Blue Origin thread.

[Shpaget]

On 7/9/2021 at 6:15 PM, tater said:

I agree on the windows

Still smaller than the Roadster windshield, right?

[tater]

Yet still no word on who won?

[mikegarrison]

21 hours ago, tater said:

Yet still no word on who won?

Who won what?

I mean, Virgin flew people first a long time ago. If you mean a contest between Bezos and Musk and Branson over who would fly to space first, I guess Branson won -- unless you don't count that as space. But Charles Simonyi has spent almost a month total in the ISS, so when it comes to billionaires getting to space, they all lost that race years ago.

From my perspective, the real winner (if there is one) is which system ultimately gets the most people to buy tickets and fly.

[tater]

1 minute ago, mikegarrison said:

Who won what?

The $28M auction for the third seat on the Bezos flight.

BO said that they would announce the winner of the auction, THEN the 4th crew member. Crew 1 is Jeff, number 2 is his brother, and the surprise 4th crew is Wally Funk. They skipped naming the auction winner in the order they said they would the day of the auction, AND they have yet to announce it.

[mikegarrison]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

The $28M auction for the third seat on the Bezos flight.

Ah! Well, they could potentially keep that secret forever. But they won't. They would have to not show any video.

Or maybe they give the fourth person a "Stig" costume.

Maybe it's MacKenzie Scott. That would be hilarious.

[tater]

Just now, mikegarrison said:

Ah! Well, they could potentially keep that secret forever. But they won't. They would have to not show any video.

It's odd because they officially tweeted that they would announce the winner, THEN the last crew member.

Of course the person running their twitter is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and might be seeking other employment after the whole snarky tweet debacle.

For reference:

Then, July 1 they announced the "final crew member."

 

[tater]

 

Quote

The winner of Blue Origin’s auction, who has asked to remain anonymous at this time, has chosen to fly on a future New Shepard mission due to scheduling conflicts. Club for the Future announced this week the auction gift has enabled Club to donate $1 million to 19 non-profit organizations ($19 million in total), all of which are working to support the future of living and working in space.

 

Um, the date of the flight was already set before the auction.

Someone bid $28M for a flight they knew they could not take?

[tater]

 

[cubinator]

27 minutes ago, tater said:

 

 

Um, the date of the flight was already set before the auction.

Someone bid $28M for a flight they knew they could not take?

Maybe something came up more recently. Or they believed they could work out a new schedule.

[tater]

The point of this auction was signalling.

It was not "going to space," because anyone bidding knew they could buy  a seat for much, much less later.

They were buying access to Bezos, publicity, and some amount of virtue signalling (a donation to charity). Since they were buying a service, BTW, no tax write off, BO is spending the money on charity, but the winner was NOT donating the money to the charity (it could have been set up that way, but it was not).

Just now, cubinator said:

Maybe something came up more recently. Or they believed they could work out a new schedule.

No.

This was known to be a sort of race, the date was set ahead of time, and on top of that was the Moon landing anniversary day of the year.

There is zero chance "something came up."

[cubinator]

13 minutes ago, tater said:

There is zero chance "something came up."

Nonzero. "Scheduling conflicts" could mean almost anything. For example, a person could get hurt and need a couple months before they're space-ready. As unlikely as it is, there is some genuine reason why this person is being placed on a later flight. They'll no doubt still get access to Mr. Who, etc. but it will be on the ground instead of both ground and space.

Spoiler

As for the charity event as a whole, I think it's silly, but my reasons are beyond the scope of the forum.

 

[tater]

11 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Nonzero. "Scheduling conflicts" could mean almost anything. For example, a person could get hurt and need a couple months before they're space-ready. As unlikely as it is, there is some genuine reason why this person is being placed on a later flight. They'll no doubt still get access to Mr. Who, etc. but it will be on the ground instead of both ground and space.

  Reveal hidden contents

As for the charity event as a whole, I think it's silly, but my reasons are beyond the scope of the forum.

 

If it was a health problem, they might have said family emergency or something. That's a better "out" than "scheduling conflict."

They wished anonymity on the auction day itself. For something explicitly a public thing that would certainly get huge press.

Wally Funk was announced 19 days later. The order was supposed to be auction winner, then Funk.

So the "conflict" then had to occur between the auction and 19 days? Spent way, way, way too much on a joyride, then decided to go rock climbing and took a lead fall that didn't work out well, maybe, so has to beg off? Seems unlikely.

The actual cost of a ride once they sell tickets will be VASTLY lower. Has to be closer to the Virgin price than not.

Why would anyone who doesn't want publicity spend so much, then get a ride any regular rich person (worth far less) could just buy a ticket for $250k or $500k (whatever) and no one would cover it?

Anyone high up in the bidding would likely have access to Bezos, and BO even said they'd offer something to the runners up.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Someone bid $28M for a flight they knew they could not take?

If you have $28M to blow on a single rocket flight, you probably have other things going on in your life too. It's very believable that something else could have come up.

Or yeah, it could be something like a health issue. Whoever this is seems to be quite private, which is exactly the opposite of your claim that it is all about "signaling".

I mean, you are right that it's a bit odd to pay so much premium for a first flight and then not go on the first flight. But for some people $28M is pocket change. Bezos himself, for instance, could spend that kind of money on a lark if he wanted to.

Edited July 15, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

10 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

If you have $28M to blow on a single rocket flight, you probably have other things going on in your life too. It's very believable that something else could have come up.

Or yeah, it could be something like a health issue. Whoever this is seems to be quite private, which is exactly the opposite of your claim that it is all about "signaling".

So a very private person bid millions for something definitionally a public, indeed a livestreamed, event?

Are they not very smart, or mentally ill?

The auction wasn't to spend an anonymous, private weekend with Jeff on his $500M yacht. The auction was explicitly to be part of a massive PR event.

Edited July 15, 2021 by tater

[mikegarrison]

Or maybe whoever it is got cold feet after all the blow-back negative publicity about a "billionaire space race" and decided he/she didn't want to be the public face for the controversy.

[tater]

But yes, a surprise health issue is possible. Just unlikely that it comes about within days of a winning auction bid. Also, they were anonymous on the day of the auction itself, so clearly already not really on board with the whole PR stunt thing.

You'd think that in addition to vetting their finances (BO did this for the auction), they would have told the participants that winning involves flying on the 20th, AND that the event will be livestreams, within cabin video in real time, etc. Could they have been that lax that they failed to tell them this?

10 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Or maybe whoever it is got cold feet after all the blow-back negative publicity about a "billionaire space race" and decided he/she didn't want to be the public face for the controversy.

Unlikely.

July 1 was the date BO announced Wally Funk as the 4th crew member.

The 4th crew member was supposed to be announced AFTER the auction winner. The "space race" debacle came after this Virgin announcement, not before, and the auction winner should already have been announced.

EDIT: BO announced Funk 9 hours before Branson's announcement, BTW. So No auction winner, then Funk, then Branson starts the "race" nonsense.

BO could have said there was a conflict before announcing Funk, and that they therefore would go to the second place winner.

Edited July 15, 2021 by tater

[Deddly]

The winning bid was 28 million USD, and they have donated 19 million USD. Does this mean the ticket price is 9 million? 

[tater]

Just now, Deddly said:

The winning bid was 28 million USD, and they have donated 19 million USD. Does this mean the ticket price is 9 million? 

Some might have gone to the BO charity itself. They have their own 501-c3 for space education.

BO collects the money (hence it's a paid customer), then BO donated the money to their charitable foundation, and others. The winner did not donate anything to charity technically (that was part of the auction terms apparently, I think it was mentioned up thread).

[mikegarrison]

I don't know what kind of social (and/or social media) circles you move in, but I can assure you that I've seen a HUGE blowback over all of this. Nobody was paying much attention until very recently. In fact, the (IMO ridiculous) $28M auction bid announcement was a big trigger for it. However, the real fuel was thrown onto the fire when Branson made his announcement about changing his personal flight schedule.

Musk's constant antics ("stonks" etc.) don't help either, because he's so personally identified with SpaceX. But at least people understood SpaceX was providing commercial services. Most people seem to have been unaware of these suborbital tourism programs until just the last week or two.

[tater]

32 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't know what kind of social (and/or social media) circles you move in, but I can assure you that I've seen a HUGE blowback over all of this. Nobody was paying much attention until very recently. In fact, the (IMO ridiculous) $28M auction bid announcement was a big trigger for it. However, the real fuel was thrown onto the fire when Branson made his announcement about changing his personal flight schedule.

Yes, that happened after BO had already changed their plan.

Auction was always anonymous per June 12 livestream (just checked it). Winner to be announced afterwards, but participants vetted obviously so some rando doesn't bid millions who does not have millions. Ariane Cornell (the host/sale person at BO) said she'd talked to most of the bidders personally in the weeks ahead of the auction.

At the time of the auction, it was already known that Bezos and his brother were going, and that this was going to clearly be a very public event as a result. Jeff's dream since childhood of seeing the Earth from space (per his own video he posted). All bidders know this is not a private thing at this point.

BO then stated they would tell people the winner, THEN announce the special 4th crew (Wally Funk).

Then they announce Funk July 1 in the morning. Branson moves his flight to ahead of Bezos later that day, so yeah, creates a stink—but the BO auction winner should have already been announced before July 1, BO said auction winner announced then 4th crew. Something was already sideways.

Pulling out after the stink would make some sense, but they should have been announced already (before July) anyway per BO on June 12.

 

32 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Musk's constant antics ("stonks" etc.) don't help either, because he's so personally identified with SpaceX. But at least people understood SpaceX was providing commercial services. Most people seem to have been unaware of these suborbital tourism programs until just the last week or two.

Agreed. I think BO's PR dept stinks, frankly. The whole altitude thing... no one in the general public knows or cares. NASA says 50 miles? It's 50 miles. The most typical reaction by normal people is "They spent how much for 10 minutes? Must be nice to be so rich and stupid!" Pushing the auction harder as raising money for charity should have been the focus, wonder how many people understood that from the news?

Edited July 15, 2021 by tater

[magnemoe]

On 7/13/2021 at 10:29 PM, tater said:

The $28M auction for the third seat on the Bezos flight.

BO said that they would announce the winner of the auction, THEN the 4th crew member. Crew 1 is Jeff, number 2 is his brother, and the surprise 4th crew is Wally Funk. They skipped naming the auction winner in the order they said they would the day of the auction, AND they have yet to announce it.

My mother is 83 and pretty nervous about everything who might somehow be dangerous like driving cars or walk in the forest. 
Loved telling her about Wally Funk and that old ladies can do. It did not help however. 

[tater]

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 7/15/2021 at 12:17 PM, mikegarrison said:

Or maybe whoever it is got cold feet after all the blow-back negative publicity about a "billionaire space race" and decided he/she didn't want to be the public face for the controversy.

Or it was that guy from the 70s Show and his wife talked him down 

[tater]

 

[tater]

Live in 9 hours:

As underwhelmed as I am with BO, taking Wally Funk was a class move.