SultanOfSwing

Yeah I looked it up, it was the whole ex landfill thing that made me think of the Simpsons.

Shard

Nice little video. Short. And the guy got some excellent views of Saturn from his home telescope.

RICH

There is a launch tomorrow. I thought of a sound track in the ironic genre,

Lion in Winter

I don't really care about Millionaires in Space, but I'm glad Wally Funk got to go, finally.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57849364


I hope as a species are we are nicer to other planets than we have been to our own.

SpoogleDrummer

Personally I don't understand how everyone is worried about the environment yet people seem fine with these rich pricks blasting rockets into space all the time for no real purpose other than to say they've been to space.

Shard

Bezos is a very annoying guy, but glad they had a successful launch and looking forward to the time when I can book a seat ! I'm wondering if the (brief) weightlessness is from being in weak gravity or more to do with the physics of rising and falling (as in an elevator)? Where be the science experts that used to frequent this threat?

Lion in Winter

We are supposed to worship our millionaires.

Maybe Amazon workers will be allowed a bathroom break now.

chawkins99

The weightlessness is due to them being in free-fall. Even though they are going up before coming down. They are under the same forces inside the capsule as the capsule is.

Strictly speaking any object in orbit is also in free-fall. They are just moving fast enough, horizontally, that they 'miss' the earth... Continually...

Shard

Thanks Captain Chawkins. So is it essential like the simulated weightless they do on the military jets when they are training astronauts for space? How many km out to get true zero gravity?

chawkins99

Yes. The jets fly an arc that simulates the effect.
There is no such thing as truly zero gravity. Gravity reduces exponentially the further out you get but never becomes zero. Even Pluto is under the gravitational influence of the sun.

Shard

I just wonder if they couldn't have gone a bit higher, say 150 or 200 km, it would be more fuel but more viewing time. 4 minutes seems incredibly short.

RICH

To be fair Bezos did donate $100million to a worthy cause today. I think some billionaires realize they can /must do some good for the world. After all you can have too much money.

caretaker

Yes. Everything in moderation, I always say.

steveq

The Lagrange points.

Your move.

Shard

Rumours spreadin' around / In that Texas town / About that shack outside La Grange

(haw haw haw ZZ Top)