Answer - a lot. 

I don't disagree with all that, but I'm not sure if it's really exploration. He's not really doing anything that a jet fighter couldn't do, in principle - just strapping a rocket to an aircraft and pointing the nose up falls (literally) a long way short of actually getting into space in a meaningful way.

Perhaps yes, but I think it's all part of a wider picture: group of minted people self fund a lot of flight research which will benefit far more than just the eventual paying passengers. The whole pissing contest could possibly encourage them all to push boundaries and further our knowledge and capabilities in space flight/travel/exploration etc. I think it's all to inter related really to single out one bloke and slate him for spending his own money.

one of the things that comes out of this could be more efficient flight engines. That tech could end up in commercial planes. 

axisus

Not interested in old blokes in space. 

Beautiful big breasted women in bikinis in space, count me in.

Cirrus

It might, but if you're going to look at it in terms of flight research, for an idea of where I'm coming from, check out the X-15; it could do everything in 1959 that Virgin Galactic's "spaceship" could do, except that it only had one seat. More than 60 years ago, we were exploring this technology - high altitude, high speed aerodynamics, rocket propulsion, heavier aircraft lifting to launch altitude - as a fairground ride I think it's fair enough, but I don't see where the innovation or boundary pushing is, short of making it safe enough for regulators to let passengers on it.

wibble

axisus said:

Not interested in old blokes in space. 

Beautiful big breasted women in bikinis in space, count me in.

Death by Snu Snu!!!

ThePrettyDamned

Seems a colossal waste of resources at this stage, especially as we are actually experiencing the long-predicted climate crisis.

Cool as all hell. 

Offset

Quite frankly, I couldn't give a rat's arse.  Now a manned landing on Mars... oh yes.

fob

Haych said:

However, imagine what could be achieved if the likes of Bezos, Branson and Musk put their collective heads and wealth together - I reckon they'd beat NASA to Mars, although that's ironic in itself.

Branson isn't a player in the same way Musk and Bezos are.

As I understand it this union wouldn't happen because Musk and Bezos have fundamentally different ideas aboout how expansion into the solar system should take place. Musk wants to go to Mars (and the moon) to establish colonies whereas Bezos follows the Gerard O'Neill blueprint of building space habitats (perhaps even using the Moon and Mars as building materials). My heart wants to follow Musk - the idea of exploring a planet appeals to the child in me but Bezos (well O'Neill) probably has the more sensible idea.

jeztone2

Snap said:

Bod said:

The money being spent on this willy-waving exercise could help so many people.  It's utterly abhorrent.

You could say the same about just about everything to do with exploration.

Do we know how much money Branson has put into the world economy, indirectly or directly, through all the businesses he has set up? Hard to say. What has everything Virgin related done in terms of employment, economies, tax, jobs etc etc done? Answer - a lot. 

You could say that about anyone running a business. My mate Ian runs a business that employs 50 people. He doesn’t get a free pass to avoid paying tax. So why Branson? 

Also most jobs in the service sector pay poverty wages now. Most U.K. households get tax credits to the tune of £11bn a year. So spare me the hooker with the heart of gold. It’s pure tax avoidance. 

Snap

@jeztone2 ;;

So you don't think any of Branson's companies have contributed anything to employment, industries, taxation, anywhere over the years? It's not just about his personal taxation (about which just what do we know anyway?). 

I would say the same about anyone who runs a business (self included), but the scale of what Branson has achieved outstrips most people, by a long long shot.

I think Virgin Galactic is about just a little bit more than Branson filling in his tax return.

Axe_meister

I'm in two minds about this.
The geek/Petrol head/Engineer part of me thinks, this is cool.
At the same time, is that all? We went to the moon in the 60s, we have sent probes to Mars, we have probes sent out of our solar system made in the 70s. We had a space shuttle that could deploy the hubble telescope into high orbit. And here we have a space plane that does not even take you to orbit, for the amusement of a few rich people. Not exactly ground breaking. At least Musk is trying to take us to Mars.
The billions of dollars could have been better spent researching and building something beneficial to us all (green Energy/Saving the rain forests, etc).
Yes he has employed a bunch of Engineers, but there was no real breakthrew science in this endeavor.
As much as I dislike Bill Gates, at least he is trying to spend his billions wisely. 

jeztone2

Snap said:

@jeztone2 ;;;

So you don't think any of Branson's companies have contributed anything to employment, industries, taxation, anywhere over the years? It's not just about his personal taxation (about which just what do we know anyway?). 

I would say the same about anyone who runs a business (self included), but the scale of what Branson has achieved outstrips most people, by a long long shot.

I think Virgin Galactic is about just a little bit more than Branson filling in his tax return.

I don’t think you understand capitalism.

Generating employment and taxation isn’t a form of altruism. It’s just a by product of making himself money. Does Henry Ford get a free pass? Howard Hughes? The CEO of Toyota? Where does it end? 

Branson makes more money off people than most. Also some of his business rely on masses of taxpayer subsidy. Virgin Trains for example. Also a lot of his businesses are just branding fronts for other companies. Virgin credit cards were run by MBNA last time I looked. 

Given the state of the planet, I don’t think space is a priority. Most of my friends children have either allergies and or respiratory issues. Those are on the increase because to put it bluntly. We are fucking the planet. 

Serious deep space exploration by humans won’t occur until we have cleaner and more efficient propulsion systems. Which could be hundreds of years away if ever?

I don’t get this subservience to Billionares. I pay tax, my employer pays tax. I expect everyone too. Not run off on some little adventure that benefits virtually no one. Oh & I think the US government subsidised his spaceport to $200 million. So again taxpayer subsidy. 

Kilgore

Cirrus said:

 but I don't see where the innovation or boundary pushing is, short of making it safe enough for regulators to let passengers on it.

 Making it safe enough for Joe Public is probably the most difficult aspect of getting into space.

 It's no longer the preserve of test pilots or astronauts that have to train for months or years.

As for future practical applications beyond the ultimate roller-coaster ride, who knows?

But at least it's proof of concept that "space" is commercialy viable and, at least in the view of the regulators, carries acceptable risk. 

Cirrus

You've missed my broader point, I think. It's not going to space. It's not a stepping stone on the way to space. It's a fairground ride that amounts to a plane with a rocket attached to it, allowing it to do a ballistic arc for a few minutes. Nobody is getting into space of Virgin Galactic. They're just brushing it with their fingertips before falling back to earth.

TeleMaster

I'm all for boldly going but I believe that wealth should be used to fix the awful problems we have on earth before we start making luxury space homes for billionaires and holidays in space for other rich people. 

You could literally build the infrastructure to save millions of lives with that money, and probably make money on top, but no, Richie Rich wants to go on holiday to space. Give me a break. 

Pay your taxes you awful people and stop asking for bailouts.