
Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin - rcurry
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/science/space/jeff-bezos-lifts-veil-on-his-rocket-company-blue-origin.html
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thematt
This isn't a "who is hiring?" thread obviously, but if anyone wants to be a
part of our team we are always looking for folks who share our passion for
space, especially those who happen to build software too!

[https://www.blueorigin.com/careers](https://www.blueorigin.com/careers)

Needless to say, there are tons of interesting problems to solve and
opportunities to make a huge impact.

~~~
jMyles
Serious question: can applicants be assured that the project won't be used to
kill people? One can never be too sure when government grants are paying the
bills.

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outworlder
Getting a "Won't be" assurance is probably going to be next to impossible.
Anything could happen in such an unspecified amount of time. A "isn't
currently intended to" would likely be easier to get.

That said, with so many viable missile platforms, why would Blue Origin be
used for that?

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jMyles
> That said, with so many viable missile platforms, why would Blue Origin be
> used for that?

I know very little about the vertical. As a matter of principle, I typically
avoid gigs that involve government funding. However, this one is more
interesting than most.

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pzb
How do you do that? Where do you draw the line? Basically every company I've
worked for has, at some point and to varying levels, taken government funding.
It could be buying off the shelf products in the same manner as every other
customer, it could be the company creating a modified product for the
government, or it could be taking funding in the form of R&D tax credits.

~~~
jMyles
> It could be buying off the shelf products in the same manner as every other
> customer

What do you mean?

The only company I've worked for for any length of time that was funded in
part by government funds was WNYC, which was a blast!

Public Radio to me is one of those times where the broken clock happens to
show the right time of day. Sure, it's government funding, but the content we
created was really stellar.

I mean, on some higher political level, there's always the "you use the roads"
argument, but I'm talking about having to report to someone in the government
about how their funding is being used. That's what I object to.

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pjscott
Blue Origin is a credible rocket company, in case anybody was wondering.
They've got some impressive engineering, a realistic, incremental long-term
plan, and pockets deep enough to pay for it.

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avmich
I agree, but take a look here: SpaceX was established 2 years later than Blue
Origin, with principal sponsor's net worth may be an order of magnitude less;
yet today's SpaceX achievements, I think, are more serious overall than Blue
Origin's.

Having a realistic, incremental long-term plan may be not enough to remain
relevant in the market, if the latter shifts fast enough. Would you say
Lockheed and Boeing don't have have a realistic plan? Yet their lunch is
increasingly eaten by competition. It's good they actually adapt their plans.

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c3534l
> may be not enough to remain relevant in the market

You're forgetting that there isn't actually a market here. There is currently
no commercial service that brings you into space.

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chadzawistowski
'Course there's a market. Just because you can't afford to visit space doesn't
mean there aren't commercial buyers. NASA awards contracts, as does the US
military. Plus there's huge interest in telecommunications satellites.

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toomuchtodo
SpaceX has proven the ability to obtain orbit. Blue Origin has not. NASA and
the US military want to get to orbit, not the edge of space.

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pnathan
I had an interview at Blue Origin a few years ago. Very driven group of
people. I wasn't the right fit for the position, we both agreed, but it was a
great experience. If you're _into_ spaceflight, I would definitely recommend
checking them out.

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askafriend
> I wasn't the right fit for the position

But seriously...what did you _really_ mean to say? I hate that phrase with a
passion.

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pnathan
I mean to say: I wasn't the right fit. They were looking for someone with
different attributes; after the interview, I realized this, and when the
recruiter called me up to tell me so, I told him I agreed and had planned to
turn the offer down if I had gotten the offer. Absolutely nothing against Blue
Origin: I would have not been a good fit. I think I needed a solid 5-10 years
more experience to do the job they wanted to the exactitude they needed.

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vonmoltke
How did you get the interview in the first place of there was such a
disconnect?

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pnathan
Candidly, it _was_ a great experience, and I walked out with a lot of respect
for Blue Origin and the people I spoke with; this really hasn't lessened
through the years. Interviews ought to be a two-way street: the interview I
did definitely was. A+. I'd really rather not answer more personal questions
about this beyond what I've already said in this thread.

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josefresco
"His argument was simple: Energy consumption has been rising at 2 or 3 percent
a year. Even at that modest rate, within a few centuries, the energy usage
would be equal to the energy produced by high-efficiency solar cells covering
the entire surface of the planet. “We’ll be using all of the solar energy that
impacts the Earth,” he said. “That’s an actual limit.”"

What now? I was under the assumption that the solar energy levels hitting the
earth were quite higher/more than we could ever "need" and also that energy
usage isn't going to increase at a consistent rate. Anyone have data on this?
Does his timeframe (few centuries) exceed than existing reporting? Does it
even make sense to project a 2-3% increase in energy consumption over ~300
years?

Found:
[http://illumin.usc.edu/assets/submissions/675/murphy_CSP.pdf](http://illumin.usc.edu/assets/submissions/675/murphy_CSP.pdf)

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debacle
While the forecast might be wrong, a big hindrance right now (to pretty much
everything) is a lack of cheap, clean energy. There will never be a time in
the apparent future where anyone will ever say "We're producing too much
energy."

And if we ever get there, it will be one of those nice problems to have.

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erikpukinskis
> a big hindrance right now (to pretty much everything) is a lack of cheap,
> clean energy

This is kind of true, except cheap energy is fungible with smarter energy use.
So you could argue that everything is hindered by the lack of good design (and
by extension design instruction in schools).

I would be interested to know what you're thinking about when you say "pretty
much everything". For reference, the things I care a lot about limited job
mobility, people getting murdered, abuse, including rape and incarceration,
forced migration, and addiction and I don't see how any of that is the result
of expensive or dirty energy.

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dkarapetyan
What a weird sentence

> Currently, most rocket companies launch, at most, about a dozen times a
> year. “You never get really great at something you do 10, 12 times a year,”
> Mr. Bezos said. With a small fleet of reusable New Shepard rockets, Blue
> Origin could be launching dozens of times a year.

So they'd be doing the same as everyone else?

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6581
"Dozens" is at least 24.

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dkarapetyan
I don't think that's the colloquial definition of "dozens"

> plural dozens or dozen 1 : a group of 12 2 : an indefinitely large number
> <dozens of times>

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vidarh
It is clearly implied in the quote that they will be doing much more than the
others - that's what matters. Your interpretation above that they will be
doing "the same" is unreasonable given the context. It's pretty reasonble then
to assume "dozens" will be at the very least two dozen on the lower bound.
Even if it's a guess, it's likely a far better guess than to assume they meant
"others are doing too few launches, so we'll do the same number of launches"

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LAMike
Hope they eventually offers tours like SpaceX, it is really cool to check out
the factory and see the Merlin engines. They are surprisingly small, but they
look like time machines.

Jeff really likes things that fly. Drones, Cargo planes and rockets!

~~~
TrevorJ
Wait, you can take tours of SpaceX?

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MPSimmons
Employees can give tours to friends and family. Also, don't beg for tours over
the internet.

You could also get a Tesla and enter the contest:

[http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-referral-program-ludicrous-
mo...](http://www.teslarati.com/tesla-referral-program-ludicrous-model-
x-p90d-spacex-prize/)

~~~
jacquesm
That's an expensive lottery ticket to a tour.

~~~
MPSimmons
But it comes with a free Tesla ;-)

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hooliganpete
Gone are the days of billionaires buying sports teams, buying newspapers and
blogs still seems to be in but not quite as hot as space exploration. With
SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin sort of seems like a "me too"
venture...

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adventured
Blue Origin pre-dates both SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

Bezos founded it in 2000.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#History)

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kin
This is awesome. I love that there is more and more interest in space
exploration lately. Hopefully real life events will soon inspire beyond what
recent movies like Interstellar and the Martian have shown us.

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roflchoppa
Its almost an eerie feeling of these companies having the potential to last
"forever".

common health technologies freeze me now and wake me up in 400 years please.

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cm127
More like delaying the inevitable...

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kirk21
Good to see that they will become more open about what they are doing. Great
job Mr. Bezos.

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infocollector
It would be nice to see which billionaire is next :-)

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venomsnake
Zuckeberg funded Iridium done right. That will show that pesky India with it's
"net neutrality"

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aryamaan
What's that supposed to mean?

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vidarh
He's complaining about Internet.org

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samstave
Funny how he started a rocket company, yet carmack abandoned one... I feel
carmack could have done a better job, but if carmack can give up - my
prospects on bezos are quite dim...

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forgotpwtomain
Carmack also started a rocket company at a time when it was much more
difficult to do so (there were far fewer government dollars available via
contracts), Bezos also has far more capital to put in than Carmack.

Not undeservingly Carmack is something of a folk hero here (for example:
[http://h14s.p5r.org/2012/09/0x5f3759df.html](http://h14s.p5r.org/2012/09/0x5f3759df.html))
but I don't think being a 10X programmer necessarily translates into great
rocket company CEO and in terms of entrepreneurial and organizational skill
Bezos excels (at least based on Amazon's success).

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smcl
It's a shame you picked q3's fast inverse square root. It's not a great
example as it turns out someone else implemented it in Quake 3 and someone
else entirely devised the algorithm itself. Though you're right - he's a bit
of a hero and deservedly so.

edit: however ... I've just read that article and it is actually the most in-
depth and interesting analysis I've read on the subject so thanks!

