
Jeff Bezos Pledges to Expand His Space Ventures - jedwhite
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-pledges-to-expand-his-space-ventures-1527349075
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frisco
I fundamentally don’t understand how anyone can see this and think, “nah, fuck
those guys.” Clearly we cannot be a single-planet species forever and survive.
Beyond that, it’s such a hard challenge to push our technical skills against,
and the ultimate adventure for those who go.

The universe is vast and we haven’t left the cradle yet. There is so far to go
for us. It makes me feel so much better about Earth and humanity just knowing
we are doing this.

As was said by XKCD: "The universe is probably littered with the one-planet
graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no
good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the
ones who made the irrational decision."

~~~
manmal
Just ruining this planet and spilling over to other systems to do the same
there would shockingly resemble what viruses do.

~~~
icelancer
Also what all biological agents have been observed to do. We aren't special in
that regard.

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padiyar83
Nice! Just the sheer amount of engineering challenges a permanent moon base
would bring in gets me excited. Humanity would learn so much from this
experience one way or the other.

~~~
blazespin
More exciting to me would be a fully automated moon base. Much more realistic
and the advances it will help bring to robotics can be exploited for profit
here on earth, a win for everyone.

I don’t see how building a moonbase where people live really helps people on
earth. For that matter doesn’t the low gravity leech calcium from your bones
or something? Why would anyone even want to live on the moon. Sounds
unpleasant.

The trick will be to developing a delivery mechanism for dropping and
installing semi-autonomous robots on the moon.

Also, of course, we need robots capable of doing anything a person can do -
even to the point of repairing other robots. Not talking self aware, just with
the appropriate agility.

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adrianN
It teaches us how to live on other planets, which is quite important for the
long term survival of the human race.

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blazespin
I find this line of thinking ridiculous or at least very elitist.. if we can’t
figure out how to live on this one we’ll just go destroy another planet.

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adrianN
It's pretty hard to destroy planets. I doubt that we could do it.

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blackrock
I hate to say this, but has anyone noticed the outline of the feather in Blue
Origin's logo, looks like a penis about to go erect?

Especially the logo on the jacket.

I don't know if this was some kind of cosmic joke, played by the graphic arts
department. But I think someone should tell the king about what that logo he's
wearing over his heart, sort of looks like.

~~~
mrep
Well all my friends here in Seattle call Amazons new spheres "Jeffs Balls" so
it would be fitting. It could have just played out like gavin belsons
signature in silicon valley the show: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335Qnh-
GRcA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=335Qnh-GRcA)

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Kusse
The greatest tragedy is that Silicon Valley has specialized in surveilance
instead of actually creating something good. So many engineering hours wasted
on tracking people.

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greesil
Why? It's an airless rock that sits at the bottom of a gravity well that has
maybe a smidge of water. I guess you can make yourself a nice radiation
shelter there?

~~~
nordsieck
If you look at the moon as a really good space station as opposed to a planet,
I think there are many good reasons to set up a base there.

* Gravity: enough to help with long term habitation, but low enough that getting on and off is much, much easier than Earth.

* Close to Earth

* Enough space that one could build a lot of things. It's a lot cheaper to dig than it is to launch more space station modules.

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evanlivingston
But to what end do we need a really good space station?

I realize we can work on more than one problem at a time and that it is
expedient to do so. But I often wonder how much space exploration,
particularly manned missions, are a distraction from more pressing issues on
our home planet.

Also, if space exploration is a more scientifically exciting problem than say,
ensuring enduring sources of clean water for the millions of people who don't
have access to it, well then, that's a sad world indeed.

~~~
icelancer
>> Also, if space exploration is a more scientifically exciting problem than
say, ensuring enduring sources of clean water for the millions of people who
don't have access to it, well then, that's a sad world indeed.

Enduring sources of clean water for everyone in the world is a
_scientifically_ very easy problem to solve compared to most of what is
discussed on this website.

The problem is that it is a _politically_ very difficult problem to solve. And
you want Bezos/Musk/etc to fix this... how?

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evanlivingston
Oh God, I don't want to delegate the task of fixing to the world to just a few
tech moguls.

However, I would be encouraged to see the scientific community Incorporate a
stronger social solidarity into their work. Because a problem is hard or
simple is not reason enough alone to pursue it, personally. Finding the
largest prime number known might be a somewhat difficult task, but to what end
is it found?

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icelancer
I don't disagree with the main thrust of this comment, but it doesn't have
much to do with comparing spaceflight with clean water. One is solvable by the
tech community (maybe?) and the other isn't because there are political
obstacles in the way. And when tech companies try to solve political issues,
people on HN and everyone else who leans marginally liberal get increasingly
pissed off that rich people are messing with dem dere laws again.

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neonate
[http://archive.li/vV5FP](http://archive.li/vV5FP)

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BrainInAJar
We could fix the current planet instead of rich people escaping to other
habitats

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icelancer
The moon is a lot worse than any habitat on Earth, and will be that way for a
long time.

Furthermore, do you have a list of what Bezos et al give to charity in
attempts to improving the current planet? It's not negligable.

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s2g
Probably isn’t that significant relative to wealth, and in Bezos case that
wealth is built on the backs of warehouse employees who have to use food
stamps and piss in bottles instead of taking a bathroom break.

~~~
icelancer
>> Probably isn’t that significant relative to wealth

Ah yes, I've run into the Earth arbiter and judge of significance of
charitable giving.

Some days I wish Bezos et al would reduce their philanthropic giving to $0 for
a calendar year and see what people have to say about their previous stingy
behavior.

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ageofwant
I've noticed that I have been modifying my purchase preferences to favour
Bezos and Musk (holding out for that Model 3). Not because their stuff is
better but I'd like to think some of the money they make of me goes into
uplifting world-changing things like this.

