revenue stream
Since their vehicle looks like a "marital aid", perhaps Love Honey might buy advertising space to put their logo on the side
Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos' space tentacle Blue Origin has been offered another eight million reasons to operate in Florida, in the form of a suitcase full of cash for the mysterious "Project Panther". According to Reuters, commissioners in Brevard County – home of NASA's Kennedy Space Center – are very keen to see Blue Origin …
"Since their vehicle looks like a "marital aid", perhaps Love Honey might buy advertising space to put their logo on the side"
That's a bit unfair.
Pre-Puberty and knowledge that follows on I made something similar out of a SQUEEZY bottle half filled with water, a bike tyre valve with associated pump and some Evostick. By the time it was 'pumped up' prior to launch it looked very similar to what Jeff has implemented here.
I also achieved 'Low Earth Mumble'.
have they given ANY sort of indication that a living/breathing person is doing anything that might in some fashion be related to reviewing your petition? I realize the wheels of government turn grind slowly but, this passed "absurd" quite some time ago.
So Florida's throwing money around in the hopes of getting, and keeping, Blue Origin in-state. Well, if it works, and B.O. (seriously, did no-one think of a better name?) carves out a significant place for itself in the launch market then Florida will deserve kudos for their wisdom...
And if B.O. fails to compete with already-operating SpaceX (not operating for the next three months though), fails to get market share against the soon-to-enter-service Skylon (five to six years away, remember), and/or fails to outperform ULA's new Vulcan rocket (ULA is not exactly shouting it from the rooftops, are they?) then Florida will have more than a little egg on its face.
Which way will it go, which way will it go...?
Well, if it works, then Florida will deserve kudos for their wisdom...
I see no wisdom in giving $40m of taxpayers money to a man with a personal worth estimated at around $45bn. That sort of money won't alter his decision on location other than in the minds of local bureaucrats and crooked politicians spending other people's money.
The reality is that he'll decide where's best from a technical and analytical point of view, have a couple of minions stir up a false "competition" between different states and simply trouser the winning state's bribes as extra profit.
Life's a beach when you're already so rich you can't count how much you're worth.
"Wasn't it a firwork display (singular)?"
More like a damp squib. The flamey bits which weren't intended to come out of the rocket happened quite a while after the damage had been done (which was more like a dry ice bomb than anything else) and were normal range safety charges being fired.
It really is too bad that SpaceX hadn't setup the capsule recovery stuff "just in case" as they could have verified functionality in the best possible way.