Senate Preparing $10 Billion Bailout Fund For Jeff Bezos Space Firm (theintercept.com) 136
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: Now that Jeff Bezos's space flight company Blue Origin has lost a multibillion contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX, Congress is prepping the ground for Bezos to win a contract anyway, ordering NASA to make not one but two awards. The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that's being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA -- money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that's headquartered in Cantwell's home state.
Cantwell's amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. "It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America," Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday. Cantwell's measure wouldn't rescind the grant to SpaceX but would create an additional contract that Bezos's company would be in line to win. A third company, Dynetics, had also bid for the moonshot, but the author of the new amendment offers a strong suggestion of which company it's likely to benefit. The measure has been attached to the Endless Frontier Act as part of a manager's amendment and authorizes $10.032 billion through the year 2026 for the moon program. Authorization alone does not fund the program, and Congress would still need to appropriate the money, or the executive would need to find other appropriated funds.
Cantwell's amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. "It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America," Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday. Cantwell's measure wouldn't rescind the grant to SpaceX but would create an additional contract that Bezos's company would be in line to win. A third company, Dynetics, had also bid for the moonshot, but the author of the new amendment offers a strong suggestion of which company it's likely to benefit. The measure has been attached to the Endless Frontier Act as part of a manager's amendment and authorizes $10.032 billion through the year 2026 for the moon program. Authorization alone does not fund the program, and Congress would still need to appropriate the money, or the executive would need to find other appropriated funds.
Meet the new boss, (Score:4, Insightful)
I love the smell of welfare for billionaires.
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:4, Interesting)
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As others have said - so far they only look like they are a tax minimization strategy for Bezos.
Anyone can *claim* to start an aerospace company, but to the best of my knowledge Blue Origin is yet to demonstrate anything real or useful.
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It would be best for the US if we had three competent contractors.
Yes it would be. But we don't. The bailout money would be better spent on a competent contractor, not as a reward for failure.
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:4)
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If only there was some sort of United Alliance that Launched stuff.
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The "Blue Origin Team" is ULA, minus Boeing, plus Northrop Grumman. Oh yeah, and that space hobby started by the Amazon guy.
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It has been been US policy for a long time to insure certain technology stays at home
Blue Origin has literally zero useful technology. They cannot get a payload to orbit. They can barely get into anything worthy of being called space. They are the one-legged man at the ass-kicking contest, and their one leg has a bad knee.
The only thing they appear to be good at is sucking pork.
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What new boss? The Senator putting this amendment forward has been in Congress for 20 years.
Just because you get a new CEO doesn't make your line manager any less of a turd.
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:4)
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:5, Insightful)
Blue Origin is just a giant hole in the ground into which Bezos throws his money.
Except it appears it will be our money, not his :(
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? Do you have any idea how many people Blue Origin employs? Bezos sells some of his Amazon stock every year to personally keep the company going. So save your righteous indignation; we're lucky that he has the foresight and courage to divert some of his wealth to space exploration. He could just let it pile up in a bank account somewhere, or buy an island or something.
According to Wikipedia, Blue Origin employs 3,500 -- and SpaceX employs 9,500. What's your point? Musk should be personally investing twice as much each year or Bezos and his company are half as capable? Or were you just trying out some sarcasm? Maybe BO would do better if it weren't privately funded.
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What's your point? Musk should be personally investing twice as much each year or Bezos and his company are half as capable?
I wish Blue Origin were half as capable as SpaceX.
Re: Meet the new boss, (Score:2)
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You know you're really setting an AWFULLY low bar there...
SpaceX is kicking ass and taking names right now. Half as successful as that would still be pretty successful.
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SpaceX is a solution for the militantly suicidal.
Their tech is corner cutting at its finest.
An all or nothing rocketry solution where single points of failure mean failure and death.
I can only assume you're referring to Starship's lack of abort capability at liftoff. That's pretty far down the road at this point. Dragon has full abort capabilities.
Some would say that 'corner cutting at its finest' is a good description of throwing an entire rocket away on every launch rather than engineering for reuse.
Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Wikipedia, Blue Origin employs 3,500
Which means that, instead of giving the Company $10 billion, they could just give each employee $2.8 million instead. It really puts it into perspective when you consider the scale. That's not enough to quite match their lifetime earnings on average, but it's pretty close. With some decent investment and maybe a little contract here and there it would probably be enough for a lot of them to retire or semi-retire.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for space tech, and I am happy to see multiple companies developing reusable rockets, etc. Blue Origin just is not there yet, however. Right now SpaceX seem to be ones trailblazing and getting things done. Blue Origin just does not seem to be ready for this kind of contract. These numbers just kind of put this whole thing into perspective.
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Which means that, instead of giving the Company $10 billion, they could just give each employee $2.8 million instead. It really puts it into perspective when you consider the scale.
But it takes a bit more than just stacking the employees one on top of the other to reach space. Some of that money will presumably go towards rockets and stuff.
$10 billion worth of homeless people though. I wonder how tall a human pyramid you could make?
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The point was not about stacking employees to reach space. You can't stack people anywhere near that high before the bottom ones get all runny anyway. The thread started with someone calling this "welfare for billionaires" and then someone replied back about how many jobs Blue Origin creates. When government is handing out virtual cargo containers full of money to industry because they "create jobs" it's worth looking at how much money it is per employee. It never really seems to work out. This just helps s
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Equally. It's not really about creating jobs. But getting the results that the government is paying for. Getting things into space. Developing some new technology or whatever.
Clearly you can't stack people like that. It only works for turtles. [amazon.com]
People that just compare the dollars to the number of jobs are missing the point. And not understanding that those jobs can create other jobs or just cool useful things. Do the contracts / awards / legislation even mention creating jobs as a key goal anyway?
You coul
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The money goes back into the economy regardless of who gets it. Individuals have their own subcontractors, suppliers, etc. Generally the argument that a billionaire should get corporate welfare because they employ people makes little sense. Actual value for the money is the only thing that makes sense.
Consider trying to save the coal industry. It's a pointless endeavor. The writing is on the wall for that industry, they're slowly going to decline no matter what. So, barring some paradigm shift that makes co
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If you're going to count current employees, as questionable as that is, at least do it honestly.
Blue Origin: 3500
Lockheed Martin: 110,000
Northrop Grumman: 90,000
Draper: 1700.
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If you're going to count current employees, as questionable as that is, at least do it honestly
Sorry, where was I being dishonest? I was just using the numbers that were given on this thread.
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Re:Meet the new boss, (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Meet the new boss, (Score:3)
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Oh, the old "your only spending that dollar to save 15 cents somewhere else" argument. Good on you.
Re: Meet the new boss, (Score:2)
Maybe Bezos should sell more of his stock to fund the company then. It shouldn't be up to taxpayers to fund it when it's owned by the world's wealthiest person.
I'm sure we all wish we could ask Congress for billions in bailout money, but they only give us peons a few thousand, and only after the economy crashes from a pandemic.
Re: Meet the new boss, (Score:5, Informative)
"We must redouble our efforts here in Huntsville and throughout this program ... We must accelerate the SLS program to meet this objective. But know this: The president has directed NASA and Administrator Jim Bridenstine to accomplish this goal by any means necessary."
-- Vice President Mike Pence
Trump did exactly this This is not one where Democrats can one up Republicans or vice versa. Congresspersons from both major parties are guilty of using NASA to try to bring pork to their districts and favored contractors and if their party has a President n the White House, they tend to back them up.
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The only reason the Republicans are fighting it is because the Democrats are for it.
For the last 12+ years all that the Republican party has been willing to do is oppose anything the Democrats propose. Even if the Democrats are proposing Republican ideas.
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It will be someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome
Bezos didn't buy a newspaper because of his love of print media
https://fixrelationshipnow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/If-only-you-knew-how-bad-things-really-are-a.jpg [fixrelationshipnow.net]
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Some Consolation Prize (Score:5, Insightful)
But more than that
SpaceX have a proven track record How many ISS re-supply missions have they completed? Aren’t they currently the only US contractor certified for crewed flights to the ISS? And Blue Origin hasn’t even put anything in orbit
Yes, yes, I see it now. This makes perfect sense. Snort.
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The contract that SpaceX won - for the lunar missions - was for $2.9 billion. Are they seriously saying that Blue Origin is going to get a significant slice of $10 billion after missing out on the main bid?
That appears to be how things would have played out if NASA had received the $10 billion for HLS it originally requested. They weren't going to buy more of one provider or give the rest of the money back to the tax payers. It just so happened that the other two options cost more for less capability.
Re:Some Consolation Prize (Score:4, Insightful)
Blue origin took a defense contractor measure last year or the year before, i don't recall exactly when, and invested in significant numbers of jobs in traditional NASA locations (Alabama, Houston, etc) to try to get congressional support behind some pork.
It appears to have worked as the congress-critters are trying to force DOD and NASA to give them money.
Nothing like a little red state welfare for billionaires.
Diet Coke and Mentos! (Score:5, Informative)
Hey here's a cool thing. Have you ever wondered what those letters mean that they always write after a Congresscritter's name? Like the fine summary says "Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash" is trying to give $10 billion of your money to Bezos. That D-Wash means "Democrat from Washington". Cool, huh!
So about that "Nothing like a little red state welfare for billionaires." :)
Washington is not a red state, and she's a Democrat.
On a different topic, if you haven't heard, check out what happens when you put Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke!
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Not Coke! That's a red-republican drink from Georgia. He needs to use a good democrat soda like Dr. Pepper.
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Your point stands in this instance. HOWEVER, the point of the old space-age method of spreading jobs and money across is so that many politicians get behind the graft, not just this one D-Wash.
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Preserving a market for space costs $$ (Score:5, Interesting)
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The natural endstate of the market for space launch is a monopoly, at least at this stage. This is a constant trap for defense and space contracting, if they only select the single best proposal, within a few years they have about 1 provider and no good proposals to choose from.
True, when there's only one customer that customer needs to make sure they don't have only one vendor.
Still, it doesn't smell quite right basically handing a specific vendor a contract at the legislative level though I'm not sure what the proper approach is.
Say No to Blue Origin (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe I agree with Bernie Sanders. Blue Origin has done very little to impress me and yet the Feds want to pay them? It's no wonder why we are Trillions in debt.
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Wars and artificially low taxes (specifically for the super rich), that's why we're in dept.
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nice b8 m8
Re:Say No to Blue Origin (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet this is just the tip of the iceberg. 4 billion per week, every week, in Afghanistan. You don't hear anyone asking "How are we gonna pay for that?" do you? Sanders has a long, long list of shit like this. Meanwhile we have homeless shitting in the streets. In the wealthiest nation the world has ever known. And *that* is why Sanders message has been so consistent since Day One that he was first elected.
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The homeless shitting in the street should be a fed problem? From what I have heard (and please correct me if I am wrong) the biggest homeless problem areas in the US are in nice wealthy liberal States. Why not take care of it locally?
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It's no wonder why we are Trillions in debt.
This is not why you're trillions in debt.
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I can't believe I agree with Bernie Sanders.
I don't agree with most of his proposals. However, there is a sincerity about him that I don't get with most politicians. He seems to legitimately care about every American in the most radically left wing way possible.
Endless Frontier? (Score:2)
Given the track record of most of the manned space projects over the past four decades, it would be better to rename this bill "Endless Boondoggle".
Let's See... (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX has put hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites in orbit, delivered tons of cargo to the ISS, and launched three crewed missions to the ISS.
Remind me now--exactly what has Blue Origin done?
Re:Let's See... (Score:5, Informative)
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SpaceX has 1400+ starlink Satellites in orbit and will exceed 1500 with the, iirc, May 25th launch. It's an astonishing feat.
This doesn't include any of the commercial or government launched satellites which probably adds another double digit.
Corporate welfare (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm.. (Score:2)
First sue Amazon [slashdot.org], then bail out his other company. #yourTaxDollarsAtWaste
Even when the flithy rich lose (Score:5, Insightful)
The filthy rich never lose (Score:2, Flamebait)
The bet on both horses, they OWN both horses, and they do not lose.
But please trust us billionaires... (Score:2)
Sounds like corruption to me (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, the thing that ruins absolutely everything in the long run.
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It's the kind of corruption that's so commonplace people involved don't see it as corruption. Look at the most corrupt societies on Earth, and people doing the corruption don't feel corrupt because everyone around them is doing it. It's only from the outside that the corruption is apparent, because from the outside it is shocking.
"A third company, Dynetics" (Score:5, Funny)
Is the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard [wikipedia.org] running that one?
Taking a page ... (Score:2)
I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
So I *might* have been able to understand why they would have done this if Blue Origin was one of only two companies doing orbital/deep space launches, as we do the same kind of thing for Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and Electric Boat in Connecticut in the interest of national security - maintaining two facilities that can produce nuclear-powered submarines makes sense, although it costs a lot. However, as others have mentioned, Blue Origin doesn't really bring much to the table (other than some engine designs with ULA and giving us all a laugh with their penis-shaped vehicles), and the U.S.'s launch scheduling is adequately met by ULA and SpaceX. There's no articulable need at all for public support of Blue Origin, much less $10B worth.
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Blue Origin is part of the team. The other members are Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper.
Make more sense now? Blue Origin is like the little kid the big boys have a picture with on their Tinder profile so women think they're nice guys.
SpaceX and "welfare" (Score:2)
Yes, SpaceX benefited from government contracts, but:
- They always have strived to be revenue positive, and fund their own research (hence Starlink funding potential private Mars missions, etc)
- They have actually *reduced* costs for NASA. NASA used to pay much more to send astronauts to ISS buying seat from Roscosmos, compared to Dragon capsules. And they can ferry more people too.
Yes, they were lucky, and were at the right place at the right time. And, yes we should not depend on a single entity for all f
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But SpaceX has taken hundreds of millions in government R&D money. This is easily verifiable.
The GP did not say that they hadn't, just that the government got value for its money.
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Dynetics FTW (Score:2)
When billionaires shed tears (Score:2)
Messed up Capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what is messed up with American society...
a $10 BILLION bailout for Jeff Bezos - The worlds RICHEST man.
Based on his net worth, he earns about $13.4 million dollars per HOUR. - that is, Jeff would need to work 746 hours to make that $10 billion dollars.
That is 93 days...
Jeff will make back that $10 BILLION dollars by time summer is over.
Instead, they should take that $10 Billion and invest it, in health care - or food sustainability - or the environment
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How about he just does 24x7 and get it over with quicker?
space activity (Score:2)
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Having a backup is fine, but there's no particular reason it needs to be Blue Origin. Let's not forget that NASA is still being used to funnel money to the traditional contractors as well.
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Robotic science missions are a different matter. The traditional space flight people seem to have landed on that as their specialty, and they do it well
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Sure, I was just pointing out to the GGP post that Blue Origin is not in any way the default choice to avoid putting all our eggs in one basket. If we really must funnel a bunch of money into companies and projects that don't deliver, Boeing, Lockheed, ATK and Rocketdyne are already really great at that. They've been building the SLS for a decade and there's still only a "reasonable chance" that they will launch this year. Meanwhile, the odds of SpaceX actually getting Starship to orbit sometime this year h
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While SpaceX looks to be on top, maybe we shouldnt put ALL our eggs in that basket
Maybe there could be some sort of United Alliance that Launches things...
yet another hyperbole? (Score:2)
Don't we have enough hyperbolas in the media?
One may not like Bezos, one may disagree with the government, but it's not a "bailout" - I think we all can agree on this.
Some time ago NASA opened for offers to provide a human rated Moon lander for the Artemis. There were 3 candidates, originally they intended to select 2, but due to budged constraints they selected only one - SpaceX, no doubt the best offer (the most advanced, the most capable, the least expensive). Both remaining bidders filed complaints - I
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Don't we have enough hyperbolas in the media?
Hyperboles or hyperbolas? The difference matters.
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Right, thanks for pointing out.
Redundancy (Score:2)
I get the need to make sure there are more than one launch provider for important NASA or DoD missions. Monopolies rarely works out for the customer over time.
But this is for the moon lander. We only need more than one provider if there is going to be a long term permanent presence on the moon. It seems a bit premature to plan for that now.
Student loan relief (Score:2)
Does this mean I can get money too?
So much for capitalism (Score:2)
A taxpayer funded flying dildo. Corporate welfare at it's finest.
Maybe there is some infrastructure, like bridges, that could be fixed with that tax revenue?
Seriously? (Score:3)
I propose a deal (Score:2)
Bezos gets his bailout if Amazon agrees to accept any self-publish book that would be admissible under the ‘public square’ standard for political speech as defined by SCOTUS First Amendment decisions.
Don't be so gullible, people (Score:3)
Bezos is only aiming for the moon and he has long had more money than Musk, who is aiming at Mars. Bezos needs no bailout for his rocketry hobby, but some other people absolutely DO, and THEY have PR firms and lobbyists paid to get them a bailout and get YOU not to notice.
Bezos is just the camouflage; Blue Origin is the magician's right hand, upon which you are meant to fix your gaze while his left hand deceives you.
Blue Origin was a high profile member of "The National Team", but critical other members were Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin - two companies that have largely abandoned the free market and its consumers, becoming addicted to defense industry "cost-plus" contracts where failure is rewarded. "The National Team" submitted the bloated bid for a grossly minimal lander solution not much better than the Apollo hardware of the '60s, and they did it under the name "The National Team" rather than something more honest like "Two of the Three Biggest Defense Contractors Plus that Hyper-Successful Book Salesman". Companies that get cost-plus contracts from the pentagon become fat, dumb, and lazy thanks to the contracts that guarantee a certain percentage profit over program costs; with such contracts every failure and every delay that drives up the cost of a contract also drives up the profits of the company since the profit is guaranteed to be based on the total cost of the program. These companies get very used to under-delivering while being over-compensated, and they do not tolerate losing a contract competition as long as they have members of congress on the payroll.... err... as long as they are contributing to campaigns for members of congress.
Keep thinking this is about Bezos if you want to...while you're at it, keep dreaming that Bezos is aiming at the moon because he craves cheese. Such thinking just does not make this stuff so.
Eggs in the basket (Score:2)
Usually not a great idea to put all your eggs in one basket. In this case, it appears that Congress wants to put its one egg into two baskets.
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"I know, I'll accuse them of what WE do... I mean they have to be just like us, right?"
Re: Endless Frontiers Act (Score:2)
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But if you honestly think the Democrats don't engage in pork barrel politics then do us all a favor and don't ever vote.
You really shoulda let that thought roll around in your head a few more times.
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Always the same from republicans. they throw the taxpayers under the 1%'s feet , give them generous tax breaks for which the rest of us pay through the nose , cut services like welfare and education then turn around and blame democrats for fixing the mess they done. .. it's natural for them .. they will never take responsibility for their actions.
dont worry
Re: Endless Frontiers Act (Score:2)
It is sad that US politics is about choosing the least evil out of two. Here we at least have between 10 and 15 parties to choose from giving us a choice a little further up from the bottom. But both your parties seems below the bottom....
Re: Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
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A bum on the street would probably run the company better than Bezos does.
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It's not that the poorest guy in America would be allowed to own a spacefaring company, but giving 10 billion dollars to a company with no trackrecord of actually launching anything into space, owned by the wealthiest person in the US who is very much capable of financing his own endeavor without the need for a 10 billion dollar grant, is ofcourse ridiculous. Once they have a proven track record I would agree on them getting projects allocated to them with funding from NASA, but before that he first has to
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I think this makes perfect sense.
We should grant them a $10b contract as soon as they send little Jeffrey around the Earth twice, then bring him back safe.
It proves they're reliable and competent. And it's a simple task they've been working on for years.