Bezos and Branson not yet astronauts, US says
bbc.com
bbc.com
When their respective companies seriously contend with the likes of SpaceX, then maybe they can have some of my attention. But just like with SpaceX for me, I don’t give a shit about Elon, and no one should give a shit about Bezos and Branson. Congrats to them on their wealth, now let’s move on.
For good measure, maybe this post should just be replaced with the Wikipedia page for astronaut.
Bezos and Branson, less so. They just have money.
1000s of engineers and blue collar workers
Which isn't to say they didn't advance engineering as a whole or weren't otherwise beneficial.
I'm actually a fan of his rocket company.
I did find it a bit sad we are so behind in terms of what I pictured the future to be when I watched Apollo land on the moon.
It is 100% a calculated "I'm a space cowboy" image maker.
Why does it reduce the value of a human being? What's the difference between a billionaire employing 1000 people for his frivolous needs compared to a million people employing 0.001 people each for their frivolous needs?
>These billionaires are blowing money on their personal midlife crises when they could be raising worker wages and helping to end poverty with billions to spare.
And what about all the people living in 3bd room houses, driving luxury cars, buying electronics, when they can be saving a life for as little as $3000[1]? Are they bad people for spending $3000 on creature comforts when they can be literally saving lives with that money?
> People were able to go into space before billionaires wanted to do it on a whim, you know.
Ever since the cold war ended, "going into space" has moving ahead at a glacial pace. I for one welcome the increased funding.
This funding chart[2] that gets passed along captures this dynamic perfectly. Would people want fusion power regardless of billionaires? Yes. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want billionaires funding fusion research to speed things up.
[1] https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-...
[2] https://external-preview.redd.it/LkKBNe1NW51Wh-8nLSTRdQtTha2...
They made a lot of money and, as far as I’m concerned, they can spend it on whatever the hell they want. I have a ton of ideas on how people who aren’t me should spend their money, but I think it’s none of my business what they choose to do with their wealth, just as it’s none of my business what you do with yours.
The companies they owned created a lot of value. Some of it went to the employees, and some of it went to the owners.
If I say that more of that value should have gone to the employees, and less to owners, that's a different thing from butting in and telling people how to spend the money they earned.
They aren't directly in charge of policies that cause so much misery to so many people.
Yes, albeit at extremely high cost, which has always limited its utility.
Maybe you haven't been keeping a close eye on progress in space tech, but SpaceX is working towards reducing cost per kilogram by two orders of magnitude. 1/100th! Compared to the already relatively reasonably priced Falcon 9! And they're just about to do an orbital test of the system (Starship+Super Heavy Booster). This is after decades of government contractor launch providers like ULA happily milking the government with cost-plus contracts, where the costs only ever seemed to go the wrong way.
Blue Origin is aiming to be competitive with them with New Glenn, also a massive cargo-carrying rocket. Certainly not there yet, but they don't seem to be aiming for the space tourism flights for the superrich as an endpoint.
Virgin Galactic, shrug, but the sister company Virgin Orbit wing is doing interesting things with smallsat launches from a 747.
These are not all useless vanity projects.
Most immediately, there’s always the “internet for literally everyone” aspect, where even remote villages will be able to get access to the world’s information.
Much longer term, if we don’t develop a comfort with working in and building in with space, and we don’t wipe ourselves out some other way, we will certainly be wiped out at some point by an asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruption, or some other major catastrophe. All of our eggs are in the Earth’s basket.
Offworld mining wouldn’t pollute/despoil Earth, and elements that are rare here can be found in very high concentrations in asteroids. (A single asteroid could contain the same amount of platinum as has been mined in all of history).
It potentially opens up the ability to do things like deploying massive, thin solar shades as a way to try to slow global warming.
Large technical challenges spin off lots of new tech that get used elsewhere.
The last one that comes to mind, though I’m sure there are many others, is that it’s a big achievement that humans can be proud of together. It makes it clear that we can do more than just squabble over little pieces of this planet, and help us look outward. I think that that kind of inspiration shouldn’t be discounted.
And the point is that if SpaceX succeeds, it will no longer take exorbitant amounts of money and resources. It’ll become extremely routine and affordable even to regular people. I’d try not to view everything in terms of a power struggle with billionaires and corporations sucking up all the resources, that’s going to cast a dim pall on literally everything.
Rich people usually amass wealth to give them the power to do what they want to do, but if you’re directly building a business to do what you want to do, and you already have enough money, then maximizing profit isn’t the goal, having it do what you want it to do is. Money is necessary for that, but it’s just the means to the end.
But if you do that really well, then usually it’s worth a good amount.
People had transportation before Karl Benz and Henry Ford. I don’t think they did anything that couldn’t have been done elsewhere provided the resources were dedicated.
… been throwing money at SpaceX since (at least) 2006:
* https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/news/COTS_selection.html
The thing about R&D is that you do not know ahead of time what will work and what will fail. Some of NASA's programs failed and some have succeeded. But there was no way to know if SpaceX would be the winner, or SLS, or anything else.
SpaceX itself nearly failed:
* https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/29/elon-musk-9-years-ago-spacex...
> … and certainly nothing reusable.
Reusable was never done before (AFAICT). It turns out that it is actually technically possible and useful. But there was no way to know that ahead of time. It was a risk that SpaceX, and NASA by funding them, that just happened to work out.
Racecars are my personal toys - only needed a few thousand from BMW for public production and a few hundred for the aftermarket support.
On a competitive landscape, these companies are too late to the party with too little to show for it, and they are likely to be eclipsed by startups if they remain so slow in their progress.
It would be great if Bezo has a real rivalry with Elon, but sadly that is not the case.
And it turned out that as long as there are consistent incremental improvements "slow" is very hard to judge. In hindsight, Apple was moving very fast.
Not saying any particular venture will succeed, but the qualifications for success aren't speed nor earliness. Success comes from clear communication, solving a problem and correctly identifying opportunity.
If anything, Blue Origin had a head start. They squandered it.
I guess I'm saying that both our comments are not very constructive and don't really affect anything. Maybe so is the "news", but it never has been different with the "news", people were talking about stuff like that long before steam engine was invented.
Almost always, rich people are evil and don't care about other humans unless they can get some benefit from them. But I really hate how we are supposed to look up to them as well. They don't deserve fame. They are despicable human beings.
"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."
As far as I know, SpaceShipOne and Two are the only vehicles that leave and reenter the atmosphere under manual control of the pilot since the X-15. the space shuttle had some manual control for landing, but was mostly autonomous otherwise.
They are involved in certification for pilots, crew, and aircraft, but rarely do anything involving passengers. And that's exactly what these wealthy thrill-seekers are -- passengers -- they just happen to be flying aboard a spacecraft. The FAA is not interested in receiving or dealing with a barrage of nominations for "astronaut wings" from hundreds of wealthy thrill-seeking passengers. And honestly, they shouldn't have to.
We don't expect to get FAA designated "aeronaut" wings for flying in an airliner. Why should this be any different?
If you really want a wings pin, I'm sure you'll be able to buy one at the gift shop on your way out.
I know a lot of folks here love to hate the FAA because of Boeing, but to borrow a popular phrase from this site, the FAA is not one guy. Yes, there are problems in the aircraft certification division. But this is a different branch, and this move is totally reasonable.
*I’m in the industry.
Maybe an awkward step, but it does hit an interesting note in that way. Perhaps it's a move to point to a more appropriate way of reaching an ideal and also giving back to those who supported it. They do mention performing acts of benefit that seem to transcend just "going to space".
Definitions based on role get tricky. If someone outside NASA pilots a space shuttle up to the ISS and then takes it back down without personally doing science, are they not an astronaut? If they are, what about a copilot? Does it matter how many buttons the pilot/copilot presses?
Duration of the trip works right now, but I don't know if that will continue to be a useful rule.
And I would like to know your answer to my question. If we get a space shuttle out of storage, and someone pilots it but does nothing else, are they an astronaut? With said pilot being non-NASA to avoid the "everyone on a NASA mission is an astronaut" rule.
Wikipedia's page on astronaut training suggests otherwise[0] - becoming an astronaut takes a year and a half to two years of training, and of course to do science on the ISS, you need to be a qualified scientist to begin with. NASA's requirements page[1] says you need a masters' degree in some STEM field.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_training
[1]https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/feat...
That much training isn't required because the people involved will get hurt. It's required because NASA wants everyone on board to be all-around experts at space.
> NASA's requirements page[1] says you need a masters' degree in some STEM field.
The space station doesn't care if you have a degree.
It's still a lot more training than Bezos and Branson got.
>The space station doesn't care if you have a degree.
Citation needed. Every source I've been able to find says NASA requires at least a Bachelor's degree for mission-specific training on the ISS, or a Masters' degree to qualify for the astronaut corps. Given how expensive time and equipment on the ISS is, I seriously doubt they're sending high-school dropouts up to do research.
When I say NASA could do something, that means if they wanted to.
NASA doesn't want anyone that isn't a super duper expert, but they don't need that rule.
Will civilians on vacations to the moon be considered astronauts?
I'm fine either way honestly.
Rocket launches, planes, and boats all have automation driven piloting now - and increasingly so. If being named the crew isn't enough then exactly what is the cutoff for being a "true" crewman of a vessel? And if you apply that cutoff to any other modern automated rocket launch system is anyone ever going to be an astronaut again then?
I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit. If you've got a definition of what exactly is a sailor and then you change it when I step in a boat, that's just ridiculous.
The government says, "Here is what is required for that classification", and then the very day you meet that classification the government says, "Psyche!", you're OK with that?
That didn't happen. It was a political change by bureaucrats.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos (/ˈbeɪzoʊs/ BAY-zohss; né Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American business magnate, media proprietor, investor, and space tourist. [0]
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor, author, and space tourist. [1]
...the agency says would-be astronauts must have also "demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety".
What exactly counts as such is determined by FAA officials.
This definition is selective and stupid. I agree a single, suborbital stunt flight doesn't make the cut in my personal vernacular. But if someone e.g. serves as a science officer on a flight or simply spends three months on the ISS doing nothing more than shooting professional photos I would call them an astronaut.
Christa McAuliffe didn't make it past launch but Wikipedia calls her an astronaut and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wants to refute that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Astronaut_Badge
You can call yourself one, if you like. They just won’t recognize it.
It's probably fair to call anyone who was ever airborne in a Wright brother's craft an airplane pilot, but I'm not one if I fly Delta today.
Virgin galactic would have been interesting 17 years ago right after scaled composites actually won the Ansari X Prize and put a human in "space". 17 years later and multiple spaceX failures and successes later? Much more underwhelming.
Back in 2001 Denis Tito paid 20mil to spend 10 days at the ISS. That is a milestone. Not that Bezos spent 10min in "space" in 2021.
Not to diminish what their companies are doing - I believe there’s real value from getting people excited about going up and a better way of life for the people of the future.
But they are not astronauts and that’s ok. I would like to go to space too but I will never be an astronaut.
I tend to agree that just strapping yourself in and hanging on for a few minutes shouldn't earn astronaut wings. But that's not really what their efforts were all about, and it seems disingenuous of the press to focus on it.
I'm also not going to walk up to Wally Funk and tell her she's not a Real Astronaut. Bezos is getting zero credit for reversing a genuine historical injustice here.
At the same time, any NASA astronaut is only an astronaut because a well-funded system choose them. Its not like any of these people figured out how to take a plane and get it to space with cool flying technique.
If anything, Bezos and Branson did more personally than anyone else to get to space since they spearheaded these projects from the start.
I don't think the skills it takes to be a captain of a ship are the same as they are in 2020 as they were in 1720. That doesn't mean you aren't a ship captain if you operate a cruise ship today.
It’s only purpose is to create exclusivity that then implies that government, bureaucrats and employees, are more important to space activity than private industry. Which is BS. What this really is is ensuring government can still pat itself on the back.
This was already for a program that designates who can be classified as a “commercial” astronaut. If the FAA regulates this, why wouldn’t it be necessary for them to clarify the difference between passengers and crew? We just had two such flights, I believe the implication is there will be more flights into space.
It does take more. There are lots of people with huge piles of money and they’re not even part of the subject of this conversation.
That's not nothing, but investing in & managing an aerospace company, and taking a ride on the rocket, doesn't make someone an astronaut anymore than investing & managing a construction company, and living in one of its buildings, makes a person an architect.
People can define space any way they like, but I think "going to" space should require going at least 90% of the way around the world.
Which has the side effect of implying you've spent over an hour "in" space.
Anybody can define anything. And while I have no opinion on whether Bezos and Branson specifically should be considered astronauts, the FAA definition as described is ridiculously arbitrary.
1) The increasing commercialization of spaceflight provides many opportunities for unscrupulous grifters seeking to con scientifically illiterate millionaires, potentially at great risk to human life. Governments really should clamp down on who is and isn’t qualified to call themselves an astronaut.
2) As someone who supports companies like SpaceX being involved in space exploration: it is extremely gross for the focus to the on the personal feelings and childish fantasies of three billionaires, one of whom is notorious for blatantly abusing his employees, the other notorious for blatantly lying to his customers[1]. Branson seems by comparison to be an ok person... but he’s not an astronaut, and it’s disrespectful to real astronauts to suggest otherwise.
[1] While Bezos at least seems to acknowledge that he bought his ticket, the fact that Elon Musk still calls himself “Chief Engineer” at SpaceX is an embarrassment, and a slap in the face to all the engineers who actually show up to do work at SpaceX.
Elon: Yes, it's a good question. I think a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time with media or on businessy things. But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering and design. Engineering and design, so it's developing next-generation product. That's 80% of it.
(2016; unreliable source: Elon Musk himself)
Funny, those engineers don't seem to have any problem working for him under the title "Chief Engineer." Maybe we should ask some of them for their opinions, since theirs are the only ones that matter.
Ouch. The BBC will not be getting 100M from Bezos, with this (not really) ad hominem content :D
Reporters tend to think awfully highly of themselves, even more so than your average billionaire does.
Relevant : http://www.paulgraham.com/fh.html
Could we make new internationally recognised titles like “world hero” or “better than 10 novel peace prize winners”. Billionaires could compete to eliminate debt in a poorer country or reduce carbon by 10 parts per million and win it? Would that stroke their ego enough to part with cash to tackle meaningful problems their companies are currently heavily contributing to?
We all promise to tell them all the time how great they are for having parted with small percentage of their incomprehensible wealth.