What's the significance of Jeff Bezos going to space, on his own Blue Origin rocket, with his brother Mark?

Flight scheduled for Tue, July 20 — anniversary of the first Moon landing. Not a coincidence.

Bezos is the richest person in the world, and one of the most powerful.
2/ That launch of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket & capsule was guaranteed to get a lot of attention — it is the first time Blue Origin is launching people, after 15 test flights.

But now?

Jeff Bezos as passenger / crew — in flight suit — guarantees wild, worldwide publicity.
3/ This is an 11 minute flight, just to the edge of space. Three minutes of weightlessness.

It's a pop-fly trajectory — arcing up & back down.

The first US crewed flight?

—> Alan Shepard, Mercury Freedom 7, May 5, 1961

Shepard got a 15-minute ride. 5 minutes weightless.
4/ So Bezos, his brother Mark, & the person who wins the auction for another seat (current top bid: $2.8 million! — money to charity) will get a little less of a ride than the very first US spaceflight.

But much more comfortable on New Shepard.

Great views compared to Shepard.
5/ Repeating this point:

Blue Origin has tested this rocket 15 times. They haven't been particularly forthcoming with technical data — but no obvious problems of any kind with rocket or capsule on those flights.

It's pretty darn safe.
6/ So Bezos—whose Blue Origin is going into the tourists-in-space business, to get the hang of flying people—will create an unbeatable worldwide sensation to promote that business, assuming he & Mark emerge after 15 minutes, grinning.

Still—a risk. To Amazon. To Blue Origin.
7/ And also to the Washington Post, which Bezos also owns.

If things go well, Bezos will have kicked off Blue Origin's 'human spaceflight' phase in a way no one else could have.

If possible, it might raise Bezos's worldwide profile.
8/ And, no matter what, Amazon and the Washington Post are fine. Deep leadership benches at both.

But the other — admittedly small risk — is, If there's a catastrophic problem, Blue Origin itself won't survive.

Bezos is the driving force of Blue, as he has been for Amazon.
9/ But nothing demonstrates confidence — swagger combined with safety — like, 'I own the rocket company. And I'm the first customer. That's how much I trust it.'

I spent 3 hours with Bezos at the Kent, WA, HQ of Blue Origin a couple years ago.

smithsonianmag.com/innovation/roc…
10/ Bezos is wicked smart—that's well known.

He's a graduate of my very own high school — Miami-Palmetto Senior High. And then Princeton University.

——>
11/ At one point in my interview, Bezos wandered over to a workbench of engine components, picked up a rocket turbopump, and plunged into a discussion of flow dynamics & turbulence across the surface of the turbine blades—and why they had the particular shape they had.

Bravura.
12/ Bezos has an engineering degree—but it's electrical engineering. Shorthand in the 80s for computer science & programming.

I've been writing about rocketry since the shuttle disaster in 1986. But Bezos had clearly made himself a deep, serious student of aerospace engineering.
13/ He knows what he's doing.

He will certainly have his own staff keyed up — but the first human flight of any new rocket has everyone on edge.

This is going to give the July 20 Blue Origin flight a real frisson of extra excitement.
14/ A reminder: Elon Musk hasn't gone to space himself, but he is far ahead of Bezos.

Musk routinely sends rockets to the International Space Station, 240 miles in orbit. Automated docking in orbit. Safe return.

And now multiple flights with astronauts in Crew Dragon—to ISS.
15/ In some ways, for ordinary people, the absolute routine operation of SpaceX—and Musk's on-Earth antics with twitter and cryptocurrency—obscure the genius & reliability of his rocket company.

SpaceX is a monumental achievement.

Blue Origin may turned out to be the same.
16/ Musk & SpaceX are rapidly becoming the United Airlines of space travel.

Bezos is swooping in—after 2 decades of slow, careful work—aiming to be the Southwest Airlines.

But this is a small step.

26% shorter than the flight of its namesake, Alan Shepard.

Small but splashy.
17/ CNBC anchor David Faber makes a great point:

Preparation & training for the Blue Origin flight July 20 require 3 days at Blue's W. Texas launch facility.

So if you're bidding to fly with Bezos (you need $2.81 million as of now) — you're also buying 3 days with Bezos.
18/ Bezos has said he aims, shortly, to be launching rockets once a week to space — first these up-and-down flights, eventually to orbit.

50 flights a year, just from Blue.

Right now, we're at ~ 100 launches a year for all purposes, all nations, worldwide.
19/ Musk and Bezos aim to change the economics of going to space completely.

If there's availability of flights, if the flights are frequent, scheduled, safe, and affordable — they both think the market will explode. Not really for tourists — for business.

A new space economy.

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More from @cfishman

7 Jun
BREAKING (GOOD) NEWS:

US government has recovered $2 million in ransom paid—via cryptocurrency—to the ransomware hackers who froze the Colonial Pipeline last month.

'Today we turned the tables' on the hackers, said deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco.

washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
2/ Gotta say, seems likely there's a great movie-scene story to be unwound there — US law enforcement reverse-hackers...typing furiously away on keyboards!

Key the music & scrunched facial expressions that are the only known way to make typing urgent & suspenseful.
3/ My own typing is often suspenseful, but only internally. Will there in fact be any more words? Will those words be riveting — at least more so than their typing?

…We've been led to believe that cryptocurrency makes ransomware unbeatable. Better than a suitcase of cash.
Read 6 tweets
13 Apr
FDA & CDC ask states to *stop* administering the Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine.

The stop is temporary. It's also voluntary — the federal gov't is advising states there might be a safety issue with the J&J vaccine.

Feds will pause using J&J vaccine at their mass vaccine sites.
2/ How serious is this problem?

What triggered the stop — and is the vaccine safe or not?

NOTE: This is the vaccine I got (along with two other family members) last Friday.

I'm not worried. Here's why.

––>
3/ The J&J vaccine has been given to 6.8 million people in the US.

6 have developed a blood clotting problem after receiving the vaccine — between 6 & 13 days after.

That's 1 person out of 1.1 million doses with the syndrome.

All 6 are women, ages 18 to 48.

1 woman died.
Read 15 tweets
12 Apr
Sixty years ago today — April 12, 1961 — the space age really began.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched successfully, completed a single orbit of the Earth, and landed safely.

The launch happened early Russia time, so the NYT got it in the April 12, 1961, paper.
2/ It was an astonishing achievement.

The US wouldn't launch a human being into space for another 3 weeks — Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury flight.

But that was an anti-climax. Shepard just went up in a long arc and back down — didn't enter orbit, barely entered space.
3/ So much about Gagarin's flight was a little crazy. The details—many of which didn't come out for years—were astonishing.

Most dramatically, Gagarin ejected 4 miles up & landed separately from his Vostok spaceship.

Little taste of the story from 'One Giant Leap,' below.
Read 17 tweets
11 Apr
10 days ago, no one in our family of 4 (2 adults, 2 college-age children) was vaccinated.

Suddenly, all 4 of us are.

Two are J&J vaccine — one & done.

Two have had the first shot of Pfizer — with appointments for the second.

Good news personally.

Bad news societally.

––>
2/ Not one of the 4 of us got the vaccine in a routine way—a site is open, you qualify, come get the jab.

One traveled to a place where a phone call helped secure a shot (without taking it away from anyone else).

One got an email saying, click HERE, NOW you'll get an app't.
3/ One of us got a message in Slack saying, a site in far southeast DC has extra J&J doses—if you drop everything you're doing & race over there & get in line, you'll likely get your shot.

And we did drop everything, and did get our shots (along with a significant other).
Read 13 tweets
21 Feb
United flight #328 took off from Denver this afternoon, with 331 people aboard, headed to Honolulu.

Just after takeoff, the right-side engine disintegrated, sending debris flying.

Plane returns to Denver safely. No injuries on the ground.

But why…? washingtonpost.com/national/plane…
2/ Not, Why did the engine fly apart?

Rather: Why did UA #328 return safely to Denver Int’l, land without incident, & have 331 passengers & crew disembark — shaken but uninjured?

What kept the 777 from crashing?

One word: Regulations.

(Video below of failed engine inflight.)
3/ Every aspect of that flight — every aspect of US commercial aviation — is regulated.

Design, engineering & testing of the plane.

Training of pilots.

Maintenance protocols for engines, and planes, and training of maintenance staff.

Emergency procedures & emergency training.
Read 9 tweets
19 Feb
Here's a thought experiment:

What if, as storms swept the South this week, everything had worked fine in Texas. Just super cold with pictures of people sledding.

Then, on Tuesday, international hackers had cut off power plants & water plants. Texas plunged into chaos.
2/ Our reaction would have been fury & determination.

The thought experiment unfortunately cuts both ways with equal sharpness.

First, we should approach fixing the problems across the South — and the nation — with the urgency & determination we would if we'd been attacked.
3/ Our infrastructure systems are vulnerable in ways we can figure out, but aren't ready for right now.

For instance: Why are water plants so vulnerable to power failures? What magnifies the disaster of no electricity like no water?
Read 10 tweets

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