Man(hood) in Space
August 4, 2021 7:42 AM Subscribe
The Guardian asks: Why does Jeff Bezos’s rocket look like that? An inquiry. Slate asks a rocket scientist the same question. Jon Stewart gives an answer in a promo sketch [NSFW] for his upcoming Apple+ show (with Jason Alexander as Jeff Bezos)
There really isn't an excuse. This wasn't anything ground-breaking; this was a PR stunt to get lots of eyeballs. If Bezos had wanted it to look like not-a-penis, it was well within technical ability to make it look nicer.
While we're at it, can we stop saying he "went to space"? Yes, I understand that he crossed the threshold where "space" is arbitrarily delineated. But he didn't achieve orbit. He went up a bit, crossed the line, and came back down.
That's like me saying I "went to sea" when the truth of the matter is that I dipped my toes in the ocean. It'd be an insult to sailors, and Bezos's claim is an insult to astronauts.
posted by explosion at 8:21 AM on August 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
While we're at it, can we stop saying he "went to space"? Yes, I understand that he crossed the threshold where "space" is arbitrarily delineated. But he didn't achieve orbit. He went up a bit, crossed the line, and came back down.
That's like me saying I "went to sea" when the truth of the matter is that I dipped my toes in the ocean. It'd be an insult to sailors, and Bezos's claim is an insult to astronauts.
posted by explosion at 8:21 AM on August 4, 2021 [19 favorites]
Not really, Alan Shepard did something similar and is credited as the "First American in Space".
posted by LionIndex at 8:41 AM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 8:41 AM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
It's 2021. If it doesn't have testicles, it's not a penis rocket. This is as valid as the 'he didn't go to space' complaint. Let's get these things right.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Indeed, Bezos' achievement matches the state of the art......in 1961. Поехали!
posted by gimonca at 8:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 8:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm no fan of this billionaire go-up-and-down contest and I get that dicks are funny but it IS a rocket and they all kind of look like dicks to some degree.
posted by bondcliff at 8:53 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by bondcliff at 8:53 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
his upcoming Apple+ show
Does the title mean it's The Problem starring Jon Stewart or is it The Problem about Jon Stewart? Or did I just kill the joke?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:15 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Does the title mean it's The Problem starring Jon Stewart or is it The Problem about Jon Stewart? Or did I just kill the joke?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:15 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Not really, Alan Shepard did something similar and is credited as the "First American in Space".
Alan Shepard did it in a modified ICBM as part of a program to get an American in orbit in an era where rocketry was still in its infancy. There is no comparison between Bezos and what Alan Shepard and the Mercury Program achieved.
I can't stand Elon Musk but SpaceX has done some truly groundbreaking work and is currently not only putting people in LEO but helping crew and maintain the ISS. There is no comparison between Bezos and the current state of the art for commercial rocketry.
No matter how you slice it what Bezos did is unremarkable and not worthy of the attention it has received.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:20 AM on August 4, 2021 [23 favorites]
Alan Shepard did it in a modified ICBM as part of a program to get an American in orbit in an era where rocketry was still in its infancy. There is no comparison between Bezos and what Alan Shepard and the Mercury Program achieved.
I can't stand Elon Musk but SpaceX has done some truly groundbreaking work and is currently not only putting people in LEO but helping crew and maintain the ISS. There is no comparison between Bezos and the current state of the art for commercial rocketry.
No matter how you slice it what Bezos did is unremarkable and not worthy of the attention it has received.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:20 AM on August 4, 2021 [23 favorites]
There is no comparison between Bezos and the current state of the art for commercial rocketry.
To be fair, Bezos' Blue Origin is still competing with SpaceX in human orbital spaceflight. He's pretty far behind though.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:24 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
To be fair, Bezos' Blue Origin is still competing with SpaceX in human orbital spaceflight. He's pretty far behind though.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:24 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Alan Shepard got his "first American in space" handle because at that particular point in the space race, Kennedy was desperate for a PR win. The simple fact was that the USSR was cleaning the USA's clock in space—first satellite launch, first dog in orbit, then a human cosmonaut (Gagarin). At the same time the USA's first satellite was considerably smaller, and the rocket capable of putting a Mercury capsule into orbit, the Atlas, kept exploding on the pad. So they put a Mercury atop a smaller Redstone IRBM (only capable of a sub-orbital hop), and after testing it on a few chimps they lobbed a couple of test pilots into the ocean and declared them to be astronauts.
There were structural reasons for the Soviet's early series of home runs. Firstly, they had Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer, who was responsible for the R-7 ICBM. The R-7 was a catastrophically bad weapons system: it ran on kerosene and LOX, just like a modern Falcon 9, and took 6 hours to fuel up on the launch pad,which was 4 hours from the edge of Soviet airspace as the B-52 flew. (Yes, it could be taken out in a pre-emptive strike by 1950s vintage subsonic bombers.) Korolev built the R-7 large, because the USSR couldn't effectively miniaturize H-bombs back then, and its guidance systems were so crude that any warhead it carried had to produce a very big bang indeed in order to be guaranteed to take out a target. But there is also a suspicion that Korolev built the R-7 large because he could, and he was using the ICBM program's requirements to build himself the space launcher he really wanted to be working on.
Oh, I said firstly? Also, the Soviets had a thriving competitive field of rancorous rocket design agencies all squabbling and trying to prove they had a better system than their competitors. Whereas the US ICBM program showed embryonic versions of most of the dysfunctional attributes of US military aerospace since the 1970s—increasing centralization, bureaucratic over-control, feature creep, and inflexibility. Things didn't really get shaken up until Kennedy, responding to a series of crisis, gave his "we shall go to the Moon" speech and effectively wrote Von Braun a blank check.
Even then ... there was the Apollo 1 launch pad fire. Then an improbable series of successful missions (even Apollo 13 was successful insofar as the crew survived). And the pressure was off.
If you want to consider a counterfactual, imagine if one of Apollo 8-11 had failed on launch. Any one of those would have added a 1-2 year stay to the program (as happened after Apollo 1), thereby giving the Soviet N1 program breathing room. N1's main problem seems to have been the KORD engine control system managing the 30 NK-15 motors on the first stage: we can conceive of a time line in which the first man on the Moon (it would have been a man) was a cosmonaut.
And then what ...?
posted by cstross at 9:24 AM on August 4, 2021 [29 favorites]
There were structural reasons for the Soviet's early series of home runs. Firstly, they had Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer, who was responsible for the R-7 ICBM. The R-7 was a catastrophically bad weapons system: it ran on kerosene and LOX, just like a modern Falcon 9, and took 6 hours to fuel up on the launch pad,which was 4 hours from the edge of Soviet airspace as the B-52 flew. (Yes, it could be taken out in a pre-emptive strike by 1950s vintage subsonic bombers.) Korolev built the R-7 large, because the USSR couldn't effectively miniaturize H-bombs back then, and its guidance systems were so crude that any warhead it carried had to produce a very big bang indeed in order to be guaranteed to take out a target. But there is also a suspicion that Korolev built the R-7 large because he could, and he was using the ICBM program's requirements to build himself the space launcher he really wanted to be working on.
Oh, I said firstly? Also, the Soviets had a thriving competitive field of rancorous rocket design agencies all squabbling and trying to prove they had a better system than their competitors. Whereas the US ICBM program showed embryonic versions of most of the dysfunctional attributes of US military aerospace since the 1970s—increasing centralization, bureaucratic over-control, feature creep, and inflexibility. Things didn't really get shaken up until Kennedy, responding to a series of crisis, gave his "we shall go to the Moon" speech and effectively wrote Von Braun a blank check.
Even then ... there was the Apollo 1 launch pad fire. Then an improbable series of successful missions (even Apollo 13 was successful insofar as the crew survived). And the pressure was off.
If you want to consider a counterfactual, imagine if one of Apollo 8-11 had failed on launch. Any one of those would have added a 1-2 year stay to the program (as happened after Apollo 1), thereby giving the Soviet N1 program breathing room. N1's main problem seems to have been the KORD engine control system managing the 30 NK-15 motors on the first stage: we can conceive of a time line in which the first man on the Moon (it would have been a man) was a cosmonaut.
And then what ...?
posted by cstross at 9:24 AM on August 4, 2021 [29 favorites]
And then what ...?
For All Mankind, on Apple+, or your local fine piracy outlet?
posted by explosion at 9:30 AM on August 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
For All Mankind, on Apple+, or your local fine piracy outlet?
posted by explosion at 9:30 AM on August 4, 2021 [10 favorites]
There were structural reasons for the Soviet's early series of home runs. Firstly, they had Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer,
Indeed the "point of historical departure" for the alt-history series For All Mankind, (ed. thank you, explosion) in which the Soviets beat us to the moon and the space race keeps going at full bore rather than fading away after a few landings, is that Korolev survives the surgery that killed him in our timeline.
He was a big deal.
posted by Naberius at 9:33 AM on August 4, 2021 [9 favorites]
Indeed the "point of historical departure" for the alt-history series For All Mankind, (ed. thank you, explosion) in which the Soviets beat us to the moon and the space race keeps going at full bore rather than fading away after a few landings, is that Korolev survives the surgery that killed him in our timeline.
He was a big deal.
posted by Naberius at 9:33 AM on August 4, 2021 [9 favorites]
To be fair, Bezos' Blue Origin is still competing with SpaceX in human orbital spaceflight
Well he's trying and failing. Even after a $2B deal sweetener. I feel bad writing any of this; despite all my desire to snark I admire what Blue Origin is trying to do. And what SpaceX is doing. Just annoyed by this recent marketing stunt.
I do like dicks though. I take umbrage at the comment "make it look nicer"; Bezos' rocket looks great! Yes, it looks like a penis. Yes, that's hilarious and also maybe a symbol of centuries of patriarchy. But as a gay man I choose to re-appropriate this all and celebrate the giant space cock. I also welcome the mockery of it at the same time.
Also the articles do a great job explaining the engineering tradeoffs that lead to this kind of shape. But if there's anything I've learned playing Kerbal Space Program it's that you can go to space with any number of cosmetic fairings attached to your rocket. I don't know that they deliberately made it look like a penis but they sure didn't try to make it not look like a penis. Er, um, "anthropomorphic".
Next up: "refuelling mid-air sure looks like sex!"
posted by Nelson at 9:38 AM on August 4, 2021 [11 favorites]
Well he's trying and failing. Even after a $2B deal sweetener. I feel bad writing any of this; despite all my desire to snark I admire what Blue Origin is trying to do. And what SpaceX is doing. Just annoyed by this recent marketing stunt.
I do like dicks though. I take umbrage at the comment "make it look nicer"; Bezos' rocket looks great! Yes, it looks like a penis. Yes, that's hilarious and also maybe a symbol of centuries of patriarchy. But as a gay man I choose to re-appropriate this all and celebrate the giant space cock. I also welcome the mockery of it at the same time.
Also the articles do a great job explaining the engineering tradeoffs that lead to this kind of shape. But if there's anything I've learned playing Kerbal Space Program it's that you can go to space with any number of cosmetic fairings attached to your rocket. I don't know that they deliberately made it look like a penis but they sure didn't try to make it not look like a penis. Er, um, "anthropomorphic".
Next up: "refuelling mid-air sure looks like sex!"
posted by Nelson at 9:38 AM on August 4, 2021 [11 favorites]
How notable Bezos flight or the political ramifications of the flight have nothing to do with whether he got to "space". Either he did or you unseat Glenn as the first American in space.
Not being American or Soviet and hardly a fan of Bezos I don't care one way or another but Bezos' little jaunt passed the bar America set. It's silly to get all Ackchyually about it now.
posted by Mitheral at 9:49 AM on August 4, 2021
Not being American or Soviet and hardly a fan of Bezos I don't care one way or another but Bezos' little jaunt passed the bar America set. It's silly to get all Ackchyually about it now.
posted by Mitheral at 9:49 AM on August 4, 2021
Does the title mean it's The Problem starring Jon Stewart or is it The Problem about Jon Stewart? Or did I just kill the joke?
Either way, based on that "trailer" it looks unwatchably atrocious.
posted by dobbs at 9:50 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Either way, based on that "trailer" it looks unwatchably atrocious.
posted by dobbs at 9:50 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure what it says that private enterprise has taken 60 years to catch up with what the Soviets did in 1961.
posted by octothorpe at 10:04 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 10:04 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Either he did or you unseat Glenn as the first American in space.
Nah, you can still say that space starts somewhere higher than Bezos's apogee and lower than Shepard's. There's 80 or 90km between the two.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:05 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Nah, you can still say that space starts somewhere higher than Bezos's apogee and lower than Shepard's. There's 80 or 90km between the two.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:05 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Either way, based on that "trailer" it looks unwatchably atrocious.
Looks like it'll be premiering just in time for the 10-year anniversary of Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show.
posted by a car full of lions at 10:12 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Looks like it'll be premiering just in time for the 10-year anniversary of Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show.
posted by a car full of lions at 10:12 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Either way, based on that "trailer" it looks unwatchably atrocious.
Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing.
posted by octothorpe at 10:17 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing.
posted by octothorpe at 10:17 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure what it says that private enterprise has taken 60 years to catch up with what the Soviets did in 1961.
Don't forget the part where they landed the reusable rocket back at the launch facility. I'm living in the Berenstain reality where the Soviets didn't really try that.
posted by achrise at 10:28 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Don't forget the part where they landed the reusable rocket back at the launch facility. I'm living in the Berenstain reality where the Soviets didn't really try that.
posted by achrise at 10:28 AM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Indeed the "point of historical departure" for the alt-history series For All Mankind, (ed. thank you, explosion) in which the Soviets beat us to the moon and the space race keeps going at full bore rather than fading away after a few landings, is that Korolev survives the surgery that killed him in our timeline.
Maybe I was just feeling cranky while watching, but the moral of For All Mankind seasons 1 and 2 seems to generally be "living on the Moon sucks a lot and you probably shouldn't bother to try." They try to make up for it with a few speeches, but it just seems like a bad time is had by most.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:34 AM on August 4, 2021
Maybe I was just feeling cranky while watching, but the moral of For All Mankind seasons 1 and 2 seems to generally be "living on the Moon sucks a lot and you probably shouldn't bother to try." They try to make up for it with a few speeches, but it just seems like a bad time is had by most.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:34 AM on August 4, 2021
True, there's a lot of dick-swinging going on, but the "that's so 1961" line sounds like sour grapes. For better or for worse, these guys are capitalists, and they're doing this in a way that is much more efficient than we did in 61. That was a blank check and throwing a ton of resources toward a single goal.
Musk has a reusable system that's putting hundreds of satellites into orbit. I'm willing to bet that they're already looking to try things like asteroid mining. Branson might think space tourism is going to fund Virgin Galactic, but Bezos and Musk are more like Bond villains; they don't think small.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:49 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Musk has a reusable system that's putting hundreds of satellites into orbit. I'm willing to bet that they're already looking to try things like asteroid mining. Branson might think space tourism is going to fund Virgin Galactic, but Bezos and Musk are more like Bond villains; they don't think small.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:49 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
“My grandparents watched Man walk on the Moon; I got to see the guy who killed bookshops ride a dick into space” — someone on Twitter
posted by acb at 11:12 AM on August 4, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by acb at 11:12 AM on August 4, 2021 [9 favorites]
Of course, Kennedy's space programme was not so much the triumph of capitalism as a political system it was acclaimed as as a case of (to paraphrase a famous quip about German scientists during WW2) “our command economy was better than their command economy”. There wasn't much free enterprise involved then.
However, this achievement, for whatever it is, unambiguously belongs to capitalism as a system. As does Elon Musk's Space Roadster, except for the bits which belong to the South African apartheid system and its profit-extraction opportunities, of course.
posted by acb at 11:23 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
However, this achievement, for whatever it is, unambiguously belongs to capitalism as a system. As does Elon Musk's Space Roadster, except for the bits which belong to the South African apartheid system and its profit-extraction opportunities, of course.
posted by acb at 11:23 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
With all the commentary around the phallic nature of Bezos's vanity project, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Vonnegut's story "The Big Space Fuck".
posted by TedW at 11:32 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by TedW at 11:32 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
I suspect the real significance of Jeff Bezos' self-yeet was that it serves as excellent marketing for the BE-3 LH2/LOX rocket motor. Which he is currently trying to sell United Launch Alliance on as the engine for the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage of Vulcan/Centaur, the replacement for ULA's Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy. Vulcan is already designed to run on the not-yet-available BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, so Bezos needs a win to keep Boeing/Lockheed/etc on board with him as their sole engine supplier.
I suspect New Glenn won't get built at this point: instead, Bezos will do a takeover of ULA from within, thereby becoming the second half of the US launch duopoly (after Musk).
Alternatively, Vulcan/ACES motor sales will pay for development of New Glenn which will then eat Vulcan/ACES market for breakfast.
(The Pentagon—and NASA—demand a minimum of two launch providers in the "market", after their horrible experience in the mid-80s, when the Challenger disaster left them unable to launch spysats for a couple of years because they'd put all their eggs in the Space Shuttle basket.)
posted by cstross at 11:37 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
I suspect New Glenn won't get built at this point: instead, Bezos will do a takeover of ULA from within, thereby becoming the second half of the US launch duopoly (after Musk).
Alternatively, Vulcan/ACES motor sales will pay for development of New Glenn which will then eat Vulcan/ACES market for breakfast.
(The Pentagon—and NASA—demand a minimum of two launch providers in the "market", after their horrible experience in the mid-80s, when the Challenger disaster left them unable to launch spysats for a couple of years because they'd put all their eggs in the Space Shuttle basket.)
posted by cstross at 11:37 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
One thing I find strange around the Discourse over Bezos & Musk is that nobody seems to mind the ULA at all, just because there's no billionaire mascot to be mad at?
posted by BungaDunga at 12:02 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 12:02 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
nobody seems to mind the ULA at all, just because there's no billionaire mascot to be mad at?
Bezos got rich because Amazon got huge by flouting anti-trust laws and abusing its workers.
Musk got rich off apartheid and then fucking Paypal, and then Tesla which abuses its workers and puts pedestrians at risk by conducting self-driving experiments live on real streets. SpaceX seems kind of better, but they're still flouting best practices regarding space; risking Kessler Syndrome via their StarLink operation among other things.
It's really reductive to say that we hate these folks "because they're billionaires." We hate them because of how they hurt people to become billionaires, and how they continue to hurt people by wielding their billions.
TBH, I don't doubt that ULA is problematic in their own way, but at least they're not buying positive press for people who should be rotting in jail by way of a vanity project.
There's a reason why "Whitey on the Moon" made the rounds again.
posted by explosion at 12:12 PM on August 4, 2021 [14 favorites]
Bezos got rich because Amazon got huge by flouting anti-trust laws and abusing its workers.
Musk got rich off apartheid and then fucking Paypal, and then Tesla which abuses its workers and puts pedestrians at risk by conducting self-driving experiments live on real streets. SpaceX seems kind of better, but they're still flouting best practices regarding space; risking Kessler Syndrome via their StarLink operation among other things.
It's really reductive to say that we hate these folks "because they're billionaires." We hate them because of how they hurt people to become billionaires, and how they continue to hurt people by wielding their billions.
TBH, I don't doubt that ULA is problematic in their own way, but at least they're not buying positive press for people who should be rotting in jail by way of a vanity project.
There's a reason why "Whitey on the Moon" made the rounds again.
posted by explosion at 12:12 PM on August 4, 2021 [14 favorites]
is needled with unfunny repetitive dick jokes
Video footage of the conference room when this article was pitched
posted by pwnguin at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2021
Video footage of the conference room when this article was pitched
posted by pwnguin at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2021
I'm still not clear why it looks like that. The Slate article said it was designed for the wider New Glenn rocket, but the Guardian article said it was a "ring-shaped fin" to counteract the fins at the bottom as it reenters in reverse. The first is straightforward, although it seems like the New Glenn would be way bigger as a 2-stage orbital rocket. The second one also makes sense: they'd want the center of pressure behind the center of gravity going either direction, and a step is more reliable drag source than deployable grid fins like SpaceX.
posted by netowl at 12:49 PM on August 4, 2021
posted by netowl at 12:49 PM on August 4, 2021
I don't know--maybe while the world's lining up to extol the virtues of these fuckwads, we could also keep in mind the environmental destructiveness of these pathetic attempts at dick measuring. Instead of using their billions to actually do some good here on Earth, we're talking about the value of reusable rockets and asteroid mining when we could, you know, try to fix things right here. Christ on a fucking sidecar.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:05 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:05 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
the dick metaphor was right in the title, I don't think you could avoid keeping it in mind.
posted by some loser at 1:41 PM on August 4, 2021
posted by some loser at 1:41 PM on August 4, 2021
"Colonel, you better take a look at this radar..."
posted by peeedro at 2:26 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by peeedro at 2:26 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Roughly, if you take a 16 inch classroom globe, then to scale the sun is around 3 miles away. Mars at closest approach is a bit less than a mile. The moon is 40 feet away. The ISS circles maybe 1/2 inch above the earth. The various billionaires went up to 1/10th or 1/8th inch at best. May be a bit off but you get the idea. Space? Pshaw!
posted by freecellwizard at 3:27 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by freecellwizard at 3:27 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Korolev survives the surgery that killed him in our timeline.
And he appears in a kind of cameo during the second season. The Engineer.
posted by doctornemo at 4:29 PM on August 4, 2021
And he appears in a kind of cameo during the second season. The Engineer.
posted by doctornemo at 4:29 PM on August 4, 2021
It's really reductive to say that we hate these folks "because they're billionaires." We hate them because of how they hurt people to become billionaires, and how they continue to hurt people by wielding their billions.
I absolutely hate them because they're billionaires, because it's impossible to become a billionaire without hurting people, and impossible to be a billionaire without hurting people. Every one of those dollars was extracted from people who need that money more and I don't care how cool their rockets are it's not as cool as everyone in America having a place to live and food to eat.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:15 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
I absolutely hate them because they're billionaires, because it's impossible to become a billionaire without hurting people, and impossible to be a billionaire without hurting people. Every one of those dollars was extracted from people who need that money more and I don't care how cool their rockets are it's not as cool as everyone in America having a place to live and food to eat.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:15 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
The moon is 40 feet away.
Eventually, the distances start to come back a little bit. If the Milky Way is a standard-ish frisbee, Andromeda/M31 is about six meters away. It's larger in the sky than the full moon!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:16 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Eventually, the distances start to come back a little bit. If the Milky Way is a standard-ish frisbee, Andromeda/M31 is about six meters away. It's larger in the sky than the full moon!
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:16 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Blue origin launched a huge dick into space. His space ship also resembled a dick
posted by Redhush at 7:53 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Redhush at 7:53 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Kerbal's atmosphere model is very simplistic. With FAR installed, it gets a lot harder to avoid building cockets for those VTOL suborbital tourist hoppers with large capsules.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:08 PM on August 4, 2021
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:08 PM on August 4, 2021
SpaceX seems kind of better, but they're still flouting best practices regarding space; risking Kessler Syndrome via their StarLink operation among other things
Aren't the Starlink orbits low enough to not be able to trigger Kessler Syndrome?
posted by ymgve at 4:54 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Aren't the Starlink orbits low enough to not be able to trigger Kessler Syndrome?
posted by ymgve at 4:54 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Aren't the Starlink orbits low enough to not be able to trigger Kessler Syndrome?
Fragments from collisions can get kicked into higher orbits, but yeah, almost certainly. They'd planned on having some in higher orbits, but AFAIK they've since changed the plan to keep everything below 600km where they won't stay up too long. OneWeb's 1,200km birds look like more of a problem in that regard, along with China's recently announced 1,100km constellation.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:22 AM on August 5, 2021
Fragments from collisions can get kicked into higher orbits, but yeah, almost certainly. They'd planned on having some in higher orbits, but AFAIK they've since changed the plan to keep everything below 600km where they won't stay up too long. OneWeb's 1,200km birds look like more of a problem in that regard, along with China's recently announced 1,100km constellation.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:22 AM on August 5, 2021
One small suborbital excursion for a man, one big leap for the Lagrange Hilton Casino & Resort.
posted by mule98J at 8:41 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by mule98J at 8:41 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
From the first link, a quote: “It is easier to balance a long and skinny cylinder than it is to balance a thicker, fatter cylinder,” Forczyk said.
So that’s why a broom stands nicely upside-down and tuna cans keep tipping over on their sides. This is from “the owner of a space analytics company,” whatever that is. Apparently in a universe with somewhat different physics than mine.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 9:03 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
So that’s why a broom stands nicely upside-down and tuna cans keep tipping over on their sides. This is from “the owner of a space analytics company,” whatever that is. Apparently in a universe with somewhat different physics than mine.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 9:03 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
The "somewhat different physics" comes from the 3.8M pounds of thrust under the tuna can. Also the 2000 mph through atmosphere.
posted by Nelson at 9:21 AM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 9:21 AM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]
I think of the mega-wealthy in similar terms to the cosmic phenomena that results in the wild distortions of everything we know about physics. There are things that exist that just shouldn't, yet here we are.
Not three days ago I was venting about the wealth disparity and how it just shouldn't exist and the person was basically saying "it's our fault, we just need to tax them" and I'm like.. fuck man, the out-sized wealth kind of shreds that capacity.. all we've seen over time is their ability to reframe the rules and just make the money physics work differently in their favour. On one level it's all very interesting, but on another level it's like others here are pointing out: a lot of people have to suffer for these people to be so wealthy.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:00 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Not three days ago I was venting about the wealth disparity and how it just shouldn't exist and the person was basically saying "it's our fault, we just need to tax them" and I'm like.. fuck man, the out-sized wealth kind of shreds that capacity.. all we've seen over time is their ability to reframe the rules and just make the money physics work differently in their favour. On one level it's all very interesting, but on another level it's like others here are pointing out: a lot of people have to suffer for these people to be so wealthy.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:00 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
Starship 20 does not look like a penis. They must also play Kerbal Space Program; set the rotation symmetry to 3, slap on some fins, and not only does it look less "anthropomorphic" but it'll fly straighter too. I tell ya, rocket design is easy!
Someone needs to give the news to the Boeing Starliner.
posted by Nelson at 10:19 AM on August 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Someone needs to give the news to the Boeing Starliner.
posted by Nelson at 10:19 AM on August 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
From the first link, a quote: “It is easier to balance a long and skinny cylinder than it is to balance a thicker, fatter cylinder,” Forczyk said.
So that’s why a broom stands nicely upside-down and tuna cans keep tipping over on their sides. This is from “the owner of a space analytics company,” whatever that is. Apparently in a universe with somewhat different physics than mine.
The "somewhat different physics" comes from the 3.8M pounds of thrust under the tuna can. Also the 2000 mph through atmosphere.
It's not related to the aerodynamics? If the tuna can was taking off in a vaccum, wouldn't it be a more balanced as Gilgamesh's Chauffeur suggested?
posted by fairmettle at 2:00 AM on August 7, 2021
So that’s why a broom stands nicely upside-down and tuna cans keep tipping over on their sides. This is from “the owner of a space analytics company,” whatever that is. Apparently in a universe with somewhat different physics than mine.
The "somewhat different physics" comes from the 3.8M pounds of thrust under the tuna can. Also the 2000 mph through atmosphere.
It's not related to the aerodynamics? If the tuna can was taking off in a vaccum, wouldn't it be a more balanced as Gilgamesh's Chauffeur suggested?
posted by fairmettle at 2:00 AM on August 7, 2021
fairmettle, the miscommunication seems to be that you're thinking of the two as sitting on a flat surface, whereas they're talking about balancing one on the very tip of a finger (more akin to what a gimballed engine does). The broom gives you plenty of time to correct for errors in tilt, and plenty of leverage to execute that correction. The can will just flip off your finger if you get it the slightest bit wrong.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:30 AM on August 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:30 AM on August 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
The Inverted Pendulum is easier with a longer pendulum; it's easier to balance a broomstick than a pencil.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 2:06 PM on August 9, 2021
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 2:06 PM on August 9, 2021
Blue Origin is sure a sore loser. Jeff Bezos Instigates Potentially Crushing Delay of NASA Lunar Lander. Their proposal was more expensive and required more launches than SpaceX. They lost the bid. So now they're suing and that forces everything to be put on hold.
posted by Nelson at 4:17 PM on August 23, 2021
posted by Nelson at 4:17 PM on August 23, 2021
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posted by phooky at 8:21 AM on August 4, 2021 [33 favorites]