Jeff Bezos will be aboard the first crewed flight of his sub-orbital rocket this morning. Liftoff is set for 9 am Eastern and you can watch it HERE

Love the title..

Perfectly described, Rocky!

Looks like a giant dik.

He must have more confidence in that than I...

I guess I don't remember enough of my college physics. The rockets used by NASA were always pointy on top for reduced air resistance. Doesn't this thing have a lot of unneeded drag? But then, I'm not an engineer, either.

Laughable, is it not? Bezos is so jealous and so petty about Elon Musk's successes that he uses Rivian electric vehicles instead of Teslas.

On the other hand....
In the past, much of the scientific discovery was done by private funding. Men like Tesla and Edison didn't have government funding. They raised their own funding and did their work in hopes of making a profit. The first real government funded efforts that I know of was the Corps of Discovery. They were followed closely by private exploration of the west for profit. Somewhere along the line, government grants were invented and colleges were in the science business. The space race was almost all government, largely to stay ahead of the Russians after WWII. Then space exploration got so expensive that even the government had to back off and billionaires stepped in to take up the slack.
While I can't stand Bezos, I can say more power to him and Musk. They're putting their money where the government can't and hopefully something good will come out of it.
They do need to be kept under control, though. Look at Bill Gates and his totally insane idea of shading the earth from the sun. What would happen if it actually worked? It could throw us into an unprecedented ice age. Some years ago, a similar idea was floated. Someone wanted NASA to put billions of pieces of reflective chaff between the earth and the sun to block some sunlight. There was no proposal that I ever heard on how to remove it if it worked too well.

Flight successful...........thanks for the link Rock!

Not a handsome craft but a pretty perfect first flight.

This may be "space battle of the billionaires" but to see all the young smart folks in mission control bodes nothing but good news for the future.

If Bezos is so worried about carbon and the planet he should have flown in a solar rocket.

Schitt, makes me want to buy something from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Unintended-C...nsequences&qid=1626788283&sr=8-1

More like:

https://www.amazon.com/Luna-Recharg...VQWRXS/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=[bleep]&qid=1626788393&sr=8-5

I forget the cost, but only 10 minutes?

High priced!

Glad to see a successful flight.
Thanks for the updates Rocky.

Wasn't this one of the guys flying in to a meeting recently decrying the average persons carbon footprint?
Did ol algore slip him a few million carbon credits to cover the carbon cost of this stunt ego flight.

There were certainly "carbon costs" involved in making the rocket, but the rocket itself is steam-powered.

No kidding. It burns oxygen and hydrogen, and the exhaust is 6000-degree steam.

How much weight do the gas tanks add to the total? An H tank needs to be seriously strong and heavy.

Interesting, tks for the link.

I’m glad the 82yo woman finally got to see space, and a clever ploy to bring the 18yo, oldest and youngest astronauts respectively.

Yep. Sir Richard spoke of the 800 engineers and designers working his project.

The media is all fawning over how Bezos “earned his wings”. He did not earn it he bought it.

Clever ploy to sell the kid’s seat for $3/4 million!

One of those car wrapping companies could do it up like the Ace & Gary mobile.