Billionaire Space Shots

[Frankenkubota]

rumor is Elon may show up at Spaceport America to watch the launch

to be carried live Sunday morning 6 am Pacific time
youtube link

I believe ABC, CBS, and Bloomberg will be carrying the launch live as well

delayed

 

[Jim Shooz]

Boys and their toys

 

[oosik]

Wouldn't it be amazing if just one of those guys thought - world hunger, cancer or something like that was just as exciting.

 

[sd455dan]

delayed

yep 7:30 Pacific

link is showing updated countdown, as of this post

10 minutes to launch

assuming no more delays

 

[sd455dan]

Wouldn't it be amazing if just one of those guys thought - world hunger, cancer or something like that was just as exciting.

Interesting , $10 million Ansari X prize started the Corporate race to space that led to this.

Elon recently put up $100 million for an X prize to pull CO2 out of the earth's atmosphere/oceans. Not a bad incentive and I hope it is as successful as the Ansari space X prize was.

The Apollo missions advanced many sciences and our understanding of the universe we live in.

Many advances will come from commercial space flight jmo

 

[rekees4300]

Richard Branson heads for space​

Billionaire Richard Branson heads for space in his own ship

 

[EddieWalker]

I don't really care what wealthy people do with their money, but I do like it that they spend it. I wonder how many jobs where created by this? I wonder what new technology will come around because of this?

For everyone that is jealous of how people with more money spend their money, just think of all those people with less then you have, and want to tell you how to live, or that you don't need that much land, or you should use your money it other ways?

 

[Frankenkubota]

Wouldn't it be amazing if just one of those guys thought - world hunger, cancer or something like that was just as exciting.

yup, you hit it on the head.

what's more fun, fixing public education or.....building a $1.5 billion NFL stadium?

 

[jjp8182]

Wouldn't it be amazing if just one of those guys thought - world hunger, cancer or something like that was just as exciting.

You mean like the Gates Foundation?

Personally I think them pushing for space is a good thing since it opens more economic opportunities. That in turn means more people should be able to work to support themselves - and decide what is really of more value to them (public education or sports stadiums) for themselves.

If anything I'd say they need to get more ambitious and start building space ports or a space equivalent of dry docks so humanity can stop building "space ships" on Earth and start building them in orbit. Building space craft for interplanetary travel on Earth's surfaces seems rather like building an ocean-going ship in a landlocked state...... except that space is far large than the oceans.

Until that happens I have a hard time seeing the feasibility of colonizing another planet or even the moon. Given the amount of supplies the first colonists took with them to get started on a hospitable life-supporting (but different) continent keeping an off-Earth colony alive is going to take something that can move a lot more cargo than is currently launched in a single launch (from surface to anywhere other than Low Earth Orbit).

...and at some point someone is also going to need to start developing heavy equipment that can be used at that colony as well. Which begs the question how long before TBN has members on Mars? (member location will become really important at that point)

 

[rekees4300]

Which begs the question how long before TBN has members on Mars? (member location will become really important at that point)

That's going to be a challenge since it would take around 30 minutes ping time for every TBN reply!