Slashdot Mirror
Bezos Expeditions Recovers Pieces of Apollo 11 Rockets
skade88 writes "Jeff Bezos has been spending his time fishing up parts of the Apollo 11 rockets. From his blog 'What an incredible adventure. We are right now onboard the Seabed Worker headed back to Cape Canaveral after finishing three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. We found so much. We've seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program. We photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces. Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible.'"
Nothing here says there were from Apollo 11! Included in the post is the statement:
It's a shame that there is so much space-age trash in the ocean. I can just imagine how each piece has destroyed some part of the reef. Although it would be interesting to see a reef that grew around a rocket. We should make an effort to remove much of that junk.
Now if he adds, "Oh, btw! While looking for these rockets, I'm banging a super model and a porn star at the same time in my disposable Ferraris!", I'm going to go and kill myself.
Did he find any of them? Wasn't that what he was supposed to be looking for?
I'm not a rocket scientist, but what is the large turbine for?
See this pic:
http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/img/gallery/image_6_lg.jpg
I know they used turbo pumps to pressure feed the fuel, but... that looks more like a jet engine part, to me.
He's turning into some super villain. Wait, he was already one. nvm...
Sigh... back to work for me.
NASA claims that the US government still owns these artifacts. I think they're mistaken. The artifacts are not salvage, but rather abandoned property. NASA intentionally allowed them to be abandoned more than 40 years ago with no stated or demonstrable intention of ever recovering them. Since they were outside the territory of any US state, I don't think they are subject to any form of escheat. I think Bezos has clear title and ownership. If there's some US law providing to the contrary, I'd be interested in seeing the legal citation.
If Bezos wants to give them to NASA out of his own generosity, that's great, but I don't think he's under any actual legal obligation to do so.
I don't mind a successful person. I just wish they didn't flaunt it about so often.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What a dumb remark!
Well the second one happens with or without the first one :)
Normal people worry me!
or patent trivial actions
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Or, perhaps That everyone is entitled to vacations or Have fun with your hobbies, no matter how weird You know, positives.
If you think this makes him an incompetent CEO, then you should do something about it. You should immediately divest yourself of Amazon stock, because he is obviously taking the company in the direction of ruin. I'll be happy to buy up all your stock at half the current market price, which would be a bargain for you since you obviously believe this action will drive it straight to zero.
Oh, you don't believe that? Then shut the fuck up.
John
Jeff: People with your itinerary also have purchased:
Order by Thursday 5 PM for Free Baggage Checkin!
I'd rather members of the 1% sought to eradicate world hunger, disease, and poverty... Oh wait, Bill & Melinda Gates, along with Warren Buffet are quite involved in that pursuit. Sure there should be more CEOs, hedge-fund managers, etc doing likewise.. but this is a free country right?
So beyond that, I'm pleased that Jeff Bezos is recovering and preserving important artifacts from history, rather than some other uber-wealthy individuals in recent memory.
Javascript, cookies, flash, and ActiveX must be enabled in order to view this sig.
Well, since this expedition started, the company went from making money to losing money. Maybe he should sell it. Even at half price Amazon is one of the most overvalued stocks on the market.
I most especially don't mind a successful person who earned his money providing a service that has made my life a little bit more enjoyable.
And then when he spends his winnings doing something that I'd do if I had that sort of money it's even better.
What's the duty of your job? Does it include making dumb comments on Slashdot, or is that just something you do in your spare time?
F1 Rocket Engines
Just like the ones used in the Saturn-5 rocket.
0 available new
3 available used.
Premium members get free overnight shipping!
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
If Bezos isn't spending money on fishing expeditions, he's spending it on saturating Seattle with robocalls for his rich people's private schools project. My last order at Amazon was my last order.
Everyone is indeed, entitled to vacation or hobby of one's choice
That is, as long as the vacation and/or hobby does not take away the time, the needed attention and the effort of a CEO in steering the company to new heights
As a CEO myself I know my priority and arrange my daily life accordingly
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I don't know squat about your "investments" but I bow to your 4 digit slashdot ID.
. waterwingz
Then he can REALLY be a super villain. (The Thresher, I believe, was armed with some nuclear weapons when it sank).
Conversely he coud also try for the nuclear sub the Glomar Challenger (Howard Hughes) tried to raise. I believe they only got the crew compartment, the missiles and (nuclear tipped?)* torpedoes are still there.
Anyone know of any other nukes sitting on the sea floor in international water just waiting to be picked up? (Did they get all four of the H-bombs from the B-52 near Spain?). Of course they are probably damaged, highly corroded. Another possibility would be the RTGs from the Apollo 13 lunar module which went down in a trench in the pacific, even though the Pu is the wrong isotope for a nuke, it would be useful for a dirty bomb.
Hope Al-Qaeda doesn't get a deep sea submersible!
*actually I don't know if there is such a thing as a nuclear tipped submarine launched torpedo. It seems that it would all too likely destroy the submarine that launched it!
Hugely overvalued from what I'm seeing.
Amazon: Makes products that almost nobody wants to buy, sells mostly stuff that other people make, is a middleman that would collapse tomorrow if Google ever decided to get serious about having a products marketplace, is at least lately losing money or barely breaking even, has over $3B in long-term debt, and misses earnings. Current P/E: 714.
Apple: Makes products that almost everybody wants to buy, sells mostly stuff that they designed, is a middleman mainly for software (and cannot be easily replaced in that capacity, at least in iOS, without replacing the hardware), made $13.1 billion in profit last quarter, has $137B in cash and liquid assets (with no debt), and usually makes or beats all but the most absurd estimates. Current P/E: 10.25
In no universe does this make sense except perhaps in one where the stock price is the multiplicative inverse of earnings. To give folks an idea of how jaw-droppingly bizarre this is, you need to factor in the cash/debt position of both companies. If you subtract Apple's cash per share from their stock price, and you get about $410, which is about 33.33 times their earnings last quarter. If you take Amazon's last-quarter EPS of 9 cents and multiply by 33.33, you get $3 per share. If you then subtract their debt per share ($3B / 454.55M shares outstanding comes to about $6.59), then by that same standard, Amazon's share value would be worth a whopping negative $3.59 per share....
Note that I'm not actually saying Amazon stock is worthless—I'd consider it to be worth about $30-50 per share, using last year's annual EPS and a sane 30x multiplier—but that still makes it overpriced by a factor of 8 even if you ignore this bad quarter. And that's assuming that Amazon straightens up their act and starts being profitable again in a quarter or two. If last quarter's trend continues for two or three more quarters, I'd expect Amazon's stock to be delisted for falling below a buck by this time next year, and if that doesn't happen, it means investors are asleep at the switch.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You know, it's only a matter of time before we outsource the 1%. Somewhere in India, or Ukraine, or Thailand, there's a smart person who's not only capable of doing Bezos' job, but would be happy to do it for a measly 2-3 million a year.
The F1s were only used on the Apollo missions, and they were truly awesome -- they shook the ground like nothing you've ever experienced. My dad worked for NASA and we saw the flights. Even three miles away, it was scary powerful. To give you an idea, one of those F-1 has more power than 3(!) Shuttle MAIN engines -- and there were FIVE F-1s at the bottom of Saturn's first stage. So that's like fifteen shuttles taking off at once. You have no idea what that's like...
Yes, we can modernise the systems, but should only do so where necessary, such as computers, cameras, lighting (LED vs. 24V bulbs), certain flight instruments, food, etc. Leave everything else alone: the original design was good enough to recover from XIII.
Do this first and then we can talk seriously about useful manned missions further out. And it would only cost a few billion.
There are different ways to get the results. Your style evidently involves taking a hands on approach and being there the whole time. If that's what works for you great.
Bezos style differs. It looks as though he operates strategically and allows his reports to do the day to day management. I daresay that they can contact him when necessary and that he's able provide the leadership necessary remotely.
Is one style better than the other? I would say that depends on the capabilities of the team around the CEO and the comfort that CEO has in letting go a little.
Me, I'd delegate and respond better to someone that felt that they could delegate responsibility than to someone that felt they always hand to be there keeping an eye on things.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
This is what we're reduced to? Picking over the pieces of a space program from 40+ years ago? Sad!
What's the duty of a CEO ?
Is it to make the company better, or to fish out rockets from deep sea ?
What kind of message a CEO wants to send to his/her colleagues in the company ?
That I am here working with you to make our company better ...
or
That I am the CEO and a I can do whatever FUCK I want to and you can't do nothing about it
You are aware that the company in question is likely Blue Origin, right? And that they are about to get a pretty big bump in engine technology if this pans out: engines which can boost a rocket to the moon.
That puts them ahead of SpaceX and all the other companies, if they learn anything useful from the engines about engine design.
I think it even more depends on who you have working under you, and what kind of talent you have access to. As a small business owner, it's not so easy getting good people that you know can get the job done without constant overview. Ideally, you want to hire good people you can trust to get their jobs done, but sometimes, especially since I'm in a rural area, they are really hard to find. With really large businesses, you have much better access to better talent.
A clear part of their duty is leadership, which requires communication and inspiration. Love him or hate him, you have to acknowledge that "Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible" is a very nice bit of communication.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
This is ancestral worship cargo-cultism of the highest order.
Bezos might as well be building a mockup of the command module from palm fronds on the lawn in front of congress.
Elon Musk has a much better name for a megalomaniacal billionaire super-villain anyhow.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I wish one of these clowns would spend their money bringing Hubble home. It's done so much - it would be awesome to have it at the air and space museum. OR at least buy Captain Marvel from DC and give it to Marvel Comics. /s
Or maybe "I'm a really rich mutha and can do whatever the f I want with my time and money, because I already hired good people to run the company and make my life simple."
God you're an idiot.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Now that's just silly. Those things aren't exactly secret designs, you know, and the engineers who worked on that project haven't all died out. Do you seriously think that SpaceX doesn't have a bunch of folks with relevant experience -- folks who have worked for NASA and/or the subcontractors? Never mind that there's a bunch of unflown F1 engines that you can just go and look at. Oh, and never forget that the Russians have flow engines with slighly more punch on Energia, and engines with that heritage are used in the current Zenit and Atlas V (!!). Yes, Atlas V uses half-sized versions of RD-171.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
You're welcome to start a company even a fraction as successful as Amazon and run things the way you see fit.
Interesting story on documentation:
I have an uncle who works for NASA who said that his team was having difficulty solving a particular problem on the newer rockets. There had been so much experimental knowledge lost and not enough records kept that they had to reinvent the wheel, but they ultimately went to look at the rockets on display at the museum to see how the previous generation of engineers had solved the issue and take that information back to the lab to implement. Funny to think that such a monumental undertaking with so many lessons learned could atrophy in such a short span, but there's value in keeping the old stuff around.
I don't know anything about stocks but you are way off on Amazon products. AWS is incredibly popular and their Instant Video service is starting to look something like Netflix. I'm just saying that you have a view of them as only a hardware pusher. Not only that but it would take google years to build out all the infrastructure that amazon has. I don't think tomorrow is even close to realistic. Have you even seen their warehouses?
Ah, but you're assuming that there's an advantage to being the actual seller/distributor. Except for books and movies, most of what Amazon sells, it sells by being a marketplace for other sellers. A bit of it is fulfilled by Amazon, but that's the exception rather than the rule as far as I can tell. If Google wanted to become a similar marketplace for other sellers, all they'd have to do is come up with a good, robust API for pushing content changes instead of doing content scraping, make their services available to any company who wants to do business in exchange for making Google's ads available on their site, and tie all of the technologies that they have already built together (including their payment system), and in a matter of months at most, they could have a marketplace that rivals Amazon's in everything except for the stuff that Amazon sells themselves.
If Google did that, it would seriously hurt Amazon because it would be cheaper for the companies involved, so they would very quickly end up having broader offerings than Amazon. And chances are, Barnes & Noble would join such a Google marketplace, teaming up against Amazon, so they'd probably get all the book and movie distribution taken care of without ever having to open a single warehouse.
You see, what Amazon sells—what makes them unique—is that they are a single storefront where you can get almost everything. And they're the only such storefront other than perhaps (Fl)e(a)Bay. If they had competition in that space, it would be a game changer. It might not bankrupt Amazon, but it would put a serious dent in their business.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.