Commercial Space Travel is Stupid

As the CNN article put it, does a man like Bezos who is worth $211 billion need a cut of a $5 billion industry when we have more pressing problems that are killing people and are larger more profitable avenues eg health care


In his book "The Orbital Perspective," NASA astronaut Ron Garan said that he couldn't help thinking, as he gazed back upon this "paradise," of "the nearly one billion people who don't have clean water to drink, the countless number who go to bed hungry every night, the social injustice, conflicts, and poverty that remain pervasive across the planet."

If only Richard Branson had paid a little more attention to those who paved the way.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/12/...zos-space-flight-is-a-waste-thomas/index.html

Read Past Life Returner instead

 

Fallacies. Fallacies. Fallacies. Like, who doesn't like them? You can use them for everything!

 

Well on the bright side if US gov can push out more billions USD grants to make more such private space initiatives onboard maybe their competition can be good enough to eventually produce better space launch technology than Russia or China has right now. Ofc their cost would tend to exponentially rise but perhaps ?

 

I feel that we have more pressing problems.

We have many countries without enough vaccines but lets launch a spaceship for like 10 mins.

Seems shortsighted


Feels more like a publicity stunt

 

I mean the fed print money out of thin air to buy treasuries already they could've just approve another billions for the healthcare and rescue funds for the economic downturns. Nobody cares that they adds another 20 trillions to the debt at this point.

 

Haha. This all Space race is a PR stunt and bragging rights.

Branson pushed his launch forward to beat Bezos.

I don't expect wealthy men to be saints but there are other profitable ventures that are useful.

Last I checked Amazon doesn't own health insurance companies.

The government is inefficient, I am sure we all learnt that by now.

Water scarcity should have be eliminated decades ago


Even California has water issues

And Flint, Michigan

 

There are tons of genuinely useful reasons for commercial space travel. Satellites are something that's massively improved the world, and there's also the constant risk of giant asteroids coming clost to the earth so I'd like if we had the capacity to deal with those within my lifetime.

 

Water scarcity won't end anytime soon because humans consume far more than they need, if more is made available then more is needed. Where does all the extra water go? Even in droughts people water their lawn extra, not less. How many dead lawns do you see in LA?

With food scarcity it's actually possible because people can only consume so much. Any 1st world government could in theory end world hunger...provided 3rd world countries are willing to let them take over. Much of 3rd world famine relates to corruption, and instability preventing food from being shipped in cheaply and safely. The rest relates usually to poverty and droughts, which are often poorly dealt with because of the previous 2 factors: corruption and instability.

The final factor is people choose to live in unfit places, places with poor water resources, flooding, tornadoes, extreme temperatures. It's one thing when you are born in those areas and are too poor to move, it's another when you actively move your family into them. After generations of poor choices that adds up. The 'free market' solution would be unhappy people move out and let the area go back to a reasonable level, as in enough water or only building on higher ground etc, but that only works for the wealthier inhabitants. The usual solution is to massively rearrange the landscape/resources.


Edit: Btw, Bransen and Bezos going into space are a bit of a publicity stunt...but both them don't really need publicity. There's no reason not believe they genuinely wanted to go to space and created companies to fuel that dream.

What's fucktons of money for if not to buy dreams?

 

Agreed
Also . Op , they just doing it cuz they can. They gain nothing from a publicity stunt . It’s like if Kim K went to space. Like she already has enough relevancy and publicity, what’s going to the moon cuz she dreamed of it as a kid or some shit

 

TBH, if I had enough money, I would definitely do something like a space race. Why? Because I can!?

 

nah~ it selling dream business, what they can gain is business reputation~ novelty concept that riddle with plenty of technical challenge~ this cat see video about the spacesuit and laugh~ videogame spacesuit still only practical on videogame~
btw G-20 still on ongoing meeting about global corporate tax, tax for multinational corporations~ around 15% rate, so no matter they run on G-20 they still taxed on fix rate~
why this cat mention tax? cuz this cat hardly believe private industry can do thing for public need without playing with profit mindset~ that water problem is government mindset~

 

No need to chop space travel to solve problems down here.

Take all money wasted in wars. Should be enough.

 

The space industry is currently not that large, but it has room to grow. And don't confuse having a networth being equal to actually having that money, networth in itself is a silly measurement to go by.

That said, what does Bezos going after space have anything to do with problems that are killing people? I mean you are aware that you can't just solve everything by throwing money at it right?

So why did he become an astronaut instead of a doctor?

People really have to realize the fact is that you need the right man for the right job. People have talent and aspirations to push that talent forward. By having different people approach different problems, we are less likely to end up in a dead end as solutions in 1 industry can lead to revolutions in another.

Without investment into space, we may not even have computers at home today. And the health industry would have been WAY worse. Low cost commercial space also means that we can have cheap global internet which also means access to information. Did you know the reason for the Ebola pandemic? Because many in the area have no access to information and they don't even understand bacteria. Thus many rituals that were done just led to the pandemic spreading (like touching dead bodies with wet hands and putting those wet hands on their faces).

End of the day, the only way to end world hunger, social injustice, conflicts and poverty is World War 3. Effectively, the 1st world would conquer the entire 3rd world through military might and force them into modern standards of living. If you are not up for world war 3, then no amount of money will fix things. Even if you spend all the money in the world, you still wouldn't solve world hunger or poverty and the like. Cause you are aware, despite people starving, there is no actual shortage of food. The problem is you gotta bribe a whole lot of people even to deliver the food. And you also need people willing to risk their lives too.

I'll have you know, the pharma/health industry is the #1 lobbyist in the US, spending 2X more than the 2nd biggest lobbyists. There is no shortage of "money" in the health industry.

It's all about diminishing returns and how efficiently the money is spent.

End of the day, more industries = more jobs = less poverty. I am not sure why people are so obsessed with trying to kill the space industry, thus wanting to cause more poverty. Isn't that putting the horse behind the carriage?

Richard Branson isn't even in the space industry. His whole thing is one big joke. Well, current Bezos thing is also a big joke, only when they actually finish their next rocket will they finally be in the space industry. Otherwise, at the moment Branson and Bezos are only in the Aviation and PR industry. Both of them are just throwing out money quite inefficiently.

 

I agree. I am not against advancing Space Exploration but Branson attempt seem like a joke as you pointed out.

Humans are just shortsighted.

On healthcare, I am not talking about US healthcare, that's one complicated mess.
If China can hold countries to ransom for building a seaport, then I am sure Branson and others can do with same with other forms of infrastructure. It seems like a potential to earn profits tax free and own numerous Duty free shops or whatever the equivalent is that will be profitable to them.

 

I think that it was a large step in space tourism. It was just a suborbital flight but I guess that Sir Richard Branson was not ready for the complete space flights and the suborbital flight was appropriate for him. Sooo... looking forward to the complete space flight for space tourists.

 

Complete zero gravity would need fitter tourists since the 0g did absolute wonders to your body mainly to the liquid inside your body. Suborbital flight is the ideal place for 'space' tourism since they get that minimal gravity while they can still feel their lack of one (which they can actually also get in scuba diving).

 

The US healthcare system is a mess, but the global healthcare system is also a mess. Just less of a mess than the US one, but a mess never the less.

No, it isn't. At least not Branson's attempt. The whole technology used can't be scaled up for spaceflight. It is effectively a dead end. He would need to start completely over. The same to a lesser extent applies to Bezos blue origin, which is why the next rocket they are building is completely different technology than their suborbital flight one.

If you want to just "feel" zero gravity, you can just point an airplane downwards and you would get the same 0g feeling. The whole goal here is nothing more than symbolic one.

Aka, the Karman Line(100km), effectively, if you look at it from a gaming perspective, there are many "titles" you get for passing 80km - 100km. The whole tourism business(as far as Branson and the current Bezos rocket goes) is nothing more than getting those imaginary achievements. Not actual spaceflight.

 

I learnt something about how the US and most of the West shut down Obstetric Fistula hospitals in 1920s but it is still a major issue in the developing world.
That was my point, the US healthcare system is overly complicated because of how health insurance works, that is a mess but many developing countries will kill for the same mess

 

Nope. The US over financialized healthcare systems is one of the worst nightmare that could happen for any government.

 

Still, fistulas have been eliminated along with things like chickenpox.
Developing Countries do not have that luxury