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In reply to the discussion: Currently, the United States has no vehicle capable of taking people [View all]paulkienitz
(1,296 posts)What Bezos should do is stick a second stage onto the New Shepard, one big enough to lift like half a ton to orbit. And he's admitted that this idea has been considered, but he's apparently got no time or attention to spare for actually doing it. So even though it's not a big job, it would probably still take years to get together. He might have a secret side project we don't know about, but he was pretty open about saying "Yeah, maybe that's worth thinking about someday in the indefinite future". Anyway, his whole engineering approach is "slow is fast", meaning that you take gradual careful steps to always stay on solid ground, while Musk's style is agility. Normally, being overly agile in a high-risk business is a recipe for doing a face-plant right when you're about to have your big moment, but Musk has made it work. For Bezos to suddenly go after small launches with a modified Shepard would be way too agile, and out of character.
Also, fuck Jeff Bezos with a pair of roller skates. The best outcome of a shiny success for Blue Origin would be if people start paying a lot more attention to Amazon working conditions and either boycott his ass or force him to improve his pay and working conditions. This would of course undermine BO's source of capital.