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Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space
Brad Stone points out his story (due out in Monday's issue of Newsweek) on Jeff Bezos' secret space-oriented company, called Blue Origin -- which aims to launch tourists in a reusable vehicle. The article also touches on some of the other private space ventures you've been reading about lately. (One cool note about Blue Origin is that Neal Stephenson is an employee; I hope he's not allowed anywhere dangerous.)
Neal Stephenson's speaking at Carnegie Mellon on Thursday. I'll have to ask him about the project...
Kevin Fox
when will we have lunar web hosting? The ultimate in physical data security.
...
So has Jeff applied for a patent on this yet?
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It(TM)©® only(TM)©® takes(TM)©® one(TM)©® click(TM)©®(TM)!(TM) is© a(TM) registered® trademark(TM) used(TM) with Jeff©'s(TM) permission©. Unauthourized© reproduction(TM) is© expressly® prohibited(TM).
Jeez another person with their own space company. It seems im the only one without one!
the federal patent office awarded a patent on space to jeff bezos today. as a result, all extraterrestrial bodies are required to license their existence.
What was used to shoot Jeff Bezos at space? A really large cannon? Is he expected to survive?
"Jeff Bezos' secret space-oriented company, "
Not so secret anymore eh?
Given his recent history, how long before he and his bozo lawyers file patents on a
"method for the transport and return of civilian passengers to near space in a reusable craft"
?
That quote is right underneath a picture of bald Mr. Bezos in which he very subtly resembles Jean Luc Picard ;-).
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
So is this something else that no one will buy on Amazon, just like the Segway?
...the look on your mate's face as you OneClick a $20,000 space trip for him off his Amazon account...
What the hell happened? Did someone declare a second space race and I missed the memo? The X-prize has been around a while, but in the last few weeks I've read of four separate previously-secret ventures to get people into space cheaply. So soon after Columbia, and in the middle of an economic downturn doesn't sound like the greatest time to announce high-risk, expensive projects like these. What gives? Even if the others are just copycats, what pushed the first guy to publish?
Waiting to be enlightened here....
I'm sure he'd patent the method used to get him there, wouldn't he? And the damn patent office would allow it, because the patent office is his bitch, right?
Then again, leaving Bezos in space might be just what we need...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
1. Launch dot com company
2. Patent everything
3. ???
4. Profit!!!!
5. Launch space tourism company
6. Patent everything
7. ???
8. Profit!!!!
Rinse and repeat
It would be pretty cool if he were there because he's trying to get some experience for a future novel. It'd be especially funny, if comparing this work to Snow Crash, if he were going to have his character be a janitor in a space facility or somesuch, and like our infamous pizza driver, took on the closest weird job of custodial maintenance at this company to get a feel for what his character's life would be...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Attention Mr. teamhasnoi:
I represent Mr. Jeff Bezos and his patent portfolio. We believe that your Slashdot signature, "OpenBeos [sourceforge.net]& Software [bebits.com]," contains intentionally misleading language. Consumers are likely to believe that "OpenBeos" is associated with Mr. Bezos.
As you may be aware, "Bezos" has been copyrighted, patented, and trademarked by Mr. Bezos. In fact, Mr. Bezos also patented the process of trademarking the term "Bezos," to ensure that if his trademark were to expire, he could sue anyone else attempting to register the mark.
We request that you immediately cease and desist all use of the term "Beos," or any other mark which misleads consumers into the false assumption that they are a patron of one of Mr. Bezos' business ventures.
Regards
J. Wilberforce Patterson, Esq.
Well, I was browing along and came across a post which said:
It??? only??? takes??? one??? click?????
It??? only??? takes??? one??? click????? is? a? registered? trademark? used? with Jeff?'s?; permission?. Unauthourized? reproduction? is? expressly? prohibited?.
I was like: "HUH?". Then I remembered I was doing an experiment with Mozilla where I set it to UTF-8 and then I see how messed up by browing experience was... So far this is the climax...
Which leads me to wonder... what's the big deal with all these foreign languages? English has worked fine on the 'net for the last 10 years, so why stop now?
And yes, I'm kidding. ;)
neurostarNo, but I've got a patent on posting humorous content about Jeff Bezos on an online forum, so I'll be seein' you in court, bub!
Please help metamoderate.
Why would anyone venture into space privately? We all know that space travel is obviously one of the most dangerous undertakings humanly possible. Why, then, would anyone in their right mind venture into space, let alone with a company which employs Neal Stephenson.
Snide....comments......
/Muppet Announcer VoiceC CCEEE (/echo space).
(awww, screw it)
BEEEZZZOOOOSSSS...IIIINNNNNNnnnn....SPAAAA
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Why aren't these billionaires exploring the depths of the oceans as James "King of the World" Cameron does?
Surely there's interesting stuff down there, like nucular radiation-enlarged squids, slime monsters and maybe a Godzilla-like creature or two.
Are any of them funding research into solar cells, wind technology, tidal power or geothermal or is it all a great big ego boost?
He should form a company to sell the machine that generated the reality distortion field he used on his investors.
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or sign in to turn on 1-click launching (PAT. PEND.)
but enough money to hire back the laid off victims of the .com era?
prick.
I can't believe it. I actually almost respect Jeff Bezos now. Who would have thunk it ;-)
People that visited Mars also visited:
Pluto
Uranus
1) File crappy patents that are in no way ubique or original.
2)Walk to moon on stacks of patent paperwork.
3)Patent the 'process in which a body may orbit around another'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Phew..for a sec, I thought that was Jeff Bates' secret space-oriented company. Its like, gee, whats VA paying him these days?
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
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From the more-fun-than-yachts department
Billionaires secretly building rockets and other spaceships isn't all that surprising; but a Slashdot editor using "than" properly in lieu of the much more popular "then"... now *that's* what I call news!
09
I think a few of these ventures are going to give a whole new meaning to their Dot-Com founders understanding of the term "Crash and Burn".
Yes. I am boycotting polls until it returns. If it doesn't return by the end of month, I will re-install the ad blocking for slashdot.
I agree that patent abuse sucks, but the patent office can't be doing that bad of a job if we don't hear about new bs daily. Is there a way to view patent applications that were denied?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It is not about what make sense but if there is enough of a market. I believe two different individual have already privately paid to be launched in space (and went there), so we now know that there is a market. The next question is can it be made profitable, although since the founder of the company is a dotcommer, he might not know about that rule of economy.
Another example of market versus logic is the tabaco industry... They make millions by selling a product that cause premature death.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mod parent up!
He can't make a profit selling books. How does anyone think he'll be profitable at this? He must have found some masochistic investors somewhere.
Floating upside down and avoiding The Man. That's what this reminds me of.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
More nonsense from Bezos that will never work, and waste a ton of dough. Is it any wonder that those really useful and popular Segway thingies are sold on Amazon?
Both these guys are going to find out that because they have some greenbacks doesn't translate to space success. Space is very expensive. Both of them want it for cheap and it's not going to happen.
Click here to launch with 1-Click
bunny of death!
there's a thread on this at spymac, with a better picture: here
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Okay, this might seem terrible to say but what happens when one of these guys goes broke? Even worse, when there's an accident? I'm very happy to see progression of this kind because it really doesn't seem like NASA will be doing any for quite some time but have these guys seen the BIG picture? Redesigning rockets from the ground up is a good thing but remember when NASA was designing rockets? They had numerous scrubbed, failed, and fatal launches. Maybe these organizations should get together and pool their resources a little and make sure safety first is a goal. The worst thing that could happen to human space travel would be for another disasterous loss of life to occur. Because if a government can't do it and private organizations can't do it then who can? I wish these people and their employees the best of luck and hope they are successful in their ventures.
Got to love those journalists that start the article with a picture of a rival company's craft without specifically mentioning that this craft has nothing to do with Mr Bezos.
:-)
;-)? If I photoshop a cool plane, will you give me 1 Gazillion $$ too?
On top of that, the picture is Photoshopped (whoops, I mean "Gimped"
Compare the bottom of this picture closely to this image. Both are from Scaled Composites own site. Scaled Composites is one of the competitors for the X-price.
Note the following fakes:
1) The attachment of the crafts is a Photoshop job. They removed the wheels (look closely at the spot on the small plane that suposedly holds the wheels) and note that they forgot to remove the shadow of the front stand. Also, the shadow on the attachement between the planes is (nicely) faked. For that matter, so is the whole attachment.
2) The small plane does not actually have an exhaust (the red thingy). In all the pictures this thing looks a little different. Note how it is awkwardly in and out of shadow in the above pictures.
Why?
Do investors know about this? Is this common practice for a startup (ok, forget I asked that
but if he does, does he have to come back?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
With all these billionares forming their own space oriented companies, what the hell is stopping them from pooling their resources for their common goal?!?! You'd think that if they were capable of doing all this so cheaply, that triple or quadruple the capital would help speed things along...
from article: " Rutan has spent a celebrated career designing airplanes like the Voyager, the first aircraft to fly around the world without refueling. He doesn't classify as an immigrant from high tech"
... y'know, I think I like this guy.
Voyager? Not high tech? The first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping for fuel? Methinks he's pretty modest
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Mars? Venus? Man, that's dangerous.
Rekall Inc offers a safe substitute. You will remember your trip and you will have your souvenirs but you will never leave Mother Earth.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Its the one click launch patent.
He'd gotten to Level Two, which requires a written test and successfully launching a carefully inspected large rocket. As I recall, it lets you use "J" and "K" motors. (For those who flew Estes motors as kids, this is the equivalent of 64 and 128 D motors.)
Level Three requires a really large and sturdy rocket, and lets you use monstrous M motors.
(I was certified in the early 90s before there were levels, but let it lapse during grad school; when I tried for level one last year I failed because my model's nose cone popped off due to internal pressure. Nothing damaged, but that was enough to scuttle the attempt.)
Now I'm picturing him filling out the paperwork for Cert Level 4: Manned Flight.
Stefan
* Tripoli Rocketry Association / National Association of Rocketry
reminds me of Hugo Drax from Moonraker...
You've also got a cascade effect. As soon as one company publicly announces themselves, a lot of the others are going to want to speak up so the first company doesn't hog the spotlight. This will be especially true if they are currently seeking investors or plan to start doing so in the near future.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
the clinton era-boom generation of newly-rich are going for the x-prize. the reagan-era deregulation sired rich (like the virgin-atlantic folks and forbes-types) went for balloon racing and round the world plane flights. and the era before that the merger moguls like ted turner were going for yacht racing.
its all alpha-male competition. this time however its the alpha-male-geeks which explains the sci-fi content.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Jeff wil now patent the Space Shuttle to lock out competition with his venture..
My bet is less than 12 months away for that patent
Don't Tread on OpenSource
did you ever read this story by Cyril Kornbluth? the smart people running Earth devised an ad campaign to convince all the idiots to board a rocket and move to Venus. in fact, the rockets blew up once in orbit. just seems very appropriate to this story, somehow...heh heh heh
The Space Access Society has its annual meeting this weekend; this is the first one since the X prize was announced to be fully funded last October, and the race has definitely been heating up.
:-) Space enterprise will be the next big growth area - and NASA won't have a whole lot to do with it. Think of the shuttle accident as just another piece of motivation these guys need - right now the US has no human spaceflight capability, until one of these companies succeeds, or the shuttle starts flying again. Which do you think will happen first?
This year is also the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers flight, and a lot of these companies see this year as a terribly symbolic time to actually make it all happen.
It's time
Energy: time to change the picture.
When I first saw the headline I missed the apostrophe: Jeff Bezos Shot At Space -- I dunno, it might be worth a shot!
This is so amazing how many rich entrepreneurs are getting into the space business. I love to hear them putting their money and energy towards a good cause: the future of mankind.
(spelling intentional). With the all the war stories going on I parsed that as shot in space and thought some guy mad at the one click patent did him in! The "space" bit was confusing though :-)
... Capitalist Pigs... in... SPAAAAACE!!!!!
[/MuppetShowAnnouncer]
:)
Could this just be a way from them to spend more than 7.5% of their Adjusted Gross Income on a hobby to get another tax deduction? Hmm...
... who said that Segway would revolutionize transportation. I'm more interested in what Carmack and the other leading X-Prize company (with the wacky looking ship / plane) can come up with.
Jeff patents space flight and files suit against NASA.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
If they start trying to tackle more ambitious goals, then the amount of capital required would probably require a bit more cooperation.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
There are lots of companies planning the future of space. Space Island Group plans to construct several space stations before the end of the decade. Space Adventures is going to offer flights into space for $98,000 a person. And I've seen several proposals to plan the mining of Helium-3 from the moon that could serve as a long term power source for earth. It's good to see the private sector getting involved here, we definitely need it to improve the cost and feasibility of long term projects. We just aren't going to get it from govt. funding that is capable of spending $600 for a toilet seat.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
It appears that Venus offers the most Earth-like environment in the entire solar system - not on the ground, but 50 km up in the clouds.
Take a look at Colonization of Venus by Geoffrey Landis.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
He could simply watch an episode of Red Dwarf. IIRC, private Lister, the janitor had the lowest rank on the ship (if you're not counting the lab-rats).
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
For a moment I read, "to launch terrorists in a reusable vehicle".
If members of Al Qaeda booked surely it wouldn't need to be reusable?
I thought this meant that Jeff Bezos was being shot (like out of a cannon) in the general direction of space...doh...
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
Or did anyone else start to rejoince after misreading this as "Jeff Bezos shot into space"?
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
Once a janitor, always a janitor!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Jeff Bezos' secret space-oriented company, called Blue Origin -- which aims to launch tourists in a reusable vehicle.
So the vehicle is reusable... what about the tourists?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It(TM)©® only(TM)©® takes(TM)©® one(TM)©® click(TM)©®(TM)!(TM) is© a(TM) registered® trademark(TM) used(TM) with Jeff©'s(TM) permission©. Unauthourized© reproduction(TM) is© expressly® prohibited(TM).
--
OpenBeos & Software
For a second there, I read your .sig as "OpenBezos & Software"...
[
Jeff Bezos has applied for a patent for space.
This isn't any ordinary darkness. It's advanced darkness.
right...
Frankly anything less then FTL propulsion is a joke. We should be spending money on real fringe research with high payoffs, not some stupid crap that will allow rich people to spend 15 minutes in space. Its not even real space its just high altitude.
We need technology that will allow us to colonize other places, obtain resources from asteroids and planetary bodies, and create gravity for our basic biological needs. People building spaceplanes and shuttles then calling that the future is as silly as those people who over 100 years ago tried to develop airplanes that flap their wings. Can you imagine a 747 flapping its wings!?
Scientists need to face up to the fact that current technology is pathetic when it comes to space travel. A new fundamentally more advanced and different system is needed.
Rockets and spaceplanes are fine for satellites getting launched, but real space travel and industry will not involve either.
He's going to try to patent the moon, and green cheese, isn't he?
My first read of the story title was "Jeff Bezos shot INTO space" -- now there's an idea I could get behind.
On the plus side, since most of these individuals are not "ego challenged" perhaps some of these projects will have the effect of thinning the super-rich "inventor" ranks.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Jeff Bezos shot INTO space.
And then I thought "'bout damn time!".
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
While I would never say such innovative effort is wasted, it would seem that launch technologies, while sexy, might really deserve somewhat lower priorities than the issue of what to do when we are in space. The fact is, we can launch people now, and relatively off-the-shelf technology (e.g. Ariane or Saturn V equivalent rockets) if manufactured in large quantities are probably Cheap-enough Access To Space for the next ten to twenty years (until nano-tech makes far better launch systems possible) especially if we are willing to accept 5% human casualties for launch (which is probably a far lower casualty rate than most human settlement travel activities historically).
There is also an issue of focus -- people focus on reusable vehicles, but the reality is that it is so costly to get things into space that there is not much point in returning either people or equipment after they have been launched. At best, Apollo era reentry capsules for people who want to come back to earth are good enough. For example, the space shuttle costs so much to launch relative to its production cost it should really be left in orbit as usable equipment (since anything in orbit is worth its weight in gold), and people returned in a small capsule if at all. Even if launch costs are greatly reduced, I think that a general outward trend of humanity will still reflect some of this economics (short of a space elevator). For example, in the USA, most people who went "West" during the 1800s probably never came back East.
So where is a key area of research that should be a priority among NASA and Billionaires, but is not heavily pursued? The issue is what to do in space once you have gotten there. Because if there is a reason to be in space, then people and collectives will work to get there. And the reality is, that right now, if we could get there, there is nothing to do there short of look around and come back. And if that were the case, Space would not deserve much more investment than say tourism to Mt. Everest. The reality is that we don't know how to support human life in space -- in large part because we have only spent a pittance on thinking about that issue systematically compared to the issues of CATS and Planetary Exploration. Frankly, while we support human life on earth, we have very little meta-knowledge formally about how to do even that. And, most of figuring out how to support human life in space at a nuts and bolts level requires non-sexy activities like sitting around and staring out the window, talking, sending emails, building databases, building software tools, building some small physical protypes on tabletops and outdoors, and just plain thinking (the hard stuff). This is all the preparation needed for the spiritual voyage into the (physical) heavens. Biosphere II was an excellent start in some ways, although the science mission was a bit dodgy at first and it seems Columbia (the recipient) seems about to abandon that effort for cost reasons --- and in any case, Biosphere II focuses on the wrong question -- we know biospheres can work and replicate (although scale is an issue) -- what we don't know is how to replicate the mechanical infrastructure (e.g. glass pane making machinery) behind them. A lot more money has gone into studying ecosystem food webs than industrial ecologies of pipe webs and assembly line webs (and frankly, a lot of people don't want their "proprietary" manufacturing processes studied or gossipped about by academics.)
Almost everything proposed as a reason to launch into space doesn't ma
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I see why we should bitch about *them*, because it was us that entered into a publishing agreement with them? Oh wait no I think Neal did that and we can continue bitching about him.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Uhh, no he didn't.
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