Morning Tidings

Tag: Jeff bezos

  • jeff bezos: After one ‘small’ step in space, Jeff Bezos wants to take a giant leap for nature – morningtidings

    jeff bezos: After one ‘small’ step in space, Jeff Bezos wants to take a giant leap for nature – morningtidings

    Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos is taking nature more seriously after his short sojourn to space on a Blue Origin rocket. The tech mogul has pledged $1 billion yearly in grants to scientists, activists and other environment-related groups through the Bezos Earth Fund, with the money going in conservation efforts for the planet, as per a report by CNBC. The grants will continue till 2030, with the goal of giving away $10 billion. The list of organisations that will get the grant has not been finalised yet. But as per the Bezos Earth Fund, conservation of the local communities and indigenous people will be the main priority as of now.
    “Nature is our life support system and it’s fragile. I was reminded of this just this July when I went into space with Blue Origin. I’d heard that seeing the Earth from space changes one’s point of view of the world, but I was not prepared for just how much that would be true,” Bezos said at an event in New York City.
    First, the focus of the grant will be the conservation and restoration of Central Africa’s Congo Basin, the tropical Andes region and the tropical Pacific Ocean, counted among the biodiversity hotspots and carbon stocks on Earth.
    Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket carried Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, 18-years old Oliver Daemen and 82-years old Wally Funk to space on July 20. With this successful trip, Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk made up the youngest and the oldest person to fly to space ever and that too in the same flight.

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com

  • Elon Musk again makes ‘fun’ of Jeff Bezos, here’s why – morningtidings

    Elon Musk again makes ‘fun’ of Jeff Bezos, here’s why – morningtidings

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk doesn’t seem to have the best of the equations with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Two of the world’s richest men compete with their space exploration ventures with their companies SpaceX and Blue Origin. Musk has in the past taken several potshots at Bezos and has once again done it. In a reply to a tweet about hydrogen cars, Musk said that, “no amount of money can defy physics.” However, the Tesla CEO didn’t stop there and in another tweet added, “as Jeffrey Besos [sic.] is amply demonstrating.”
    Elon Musk on Twitter: “@999BPM @tesla_adri @WholeMarsBlog No amount of money can defy physics” / Twitter
    In the last few days, Musk has taken quite a few digs at Bezos. In reply to another tweet regarding a quote by Bezos on suing governments, Musk called him “Irony(y) man.”
    Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin had recently criticised NASA’s decision to award the astronaut lunar lander contract worth $2.9 billion to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It has pointed out technical details which it claims could be risky for the moon missions. Blue Origin published an infographic on its website where it took a swing at Elon Musk’s Starship, saying that SpaceX using the Starship to transport NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon is “immensely complex and high-risk”.
    Musk in response to the statement from Blue Origin posted an old photo of a Blue Origin rocket, which is slightly deflated in the middle. “Somehow, this wasn’t convincing enough,” the Tesla CEO said in the tweet directly mocking Bezos’ company.
    Bezos on his part has never really spoken too much publicly about Musk. The Tesla CEO, however, has been known to say quite a few things about Bezos’ company Blue Origin. Such digs and potshots from Musk do pop up every now and then on his Twitter feed.

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com

  • Why Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company thinks NASA is taking a big risk with Elon Musk’s SpaceX – morningtidings

    Why Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company thinks NASA is taking a big risk with Elon Musk’s SpaceX – morningtidings

    Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has once again criticised NASA’s decision to award the astronaut lunar lander contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It has pointed out technical details which it claims could be risky for the moon missions. Blue Origin published an infographic on its website where it took a swing at Elon Musk’s Starship, saying that SpaceX using the Starship to transport NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon is “immensely complex and high-risk”.
    “There are an unprecedented number of technologies, developments, and operations that have never been done before for Starship to land on the Moon,” says the infographic on Blue Origin’s website.

    “This includes developing Super Heavy – not only the largest launch vehicle stage ever produced, but one that has to be reusable – and Starship – the first ever reusable second stage. Then, the two systems must work together. A launch site in Boca Chica, Texas that has never conducted an orbital launch must demonstrate the ability to do so 7-11 times within 1-week increments.”, continued the infographic, laying stress on some of the testing that needed to be done and the change in the approaches to be absolutely sure of the success of the mission.
    Recently, a US government watchdog sided with NASA over its decision to pick a single lunar lander provider, rejecting a protest filed by Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics Inc. The companies had challenged the $2.9 billion award to Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the lander, arguing NASA was required to make multiple awards. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said it “denied the protest arguments that NASA acted improperly in making a single award to SpaceX.” In April, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract to build such a spacecraft as early as 2024. Blue Origin had contended NASA gave SpaceX an unfair advantage by letting it revise its pricing.

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com

  • This is how long Jeff Bezos and his crew trained for the 11-minute spaceflight – morningtidings

    This is how long Jeff Bezos and his crew trained for the 11-minute spaceflight – morningtidings

    Amazon founder Jef Bezos’ recent trip to space was a short one, the entire flight lasted around 11 minutes. He, along with his brother Mark Bezos and the $28 million seat clincher Oliver Daemen were the members of the crew who had no experience of a spaceflight and were going for the first time. Apart from the veteran Wally Funk, the other three had no training for a spaceflight. But that did change before the New Shepard space rocket took off on July 20 as all of them underwent 14 hours of training over two days just before the takeoff date to be compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. This has been revealed by Blue Origin lead flight director Steve Lanius in a press conference.
    The training included lessons on how to use the space capsule (carried by the New Shepard rocket) for nominal, off-nominal and emergency procedures. They were also trained to be able to take actions in the case they encountered some common issues like fire and exiting the spacecraft quickly on the pad. How to use masks in an emergency was also a part of training. The training, as per Lanius, culminated in mission rehearsals that came with five different scenarios, followed by a final exam. After that, those who passed the tests (everyone, actually) got the final approval for the spaceflight on July 19, a day before the liftoff.
    Space tourism may be seen as a domain of the super affluent, but the trips by Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have certainly brought it to mainstream attention. A luxury spaceflight company called Space Perspective is even offering seats on its space capsule that will be borne up by a giant balloon slowly. The entire journey will last about six hours. Apart from the money (each seat costs US $125,000), the other issue is that the bookings are available for the space capsule only in 2025, as they have already been made till 2024.

    timesofindia.indiatimes.com

  • Twitter and Instagram reacts to Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight with hilarious memes- Technology News

    Twitter and Instagram reacts to Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight with hilarious memes- Technology News

    tech2 News StaffJul 23, 2021 12:05:55 IST

    Earth’s wealthiest person Jeff Bezos and a crew of three others blasted off into space. On Tuesday, the total event lasted for 10 minutes with the crew spending a mere three minutes in space. It was regarded as a breakthrough moment for the space tourism sector that after years of delays is now poised for liftoff.

    Bezos was joined by his brother Mark, aviator Wally Funk, 82, and 18-year-old Dutch teen Oliver Daemen.

    Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest astronauts, respectively.

    Bezos said afterwards that like those who had gone before him, he was “amazed and awestruck by the Earth and its beauty, but also its fragility.”

    “It’s one thing to recognize that intellectually — it’s another thing to actually see with your own eyes,” he added.

    “We had a great time, it was wonderful,” Funk later told reporters. “I want to go again — fast!”

    However, not everyone was impressed by this feat. Soon after the launch, the internet erupted in an avalanche of memes and snarky comments. We have scoured the internet and compiled them for a few laughs.

  • Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter to break down just how rich is Jeff Bezos- Technology News

    Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took to Twitter to break down just how rich is Jeff Bezos- Technology News

    tech2 News StaffJul 23, 2021 10:25:35 IST

    Recently, billionaire Jeff Bezos flew to the edge of space on his aerospace company Blue Origin’s rocket. He also took with him his brother Mark, an 82-year-old female pilot Wally Funk that NASA rejected from its space program, and the first paying customer – an 18-year-old named Oliver Daemen.

    Not long ago, another billionaire Sir Richard Branson also went to space on a plane specially designed by his aerospace company. And both the times the internet erupted in memes, jokes and snide remarks.

    Many known personalities also joined in the billionaire bashing that took place.

    One of them was astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He spared time to explain to people just how rich the former Amazon CEO is.

    In a tweet on 19 July, Tyson said that with Bezos being worth about $200 billion, if one were to stack that money, it would reach higher than the altitude his rocket went.

    For the uninitiated, Bezos flew 106 km high, a little higher than the Karman line. It is known as the imaginary boundary line that separates Earth’s atmosphere. The entire trip took 10 minutes with the occupants of the first human spaceflight of the New Shepherd rocket spending only three minutes in space.

    The rocket launched at 6.42 pm IST after which the booster separated from the crew capsule and landed a few meters away from the launch site. The crew capsule then landed 10 minutes later after three parachutes helped them in landing.

    This is not the first time Tyson has taken a dig at Bezos’ extraordinary wealth. In August 2020, he said Bezos’s net worth could wrap around the Earth 180 times. It can then go to the Moon and back 30 times. With whatever is leftover, it can be stacked 10 kilometres high into the sky.

    Tyson had also said that neither Branson nor Bezos actually went to space since it was a suborbital flight.

    He told CNN, “First of all, it was suborbital. NASA did it 60 years ago with Alan Shepard, took off from Cape Canaveral and landed in the ocean.”

    A suborbital flight, according to aerospace engineer John Horack, means that while these vehicles will cross the ill-defined boundary of space, they will not be going fast enough to stay in space once they get there.

    “It’s okay if you want to call it ‘space,’ because average humans haven’t gotten there before and it’s a first for you. That’s why it takes eight minutes to get into orbit and three days to reach the moon,” Tyson said

    “That is actually space travel. So I don’t see it as ‘oh, let’s go into space’. No. What you are going to have is a nice view of the Earth.”

    He also said, “I don’t even know if you are going to see the curvature. I did some calculations and I think not. If you are two millimetres from the surface of this globe, you don’t have the full perspective. It is a visual effect that you get from 50 miles up (nearly 80 km). So have fun.”

  • Amazonification of space has begun with private players making space travel accessible- Technology News

    Amazonification of space has begun with private players making space travel accessible- Technology News

    The New York TimesJul 22, 2021 15:31:17 IST

    The anniversary of the Apollo moon landing marked one small step for space travel but a giant leap for space billionaires.

    Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson vividly demonstrated this month that soaring up to the near reaches of the sky appeared safe and, above all, a lark. The planet has so many problems that it is a relief to escape them even for 10 minutes, which was about the length of the suborbital rides offered by the entrepreneurs through their respective companies, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

    A swelling ecosystem of startups is attempting to commercialize space by building everything from cheaper launch technology to smaller satellites, etc.

    But beyond the dazzlement was a deeper message: The Amazonification of space has begun in earnest. What was once largely the domain of big government is now increasingly the realm of Big Tech. The people who sold you the internet will now sell you the moon and the stars.

    Bezos, the founder of Amazon and still its largest shareholder, made clear at the news conference after Tuesday’s flight that Blue Origin was open for business. Even though tickets were not generally available, sales for flights were already approaching $100 million. Bezos didn’t say what the price for each was but added, “The demand is very very high.”

    That demand was there even before the world’s media flocked to Van Horn, Texas, for extensive and adulatory coverage of Bezos doing something Branson had done in New Mexico the week before. They saw a carefully orchestrated event, with the world’s oldest-ever astronaut and the world’s youngest along for the ride, capped by a $200 million philanthropic giveaway.

    Even Elon Musk, chief executive of rival SpaceX and a sometimes skeptic of Bezos’ space dreams, felt compelled to offer his congratulations. So did Branson, who got bragging rights by making his flight first. Musk went to see Branson off.

    All of this space activity is the start of something new but also a replay of the 1990s. At the beginning of that decade, the internet was government property devoted to research and communication for a few. By the end, thanks to Bezos more than anyone, it was a place for everyone to buy things. Over the next 20 years, tech grew up and became Big Tech, provoking bipartisan fears that Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple are now too powerful.

    Outer space might now be embarked on a similar journey from frontier to big business.

    For decades, NASA did not get enough funding to do anything as epic as the Apollo program. The Trump administration decreed a return to the moon by 2024. The Biden administration has endorsed the goal but not the date. If it happens at all, it will be with the assistance of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. In contrast to the Apollo project in the 1960s, the next trip to the moon will be outsourced.

    Smaller space ventures are even more wide open to entrepreneurs.

    “If you look at where space is today, especially with respect to lower Earth orbit activities, it really is similar to the early days of the internet,” said West Griffin, chief financial officer of Axiom, a startup aiming to build the first commercial space station.

    The commercialization of space began during the 1990s dot-com boom but took much longer to reach fruition. The flights this month hark back to 1996, when the nonprofit organization X Prize announced a contest: $10 million to the first nongovernmental organization to build a reusable spacecraft that could take someone to an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62.5 miles, and then do it again in less than two weeks.

    The winning design in 2004 turned out to be SpaceShipOne in an effort led by Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer who previously designed the Voyager airplane that flew around the world without stopping or refueling. It was financed by Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft who died in 2018.

    The X Prize piqued Branson’s interest, too. He trademarked “Virgin Galactic Airways” in 1999, and licensed the SpaceShipOne technology. Branson hoped that a larger version could begin commercial flights within three years. It took 17 years instead.

    A swelling ecosystem of startups is attempting to commercialize space by building everything from cheaper launch technology to smaller satellites to the infrastructure making up the “pickaxes and shovels” of space’s gold rush, as Meagan Crawford, a managing partner at the venture capital firm SpaceFund, puts it.

    “People are looking around going: ‘There’s this robust space industry. Where did that come from?’ ” Crawford said. “Well, it’s been built methodically and purposefully, and it’s been a lot of hard work over the last 30 years to get us here.”

    Investors poured $7 billion into funding space startups in 2020, double the amount from just two years prior, according to the space analytics firm Bryce Tech.

    “What we’re all trying to do now is do what Jeff and Richard and Elon did 20 years ago, which is just build great businesses, except we’re building businesses in space from the very beginning and they built their businesses on earth,” said Chris Kemp, the chief executive of Astra, a startup focused on providing smaller, cheaper and more frequent launches.

    The first space race, which stretched the length of the 1960s and then ran out of steam in the 1970s, pitted a brash can-do United States government against a malevolent and charmless Soviet Union. The Americans won that competition, although critics argued that it was all a mistake in an era when so many domestic issues needed attention and money.

    This time? Pretty much the same, although now it’s personal. A petition requesting that Bezos not be allowed to return to earth drew 180,000 virtual signatures. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, tweeted: “It’s time for Jeff Bezos to take care of business right here on Earth and pay his fair share in taxes.”

    Musk tweeted a defense of space projects that was written in a laconic style reminiscent of the poet E.E. Cummings:

    those who attack space

    maybe don’t realize that

    space represents hope

    for so many people

    The tweet drew more than a quarter-million “likes,” although also responses like this: “Nobody is attacking space. We’re attacking billionaires who amassed vast fortunes on the backs of an exploited work force.”

    In an interview with CNN on Monday from the Texas launch site, Bezos said his critics were “largely right.”

    “We have to do both,” he said. “We have lots of problems in the here and now on Earth, and we need to work on those. And we always need to look at the future.”

    But it’s clear which perspective engages his attention. As valedictorian of his high school class in 1982, Bezos talked about the importance of creating a life in huge free-floating space colonies for millions of people. “The whole idea is to preserve the earth,” The Miami Herald quoted him as saying at the time, adding that his ultimate objective was to see the planet “turned into a huge national park.”

    Bezos said much the same thing this week. It was a utopian dream with many complicated moving parts — just like, on a smaller scale, the notion of a retailer that would sell everything to everyone and make deliveries in hours. And to the surprise of nearly everyone, he made that work.

    Branson has started another space offshoot, Virgin Orbit, that is launching small payloads to orbit. He has not hinted at grandiose visions like Musk and Bezos for spreading civilization into the solar system.

    Musk’s Mars dreams began with a small quixotic quest: He wanted to send a plant to Mars and see if it could grow there. But the costs of launching even a small experiment were prohibitive. Even options in Russia were out of reach. So Musk founded SpaceX in 2002.

    Today, he wants to send people, not plants, to Mars. SpaceX is currently developing Starship, large enough to make the journey, and Starlink, a satellite internet constellation, which aims to generate the profits needed to finance the Mars plans.

    As it pursues those goals, the company has become a behemoth in the space business. NASA relies on SpaceX rockets and capsules to send astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, and private, government and military satellite operators fly the reusable Falcon 9 booster rocket to orbit.

    NASA recently awarded a contract to SpaceX to use its Starship prototype for the moon program. The contract was challenged by Blue Origin and another firm, Dynetics. For all the camaraderie on display this week, the billionaires play to win.

    David Streitfeld and Erin Woo c.2021 The New York Times Company

  • Jeff Bezos and crew space-bound on first Blue Origin flight: Everything you need to know- Technology News

    Jeff Bezos and crew space-bound on first Blue Origin flight: Everything you need to know- Technology News

    Abigail BanerjiJul 20, 2021 17:47:48 IST

    Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, will fly to the edge of space today, 20 July, at 6:30 pm IST. This will be the 16th flight for the New Shepherd rocket, but the first flight with a crew.

    The entire trip for the billionaire and his motley crew will last for a total of 11 minutes, and they will experience the effects of zero gravity for a total of three minutes. However, the date has some significance, as it has been chosen to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking their first steps on the moon.

    New Shepherd rocket during its 15th flight test. Image credit: Blue Origin

    The rocket will launch from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One facility some 32km outside Van Horn, a rural town in Texas. The Karman line is the imaginary boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space and is 100 km above sea level. The Blue Origin flight will rise to 106 kilometres above sea level.

    This launch comes hot on the heels of another billionaire, Richard Branson, flying to space on his Virgin Galactic spaceplane with a crew of five other senior Galactic employees. Their flight did not touch the Karman Line, as it rose to only 86 km above sea level.

    However, if this flight is successful, both billionaires will be able to add ‘astronaut’ to their list of titles. NASA and the US Air Force choose to define an astronaut as a person who has flown higher than 80 km above sea level, which both Branson, and now Bezos, will achieve.

    While travelling to space is not a big deal anymore, these flights are a step in the direction of broadening the horizon of space travel. They are also exhibiting that their crafts are able to conduct safe human flights to space, while increasing the scope of commercial space flights as well as opening up the space tourism industry.

    Blue Origin personnel standing in as astronauts during Mission NS-15 pose in front of the New Shepard Crew Capsule after a successful mission. (April 14, 2021) Image credit: Blue Origin

    Blue Origin personnel standing in as astronauts during Mission NS-15 pose in front of the New Shepard Crew Capsule after a successful mission. (April 14, 2021) Image credit: Blue Origin

    Both Bezos and Branson do not believe they are in competition with each other. This comes as a surprise, as Blue Origins had posted a list of differences between the two space flights and definitely hinted at poking fun.

    During an interview with the TODAY show on NBC on Monday, Bezos said, “There’s one person who was the first person in space – his name was Yuri Gagarin– and that happened a long time ago.”

    “This isn’t a competition, this is about building a road to space so that future generations can do incredible things in space,” he added.

    Sir Richard Branson on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week said he was not competing to beat Bezos in this billionaire space race. He even advised Bezos saying, “Just absorb the view outside – really take it in. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

    New Shepard Rocket

    The New Shepard rocket is Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepherd. He was the first American astronaut to go to space and also walk on the moon on one of the Apollo missions. Similar to the Blue Origin mission, he did not orbit the Earth. He flew 186 km high and returned to Earth; his entire trip lasted 15-and-a-half minutes.

    NASA-supported payloads – including a precision landing suite – will undergo testing from launch to landing aboard the #NewShepard flight. Image credit: NASA/Twitter

    NASA-supported payloads – including a precision landing suite – will undergo testing from launch to landing aboard the New Shepard flight. Image credit: NASA/Twitter

    The New Shepard rocket is designed to take both people and payloads to the Karman line, and all missions will last 11 minutes.

    The rocket has flown 15 test flights and has proved to be safe for transporting human beings.

    It is 18 metres tall and has only one stage. It uses liquid hydrogen and a liquid oxygen engine to power the rocket. The only byproduct is water vapour.

    Blue Origin crew patch, Image credit: Twitter/@blueorigin

    Blue Origin crew patch, Image credit: Twitter/@blueorigin

    The rocket is launched into space at 3,700 kph and then the crew capsule separates from the rest of the rocket at 76 km. The capsule continues to travel upwards and reaches 106 km – the maximum altitude and coasts for some time before it begins its descent. The crew capsule has large windows that allow people inside to really get a 360-degree view of their surroundings. It is also spacious enough to allow everyone to move around and enjoy the outside scenery.

    The capsule can carry six astronauts and is a pressurised cabin. According to the website, the vehicle is fully autonomous and there is no need for a pilot.

    New Shepard Crew Capsule descends from space on Mission NS-15. Image credit: Blue Origin

    New Shepard Crew Capsule descends from space on Mission NS-15. Image credit: Blue Origin

    Seven minutes after launching and then separating from the capsule, the booster lands on the ground, around three km away from the launch pad. The capsule uses three parachutes and a thruster to help it land.

    “We learned how to make a vehicle safe enough that we’d be willing to put our own loved ones on it, and send them to space,” said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith during a press briefing.

    Female pilot Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk, who is part of the crew, told NBC that she plans to make the most of the opportunity and is looking forward to floating, turning and rolling in near-zero gravity.

    Spacesuits

    Something that Blue Origin is doing differently is its spacesuits. It has decided to do a complete 180 and skip this significant and iconic astronaut look. Instead, the crew will have bright blue flight suits that will give the four crew members a uniform look without all the extra bells and whistles.

    During the NBC interview, Bezos added they would fly in light “flight suits” only.

    Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Oliver Daemon and Wally Funk pose in their bright blue flight suits. Image credit: Twitter/ @blueorigin

    Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, Oliver Daemon and Wally Funk pose in their bright blue flight suits. Image credit: Twitter/ @blueorigin

    He said, “With the cabin pressurised, it’s redundant; we don’t need to use spacesuits, and we’re going to be just like this,” as he showed the chest of the flight suit that he was wearing to the camera.

    The Virgin Galactic crew wore spacesuits; however, they were non-pressurised as well. Created in partnership with Under Armour, the suits and footwear will be worn by all space tourists that will fly Virgin Galactic. The line was first showcased in 2019 a la catwalk style, but in the air.

    SpaceX CEO Elon Musk still does spacesuits for his Crew Dragon flights. During SpaceX’s first human spaceflight, the black and white spacesuits were revealed for the first time in 2020. They have been specially designed and are customised for each crew member. The suits are also an important factor for the flight, as they are an extension of the spacecraft.

    All-civilian crew

    The all-civilian crew will include Bezos, accompanied by his brother Mark; a female pilot that NASA rejected for its astronaut program, Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk and high school graduate Oliver Daemen.

    Funk, at 82 years old, will become the oldest person to go to space, while Daemen at 18, will be the youngest.

    Mark Bezos

    Mark is a financier and works at the Bezos Family Foundation. He was also a volunteer firefighter. He founded an advertising agency and is Senior Vice President at a charity organisation named Robin Hood. He is six years younger than Bezos and is most likely a millionaire like his brother, since he was an early investor in Amazon.

    Jeff Bezos hugs little brother Mark Bezos after asking him to fly with him on Blue Origin's first human spaceflight. Image credit: Instagram/ Jeff Bezos

    Jeff Bezos hugs little brother Mark Bezos after asking him to fly with him on Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight. Image credit: Instagram/ Jeff Bezos

    Bezos shared the moment when he asked Mark to join him on Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight in a video on Instagram. He said, “The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”

    The two brothers are best friends and quite close, making him a logical choice to share this special occasion with.

    Wally Funk

    Sixty years after training to become an astronaut and being rejected by a sexist NASA program, Funk will finally go to space. In a video posted on Bezos’ Instagram, she said, “I like to do things that nobody’s ever done.” She later went on to become a pilot as she has been training since she was nine-years-old.

    Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Wally Funk. Image credit: Instagram/Jeff Bezos

    Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Wally Funk. Image credit: Instagram/Jeff Bezos

    Funk was part of a privately-funded, innovative flight program named Mercury 13 in the 1960s. All the members of the program were women and she was the youngest of the group. The program made women undergo the same training and tests as future male astronauts in the official NASA program.

    Funk said, “They were testing us to our extremes.” And at the end of the program, she was told she “had done the job better and faster than any of the men.”

    But the program was cancelled after NASA rejected it.

    The first woman went into space in 1983 and in 1999, Funk said in an interview, “It was kind of interesting, the fact that we could have done it, and they just wouldn’t let us. A dog did it. A monkey did it. A man did it. Women can do it, too.”

    Oliver Daemen

    18-year-old Daemen will be the first paying customer for Blue Origin. He is a recent High School graduate who has taken a break year before he goes to the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands this September. He is expected to study physics and innovation management.

    Blue Origin announced Oliver Daemen will be the first paying customer to fly on board New Shepard. Image credit: Blue Origin

    Blue Origin announced Oliver Daemen will be the first paying customer to fly onboard New Shepard. Image credit: Blue Origin

    Daemen is replacing the $28 million live auction winner, who had to postpone his trip due to scheduling conflicts. Blue Origin has conducted a live auction to sell one ticket for this flight and the money raised was to go to the Bezos Foundation. The company has not yet revealed the name, age, gender, nationality of the winner. Daemen was the runner up in the live auction.

    While they were interested in flying to space, Daemen and his father, Joes Daemen, dropped out of the auction after the bid started to skyrocket. Daemon Sr is the founder of a Dutch investment company named Somerset Capital Partners in the Netherlands, reported The New York Times.

    “He was a participant in the auction and had secured a seat on the second flight,” said Sara Blask, a Blue Origin spokesperson, in an email. “We moved him up when this seat on the first flight became available.”

    Blue Origin has not officially revealed a lot of information about Daemen, including the price of his ticket.

    Flying on the New Shepard rocket will fulfill a lifelong dream for Daemen. According to a statement, Daemen has been fascinated by space, the moon and rockets since he was four.

    “This is a dream come true!” Daemen said in a news release from the family. “I hadn’t counted on this at all, until last week that surprising phone call from Blue Origin came. This is so unbelievably cool! The flight to and into space only takes 10 minutes, but I already know that these will be the most special 10 minutes of my life.”

  • Jeff Bezos to launch on Blue Origin’s first spacecraft on 20 July: How to watch it live- Technology News

    Jeff Bezos to launch on Blue Origin’s first spacecraft on 20 July: How to watch it live- Technology News

    FP TrendingJul 16, 2021 12:38:44 IST

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is going to be launched in space on 20 July. The billionaire will use his company’s Blue Origin New Shepard rocket and will be in space for a total of 11 minutes. The date has been chosen as it is exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the moon.

    NASA-supported payloads – including a precision landing suite – will undergo testing from launch to landing aboard the #NewShepard flight. Image credit: NASA/Twitter

    Blue Origin’s Launch Site One is located in a remote location in the West Texas desert and will not have an on-site public viewing area, reports Forbes. The company has also said that the Texas Department of Transportation will be closing a portion of State Highway 54.

    On 12 July, the company received its license from the US Federal Aviation Administration to launch into space.

    Along with Bezos, the first Blue Origin flight will have three more people as part of the New Shepherd crew. The four-member crew includes Bezos’ brother Mark, aeronautics pioneer Wally Funk and an 18-year-old Oliver Daemen.

    If the flight becomes successful then Funk would become the oldest astronaut ever at the age of 82 while Daemen will be the youngest.

    The reusable New Shepard rocket was created by Blue Origin which officially emerged in 2015. As per the CNET report, the company initially worked in silence for a decade. After almost two decades of work, the rocket can now launch people into space.

    There have been as many as 15 test flights after which Blue Origin will be launching its first rocket with a crew.

    The first crewed flight of Blue Origin can be watched here. The timing of the flight launch is 6:30 pm IST but it can change depending on weather or technical issues. The live stream will begin 90 minutes before the scheduled launch time.

    Meanwhile, Blue Origin has also revealed that Daemen will become their first customer. Previously, the ticket to space through the New Shephard flight was auctioned for USD 28 million. However, the company has said that Daemen is not the person who won the auction. The winner of the auction will be flying on a future New Shepard mission as there were some issues with the schedule.

  • In Brad Stone’s book Amazon Unbound, critical perspectives on the transformation of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos- Technology News

    In Brad Stone’s book Amazon Unbound, critical perspectives on the transformation of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos- Technology News

    Nimish SawantJul 16, 2021 15:58:12 IST

    On 5 July, 2021, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, stepped down as the CEO of the company. Handing over the reins to lieutenant Andy Jassy, who has been running the most profitable division at Amazon aka Amazon Web Services. Bezos will continue to remain an executive chair. This is the end of a 27-year era where Bezos went from selling books online to basically selling everything imaginable, and as a result, transforming a bunch of sectors.

    Brad Stone’s Amazon Unbound is not just a sequel to The Everything Store which he wrote in 2013, but also a thorough look at just how Bezos was able to keep the innovation engine as well as the cash coffers at Amazon on an ascending curve. Unlike his first book, Stone did not have access to Bezos this time around. Apparently, featuring Bezos’ biological father in The Everything Store, closed the proverbial doors for Stone. Regardless, Amazon Unbound, documents not just the rise of Amazon during the tumultuous last decade but also contrasts it with the problems cropping up within and outside Amazon that could act as speed bumps in its journey. The book comprises 15 chapters and each of them looks in minute detail at one aspect of Amazon and its founder, bringing home the fact that Amazon is significantly more than the online e-commerce site that we are all familiar with. The book also charts the transformation of the balding formals-sporting geeky Bezos to the ‘swole Bezos’ (a name that emerged after he was photographed wearing sunglasses and a down jacket which showed off his physique)
    who loves the good life and will be taking off to space in a couple of weeks.

    Bezos’s personal wealth, at $211 billion (as of this week), makes him the richest person on the planet. It saw an almost 70 percent jump in the pandemic year, when a lot of people lost jobs and many Amazon warehouse workers battled workplace discrimination. As you progress in the book, you learn about all the societal costs involved in the acquisition of this wealth — escaping corporate taxes, inhuman working hours during peak sales seasons, millions of seasonal blue-collar workers made to work in unhygienic conditions during the pandemic, sidelining third party sellers by using their sales data against them and more. But one can’t ignore the many bets Amazon took early on which would blossom into money-generating entities.

    Foresights galore

    In one of his letters to his shareholders, Bezos wrote, “The biggest needle movers will be things that customers don’t know to ask for. We must invent on their behalf. We have to tap into our own inner imagination about what’s possible.”

    Stone presents more than enough examples of Bezos’ foresight and experimental mindset which do complete justice to the “Always Day One” philosophy that most Amazonians have to live by.

    “Day two is stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death,” Bezos had said in an internal meeting once.

    One of the best examples is how Bezos predicted that smart assistants in the form of speakers would be the next big thing. “We should build a $20 device with its brains in the cloud that’s completely controlled by our voice,” Bezos had told his team working on this super-secret project which would give rise to Alexa and the Echo line of smart speakers.

    Mind you, there was no incumbent in this segment to prod Bezos to develop this. In fact, the smart speaker segment did not exist before Echo products. In the earlier decade, Bezos had taken a similar bet with Kindle after he noticed Apple taking over the digital music market with iPods and later, its smartphone. To prevent Apple from getting into ebooks, Amazon released the Kindle – at a time when Amazon was bleeding money. The bet paid off. It’s been many years since and there isn’t anything that comes close to the Kindle in terms of reading experience.

    Another crystal-ball gazing was done in 2006 when Bezos thought of capitalising on the expertise that Amazon had developed in “building a stable computing infrastructure that could withstand enormous seasonal spikes in traffic”. The business which emerged from this — Amazon Web Services — is currently worth over $45 billion in revenue and one of the most profitable parts of the Amazon empire.

    His decision to get into making movies and TV shows was seen with a cynical eye by a majority of his staff. But it turned out to be a smart tool in Amazon’s arsenal to attract more customers to start paying for Amazon Prime.

    As Stone notes, “The truth was this: Bezos wanted Amazon to make TV shows and films. He could see that the decades-old way that TV shows and movies were produced and distributed was changing and sought a principal role for Amazon in that future.”

    After backing a series of award winning films and web series, Prime is on track to adapt JRR Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, which is being touted as its answer to Game of Thrones. With the recent acquisition of MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, Amazon has established itself as a mainstream player in the movie business, whether it agrees to that segmentation or not. One thing Amazon did miss out on, was a chance to acquire Netflix early in its growth phase.

    Expensive mistakes forgiven

    But not everything Bezos thought about was a billion dollar idea. The Amazon Fire Phone, for which Bezos himself gave a keynote address (trying to ape Jobs, but failing considerably) bombed to such an extent that Amazon had to underwrite $170 million worth of phones already manufactured. But the team which made this phone wasn’t reprimanded. In fact, Bezos asked the team lead to promise him that he wouldn’t lose sleep over this debacle. Bezos was all in for taking risks, even if it came at an expensive cost to the company.

    Another major miss on Amazon’s part was not moving fast in India. This led to two former Amazon employees, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, going on to create Flipkart which is now owned by American retailer, Walmart, and is the only worthwhile competitor to Amazon India. But having burnt its hands with its China launch, Amazon took many lessons and proceeded to gradually increase its presence in India from 2012 onwards. Amit Agarwal is still at the helm and India operations have attracted multiple rounds of billion dollar investment from the mothership.

    It can be seen in many instances of Amazon’s history — money was always available for wacky ideas. Such as the time Bezos, after learning that burger patties had meat from different cows, came up with the idea of having ‘single cow burgers’. These burgers would have meat only from one animal. This was a short-lived project, but it was executed nonetheless despite how impractical it sounded.

    The larger takeaway is that Amazon wasn’t afraid of taking risks, despite not really having made any profits. Some of the bets played off splendidly, such as AWS. One can only wonder if Amazon would be this confident of taking bets, post 2010, if it didn’t have the cushion provided by the AWS revenues.

    As Amazon revenues rose, so did Bezos’ personal wealth. This allowed him to pursue some of his personal projects such as Blue Origin, a space startup which Bezos founded. After moving on as Amazon CEO, Bezos is expected to spend more time on Blue Origin and his space ambitions. As the global conversations got more climate conscious, Bezos also announced a $10 billion Earth Fund. But the most interesting personal investment that Bezos made, has to be the one to do with the acquisition of an ailing national newspaper.

    Saving The Post and picking a fight with Donald Trump

    Stone gives the complete lowdown on how Bezos got to acquiring The Washington Post (The Post), a newspaper that was bleeding money, and flipped it into a revenue-generating media powerhouse within years. It’s baffling how Bezos used the same Amazonian principles to run a journalistic entity. To date, Bezos has stayed away from interfering in any journalistic decisions taken by the paper. One does come across stories critical of Amazon in The Post, with the right disclaimers. But there are many instances in the book, where you get the sense that Bezos did try to get some leverage out of the unfortunate murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist with The Post. Khashoggi was killed on the orders of the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for his critical writing on the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.

    Another area of concern due to The Post’s journalism was placing both Bezos and Amazon in the cross-hairs of former US President, Donald Trump, who left no chance to call Bezos all sorts of names. Stone speculates that it was Trump’s dislike for Bezos that resulted in Amazon losing a military cloud computing contract, worth $10 billion over ten years, to Microsoft. None of this had any effect on The Post’s journalism.

    But even as The Post’s turnaround story elevated Bezos’ largesse, as Amazon was growing bigger there were other major problems knocking at its doors.

    Criticism of Amazon

    In its quest to maximise profits and reduce overheads, Amazon rode roughshod over basic human decency on many occasions. One anecdote that Stone shares in his book is the refusal by Amazon to install central air conditioning in one of its older warehouses despite rising temperatures in the area. It was only after reports of some of this warehouse’s workers collapsing and being taken to nearby hospitals were splashed in the news, that Amazon finally gave the go ahead for installing air conditioners.

    Stone also goes to great lengths to qualify the allegation that Amazon studies the third-party seller data and then eventually cuts them out by selling similar products under Amazon Basics or its own in-house brands. Many sellers who waxed eloquent about Amazon, are now vociferously against Amazon’s policies which don’t give them much power. This is an issue that is being scrutinised by regulators. Amazon officially denies these allegations, but one former employee who worked for Amazon had this to say: “We would look at what our competitors were doing and sometimes copy it exactly, or just semi-customise it and throw a label on it. All along I was told there was a firewall, and then I learned it was a sort of a ‘wink wink’.”

    Jeff Bezos, the human

    All through the book, reading anecdotes of Bezos’ drive makes one wonder if this guy displayed any human emotions or shortcomings at all.

    Stone delivers on that front in the second half of the book, where one can read about how Elon Musk’s success in space projects and acquiring tax holidays when he set up Gigafactories would drive Bezos mad. He was jealous to the point that he would start reprimanding his teams by making comparisons with Musk.

    The most human aspect of the business leader comes forth in the aftermath of the National Enquirer expose which brought to light Bezos’ affair and eventually led to the dissolution of his marriage to MacKenzie Bezos. The American magazine had published compromising photos of Bezos and his girlfriend, TV personality Lauren Sanchez, while they both were still married to their respective partners.

    In a team meeting immediately after this, Bezos addressed this sticky issue by asking his team this: “Raise your hand if you think you’ve had a harder week than I’ve had,” followed by a laugh. He may still have been in the functional business leader mode, but you do see that he had his flaws, like any other human being. In the aftermath of the National Enquirer saga, Bezos had put out a Medium post which hinted that Enquirer’s source was the Saudi government which had hacked Bezos’ phone. Stone clears the air on that front by speaking to the actual source himself.

    Stone does manage to balance the superman Bezos with the more human Jeff to some extent. One could argue that it would have been more effective had he got access to Bezos during the writing of this book. But it doesn’t take anything away. He did have access to Andy Jassy, the successor to Bezos. I felt that Stone could have done a better job of discussing a bit on how the transition will happen and how involved would Bezos still be.

    The challenges facing Jassy

    Unlike Satya Nadella taking over Microsoft and transforming its fortunes, Jassy is in the same position as Tim Cook was when he took over Apple – an impressive profitable company which he helped to reach record heights.

    2020 was a blockbuster year for Amazon with its profits reaching an all time high and its market cap crossing $1.5 trillion. Bezos is departing on a high and all eyes will now be on how Jassy takes Amazon to newer milestones. If his 18 years at Amazon Web Services are any indication, Jassy has demonstrated his excellence. But will that be enough at this juncture in Amazon’s journey?

    Unlike in the innocent growing up years of Amazon, Bezos is departing at a time when regulators are scrutinising every move Amazon is making. Bezos himself has appeared twice in front of the US Senate Committee alongside other Big Tech peers from the Silicon Valley such as Google’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook. With regulators in the US as well as the EU looking at Amazon, Jassy will have the additional responsibility of treading carefully along these waters while ensuring Amazon’s ascent. It’s a tricky inheritance in that sense. Also, it doesn’t help matters when the Federal Trade Commission is now headed by 31-year old Lina Khan. It was Khan’s 93-page Yale Law Journal article, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” during her student days, that prompted the Senate questioning Bezos about Amazon’s monopolistic practices. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Jassy face government scrutiny soon.

    Stone has delivered a stellar sequel that’s a joy to read. It is a business book, in the sense that it tracks Amazon’s rise from an $80 billion company in 2010 to a trillion dollar empire in 2020. It is also biographical as the rise of Amazon is unimaginable without the constantly innovative mindset of its founder, Jeff Bezos. And just like Stone’s last book, The Upstarts, the most promising aspect of Amazon Unbound is how it voices the sociological problems that ruthless, profit-chasing big tech firms give rise to. I am hoping Stone revisits the company again for the post-Bezos book.

    As things stand at the moment, it will be interesting to see how Jassy manages the transition in not just the post-Bezos Amazon but also the many businesses of Amazon in a post-Covid world.