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Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Apr 26, 2003 07:11 PM
from the more-fun-than-yachts dept.
from the more-fun-than-yachts dept.
Brad Stone points out his story (due out in Monday's issue of Newsweek) on Jeff Bezos' secret space-oriented company, called Blue Origin -- which aims to launch tourists in a reusable vehicle. The article also touches on some of the other private space ventures you've been reading about lately. (One cool note about Blue Origin is that Neal Stephenson is an employee; I hope he's not allowed anywhere dangerous.)
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Neal's speaking this week. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://fury.com/)
Tthe dotcom equivalent of yacht racing (Score:4, Insightful)
the clinton era-boom generation of newly-rich are going for the x-prize. the reagan-era deregulation sired rich (like the virgin-atlantic folks and forbes-types) went for balloon racing and round the world plane flights. and the era before that the merger moguls like ted turner were going for yacht racing.
its all alpha-male competition. this time however its the alpha-male-geeks which explains the sci-fi content.
Re: Or, in other words: (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.clanmacgaming.com/)
... Capitalist Pigs... in... SPAAAAACE!!!!!
[/MuppetShowAnnouncer]
:)
Patent? (Score:2, Funny)
(http://www.traxel.com/)
...aims to launch tourists in a reusable vehicle (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.theschmoejoes.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 19 2004, @02:56PM)
It(TM)©® only(TM)©® takes(TM)©® one(TM)©® click(TM)©®(TM)!(TM) is© a(TM) registered® trademark(TM) used(TM) with Jeff©'s(TM) permission©. Unauthourized© reproduction(TM) is© expressly® prohibited(TM).
Cease and Desist (Score:5, Funny)
I represent Mr. Jeff Bezos and his patent portfolio. We believe that your Slashdot signature, "OpenBeos [sourceforge.net]& Software [bebits.com]," contains intentionally misleading language. Consumers are likely to believe that "OpenBeos" is associated with Mr. Bezos.
As you may be aware, "Bezos" has been copyrighted, patented, and trademarked by Mr. Bezos. In fact, Mr. Bezos also patented the process of trademarking the term "Bezos," to ensure that if his trademark were to expire, he could sue anyone else attempting to register the mark.
We request that you immediately cease and desist all use of the term "Beos," or any other mark which misleads consumers into the false assumption that they are a patron of one of Mr. Bezos' business ventures.
Regards
J. Wilberforce Patterson, Esq.
Re:Cease and Desist (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday February 15 2003, @02:04AM)
Thinking about it, I actually believe that our act, which consists of doing ridiculously stupid things and babbling incoherent nonsense, might infringe on Mr. Bezos' activities. We do not want any legal trouble and are willing to fully cooperate with Mr. Bezos' demands. Please advise.
Another One? (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://www.hey.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 17 2003, @08:39PM)
Re:Another One? (Score:4, Funny)
Now sit back and watch the funding come in. You too can have a space program for only a $100 investment.
this just in... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://blog.heavymachines.net/)
secret (Score:1, Funny)
Not so secret anymore eh?
How long before he files a patent? (Score:1, Redundant)
(http://www.gamerz.net/rrognlie/)
"method for the transport and return of civilian passengers to near space in a reusable craft"
?
Bald Dude's In Space! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~$$$$$exyGal/journal/#naked | Last Journal: Tuesday January 04 2005, @04:23AM)
That quote is right underneath a picture of bald Mr. Bezos in which he very subtly resembles Jean Luc Picard ;-).
Amazon (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
Space Race 2.0? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.seldo.com/)
Waiting to be enlightened here....
Re:Space Race 2.0? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, five years later, their secret projects are going public, cuz they finally have something that resembles a proper plan.
That, and the fact that NASA's recent stumbles provide a fertile ground for a private, less bueraucratic space-oriented enterprises.
If Bezos goes to space, no one else will... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://jjjiii.livejournal.com/)
I'm sure he'd patent the method used to get him there, wouldn't he? And the damn patent office would allow it, because the patent office is his bitch, right?
Then again, leaving Bezos in space might be just what we need...
Neal Stephenson on the payroll... (Score:5, Interesting)
Space? Why? (Score:1, Troll)
(http://www.pumm.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday January 03 2004, @08:44PM)
Must......Resist...... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday January 05 2002, @01:42AM)
(awww, screw it)
BEEEZZZOOOOSSSS...IIIINNNNNNnnnn....SPAAAA
Uses for Too Much Money (Score:1)
(http://www.pipingdesign.com/)
Surely there's interesting stuff down there, like nucular radiation-enlarged squids [nasa.gov], slime monsters [geocities.com] and maybe a Godzilla-like creature [50megs.com] or two.
Are any of them funding research into solar cells [boeing.com], wind technology, [nrel.gov] tidal power [murdoch.edu.au] or geothermal [energy.gov] or is it all a great big ego boost? [world-sex-records.com]
reality distortion field (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday March 26 2004, @04:22PM)
Buy a trip to Venus from spacelaunch.amazon.com (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday January 31 2007, @02:25AM)
Other planets orbiting Sol
Features:
- Raining sulfuric acid
- 1300 psi atmospheric pressure
- Average surface temperature 464 degrees C
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***** This is it!, April 26, 2010
Reviewer: shill49 (see more about me)
This is the best planet. There isn't a lot to do there, but it's relatively uncrowded so if you're an introspective person like me you can "get away from it all" and not have to put up with many other tourists. Granted, you can't go around much because the surface is hot enough to melt lead, and the weather is often cloudy. If you have kids you're probably better off taking a look at Mars.
Ready to Buy?
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or sign in to turn on 1-click launching (PAT. PEND.)
You can see the website now! (Score:2, Redundant)
Pluto
Uranus
Jeff Bezo's plan to get to the moon (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 21 2002, @04:37PM)
2)Walk to moon on stacks of patent paperwork.
3)Patent the 'process in which a body may orbit around another'.
Jeff Bates?!?! Oh.. (Score:1)
(http://fsg.botservice.net/)
Phew..for a sec, I thought that was Jeff Bates' secret space-oriented company. Its like, gee, whats VA paying him these days?
Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)
(http://justin.richer.org/)
Billionaires secretly building rockets and other spaceships isn't all that surprising; but a Slashdot editor using "than" properly in lieu of the much more popular "then"... now *that's* what I call news!
Crash and Burn (Score:1, Funny)
A great quote from the artilce... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.texxelle.com/)
It really is a good point, never befor have so many "nerds" had the cash to do something this cool!
Profitable? (Score:1)
John Hurt in "Contact" (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 29, @07:20AM)
Oh! Joy! (Score:1)
Bezos and South African paypal entreprenuer (Score:1)
Now we know why Bezos patented 1-Click (Score:1)
(http://www.cnspace.net/)
bunny of death!
Somebody claiming to be Jeff Bezos' son... (Score:1)
(http://harry.blogdns.com/)
Re:Somebody claiming to be Jeff Bezos' son... (Score:4, Informative)
(http://cumulo-nimbus.com/)
As mentioned in the article (By Bezos himself), Blue Origin haven't actually done anything noteworthy yet.
From the Article:
Bezos himself says, "It's way premature for Blue to say or comment on anything because we haven't done anything worthy of comment."
More Private Companies (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.shortconsulting.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 09 2003, @04:28PM)
Scaled Composites - fake? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.yellowcatdesign.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 23 2003, @01:55AM)
On top of that, the picture is Photoshopped (whoops, I mean "Gimped"
Compare the bottom of this [scaled.com] picture closely to this [scaled.com] image. Both are from Scaled Composites own site. Scaled Composites is one of the competitors for the X-price.
Note the following fakes:
1) The attachment of the crafts is a Photoshop job. They removed the wheels (look closely at the spot on the small plane that suposedly holds the wheels) and note that they forgot to remove the shadow of the front stand. Also, the shadow on the attachement between the planes is (nicely) faked. For that matter, so is the whole attachment.
2) The small plane does not actually have an exhaust (the red thingy). In all the pictures this thing looks a little different. Note how it is awkwardly in and out of shadow in the above pictures.
Why?
Do investors know about this? Is this common practice for a startup (ok, forget I asked that
Hope Bezos makes it into space... (Score:2)
(http://www.northatla...ucts/1583940537.html | Last Journal: Sunday April 27 2003, @08:23PM)
Joint Efforts Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
High tech (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday July 03 2005, @04:43PM)
Voyager? Not high tech? The first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping for fuel? Methinks he's pretty modest
SB
Neal Stephenson: Tripoli's first Cert Level 4? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones | Last Journal: Monday May 16 2005, @06:21PM)
He'd gotten to Level Two, which requires a written test and successfully launching a carefully inspected large rocket. As I recall, it lets you use "J" and "K" motors. (For those who flew Estes motors as kids, this is the equivalent of 64 and 128 D motors.)
Level Three requires a really large and sturdy rocket, and lets you use monstrous M motors.
(I was certified in the early 90s before there were levels, but let it lapse during grad school; when I tried for level one last year I failed because my model's nose cone popped off due to internal pressure. Nothing damaged, but that was enough to scuttle the attempt.)
Now I'm picturing him filling out the paperwork for Cert Level 4: Manned Flight.
Stefan
* Tripoli Rocketry Association / National Association of Rocketry
Jeff's New Patent (Score:2)
(http://www.jroller.com/page/shareme/Weblog | Last Journal: Tuesday September 03 2002, @07:25AM)
My bet is less than 12 months away for that patent
Awesome! (Score:1)
(http://home.shafe.com/)
Jeff Bozos' shot at space (Score:1)
(http://people.debian.org/~rganesan)
Tax Stunt... (Score:2, Interesting)
Bezos is the same guy.... (Score:1)
(http://www.supersaiyan.com/)
The next day... (Score:1)
(http://www.physics.tamu.edu/)
More (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~coolmacdude | Last Journal: Sunday March 23 2003, @12:22PM)
Doh! (Score:1)
(http://www.vjoebaldwin.co.uk/)
Was it just me (Score:1)
(http://www.openvoice.com.au/free/)
Hm... (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 26, @08:41AM)
So the vehicle is reusable... what about the tourists?
In other news (Score:1)
I thought it said... (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Saturday July 17 2004, @09:35PM)
And then I thought "'bout damn time!".
Both CATS and DOGS are needed... (Score:2)
(http://www.pointrel.org/)
While I would never say such innovative effort is wasted, it would seem that launch technologies, while sexy, might really deserve somewhat lower priorities than the issue of what to do when we are in space. The fact is, we can launch people now, and relatively off-the-shelf technology (e.g. Ariane or Saturn V equivalent rockets) if manufactured in large quantities are probably Cheap-enough Access To Space for the next ten to twenty years (until nano-tech makes far better launch systems possible) especially if we are willing to accept 5% human casualties for launch (which is probably a far lower casualty rate than most human settlement travel activities historically).
There is also an issue of focus -- people focus on reusable vehicles, but the reality is that it is so costly to get things into space that there is not much point in returning either people or equipment after they have been launched. At best, Apollo era reentry capsules for people who want to come back to earth are good enough. For example, the space shuttle costs so much to launch relative to its production cost it should really be left in orbit as usable equipment (since anything in orbit is worth its weight in gold), and people returned in a small capsule if at all. Even if launch costs are greatly reduced, I think that a general outward trend of humanity will still reflect some of this economics (short of a space elevator). For example, in the USA, most people who went "West" during the 1800s probably never came back East.
So where is a key area of research that should be a priority among NASA and Billionaires, but is not heavily pursued? The issue is what to do in space once you have gotten there. Because if there is a reason to be in space, then people and collectives will work to get there. And the reality is, that right now, if we could get there, there is nothing to do there short of look around and come back. And if that were the case, Space would not deserve much more investment than say tourism to Mt. Everest. The reality is that we don't know how to support human life in space -- in large part because we have only spent a pittance on thinking about that issue systematically compared to the issues of CATS and Planetary Exploration. Frankly, while we support human life on earth, we have very little meta-knowledge formally about how to do even that. And, most of figuring out how to support human life in space at a nuts and bolts level requires non-sexy activities like sitting around and staring out the window, talking, sending emails, building databases, building software tools, building some small physical protypes on tabletops and outdoors, and just plain thinking (the hard stuff). This is all the preparation needed for the spiritual voyage into the (physical) heavens. Biosphere II was an excellent start in some ways, although the science mission was a bit dodgy at first and it seems Columbia (the recipient) seems about to abandon that effort for cost reasons --- and in any case, Biosphere II focuses on the wrong question -- we know biospheres can work and replicate (although scale is an issue) -- what we don't know is how to replicate the mechanical infrastructure (e.g. glass pane making machinery) behind them. A lot more money has gone into studying ecosystem food webs than industrial ecologies of pipe webs and assembly line webs (and frankly, a lot of people don't want their "proprietary" manufacturing processes studied or gossipped about by academics.)
Almost everything proposed as a reason to launch into space doesn't ma
Re:Great, but... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://homepage.mac.com/inertia186/iblog/ | Last Journal: Monday February 09 2004, @08:06PM)
Re:Great, but... (Score:1)
(http://www.lmert.com/people/davidl/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 10 2007, @07:30PM)