Jeff Bezos Is Not My Astronaut | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Bezos Is Not My Astronaut

profgalloway.com

27 pointssamizdis10 comments

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,,It’s unlikely these projects will attract any venture capital money or support a SPAC''

They already do actually. Space industry investments are booming. The author should check his facts.

Acoording to the OP, the Blue Origin bailout is half of the entire NASA budget.

The Blue Origin investment leads to a shittier Vomit Comet, while NASA has rovers on Mars.

If I have a choice I prefer that rich spend millions on space than on mansions and vanity cars.

If I had a choice, I prefer that these millions were spent in a way that's governed by the same democratic principles that ultimately enabled generating them.

World governments spent $35 trillion last year and will spend a similar figure this year and the next and so on. I don't think a whole lot of good would come from them spending $35.1 trillion instead for one year.

I do however believe that all of the Bezos backed ventures could produce a lot of good for mankind over the next 40 years or however long he lives.

Does that same apply the the money you have?

No, because it doesn’t apply to bezos’ first ~$50 million either. I’m good with him keeping that if we can redistribute the rest.

Bezos made it very easy to shit on him for some of his behavior and his post-flight remarks, yes.

But I did enjoy the historical perspective in this post.

And still, I'm confused as to what this author arguing for, exactly. That space exploration should be nationalized, or else it's not morally good enough? That Bezos should make better, more noble use of his money? Or, that private space endeavors, however extravagant, somehow take away from what NASA is doing and the two cannot coexist well? I'm confused, what is the actual message here?

On the bright side, ultra-billionaires like Bezos will never be space pioneers. The reason is simple: they value themselves too much to risk literally going where no man has gone before. They'll wait for "more expendable" (wo)men to go there first and prepare the way.

what software does he use to operate his website?

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