Space.....

[Mein11]

Originally Posted by 2one8

Not trying to defend Bezos or Branson, but is it the billionaires mistreating employees or company management abusing their position and policies? And in the case of Amazon, every warehouse has its own management and own policies and the guys at the top have no clue about whats going on unless someone speaks up publicly. Eventually you just become the face of a company, and even though you may be the owner/chairman/president/CEO etc you don't have much control over how the company operates anymore.

I won't claim to know how big business works, as within our sector there are tons of moving parts. However, it's not like any of the issues within Amazon Fulfillment Centers is hidden or unknown, it's very public the issues with the poor treatment of staff, which trickles down from the various levels of management to meet specific metrics. Even if you're the face of a company, I'd be damned to say they do not have the leverage to make instant decisions on the treatment of their employees to better their lives if they truly wanted to do such.

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by 2one8

That type of colonization is a long ways away. It will be scientists first and for many years. Who knows what type of discoveries await us on Mars. We could find the cure for cancer (or COVID lol). It's also a stepping stone for future advancements.

Was mankind really meant to just live and die on Earth? We are naturally curious and wanting to learn and expand, and in no reality will the human race ever come together to make the changes to save our planet. It.Just.Wont.Happen.

Every discovery/invention/advancement has to start somewhere, and they all have had their critics, but without the few crazies going against the masses we wouldn't be where we are today. For all we know in 100 years our children's children could see people leaving this solar system to live on another planet like Earth, and its all because some billionaire asshat launched himself into space on a penis rocket and inspired some 5 yr old genius-to-be that grows up to solve FTL space travel.

Like I said in my original post, I have no issues if we want to go to Mars or any other planet. What I have an issue with is justifying it by saying Earth is fucked and we need to be able to move to a waaaaaaay more fucked up Mars. I think in 100 years Earth will still be a way better place to live than Mars. That doesn't mean we wont have casinos and buffets on Mars.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by M-technik-3

Fact he pays no taxes just makes me upset. So many folks struggling out there and Amazon continues to to work and exist in it's own bubble that even now Walmart has trouble competing with them. Mean while stupid Federal Gov't is deficit spending at a phenomenal rate . WTF. Of and Epstein just was allowed to give all his money away vs it be seized awaiting trial?

Then vote for politicians who don't write the tax code to allow people like Bezos to not have to pay taxes, and don't vote for politicians who think building a massive national debt has no consequences.

And if you don't like the Amazon billionaire spending the money he's earned off of you, stop using Amazon and the internet.

Simple.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Chihuahua

At the rate that we are overpopulating and damaging this planet, we better sure as shit figure out a way to colonize other planets or we are royally fucked as a species. Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars, so that is where his head is. Bezos might be on that same track.

So we can go live on Mars and overpopulate/damage THAT planet?

LOL.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by PINeely

This assumes that the same innovations wouldn't have been made in the private sector. Did they develop faster because NASA happened to have the funding and specific need at the time, probably so. However, when you start talking about private industry in space particularly when you get into ventures like mining asteroids, you'd see the same developments at a much lower cost to the taxpayer. Just my .02.

When it comes to billionaires going into space I couldn't care less. Their money, they can do what they want with it. I'd love to be on one of those flights some day.

I'd like to make the same argument about cars and efficiency and emissions. Would the American car companies reached the level of fuel efficiency and emissions reduction had the market driven the change vs. the EPA? I'm not sure it would have. It's a great question to debate.

But now the pendulum has swung the other way and the politicians think they can control the climate of the planet. The swing is fanatical to the point that some on this Thread believe a Billionaire is damaging the climate by basting off in a rocket unnecessarily consuming fuel and causing (hydrocarbon) pollution. Hydrogen and methane fueled rockets are pretty clean burning space vehicles.

The situation is IMO, private industry probably would have not created space travel without impetus from Government, because in the late 1950's and 1960's there was no profit motive to create space travel. Rockets were first developed for Government purposes as apparatus for war weapons/national security. The US Apollo Mission was a power play vs. the USSR as a FU to the Soviets satellite program (no internet thesis paper needed). Private industry did develop space travel because it was funded by the Government, but now there is profit in it because space travel (i.e. payload launches) has a commercial purpose.

And the lawyers have been kept at bay.

My 2 cents.

[dscabra]

There are a couple of themes woven throughout this thread. One is the aspect of space exploration, which I've already commented on in a previous post. The second is related to the money being spent by these guys to achieve their asperations of getting to space. On the second, I really find it interesting how some feel the billionaires should not spend their money on this frivolous venture when they could be spending it on other things that they find more worthy.

I find it interesting that these same people have no problem spending their own hard-earned money on a BMW. Wouldn't it be better if they bought a Civic and spent the rest of their money on something that would be considered more worthy by those that can't even afford to buy the Civic?

I can't even fathom what it would be like to have the money these billionaires have to spend, but I'd damn sure not want someone telling me how to sped it.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by dscabra

There are a couple of themes woven throughout this thread. One is the aspect of space exploration, which I've already commented on in a previous post. The second is related to the money being spent by these guys to achieve their asperations of getting to space. On the second, I really find it interesting how some feel the billionaires should not spend their money on this frivolous venture when they could be spending it on other things that they find more worthy.

I find it interesting that these same people have no problem spending their own hard-earned money on a BMW. Wouldn't it be better if they bought a Civic and spent the rest of their money on something that would be considered more worthy by those that can't even afford to buy the Civic?

I can't even fathom what it would be like to have the money these billionaires have to spend, but I'd damn sure not want someone telling me how to sped it.

Agree. I don't like Bezos due to his political views, but the man is worth north of $212B. If he wants to make a rocket and fly to the edge of space and back, more power to him. Building the Dr. Evil Special "Phallic 1" to make the trip just makes it more of an "I have FU money" joke.

[hubbahubba]

Originally Posted by Darth One

And I'm sure y'all saw that photo where Bezos is posing with his aviators and flight suit like he's Maverick from Top Gun

He should have done it in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Maybe when it's my turn....

[floridaorange]

The more leaders we get to space the better chance we have of them prioritizing helping the planet we are.

Earths problems look much different when you zoom that far out, as do the solutions.

[Nivarox]

You know a famous idiom or byword : Sky is the limit and it's literally waste of money when it comes to match this famous word to me .

[Efthreeoh]

Being familiar with some of the scope of the Feds program to travel to Mars known as the Artemis Program, my understanding is the contracting mechanism will be a public-private partnership. It will be interesting to see how this plays out with NASA managing the contracting process and how Bezos' Blue Origin and Musk's Space-X will interact with the major defense contractors that got the USA to the moon under the Apollo Program.

50 years past, the legacy Contractors: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Douglas, Fairchild, et.al., do they still have remnants of the US space program left in them, or are Bezos and Musk the new players? The legacy companies are conservative (i.e. risk adverse) and adverse to making capital investment in such Government projects. While such companies are engineering powerhouses, they are used to Uncle Sam taking all the financial risk.

Perhaps Bezos and Musk's, and Branson's recent trips to the edge of space are their bids into demonstration of their willingness to invest in NASA's private-public partnership Artemis Program. Just today, Bezos made a $2B offer to kick Space-X off the effort to return to the Moon.

My observation is these trips are all business demonstration events for these men, as well as ego trips.

[dscabra]

Interesting. $2B is the estimated R&D that SpaceX had invested in the lander contract that they were awarded and that Blue Origin lost just recently.