Is Amazon’s Kuiper Constellation project in trouble, or is it fleeing Seattle?
According to a on-going listing of open space-related jobs in Seattle, Amazon has almost completely ceased hiring in that city, even as it is about to launch the first prototype test satellites in its proposed internet Kuiper satellite constellation.
To see the decline, take a gander at the graph here.
The analyst at the first link also noted in a later tweet this fact about Amazon hiring in Seattle:
…Went from 189 at end of October to 14 yesterday (in WA state, not total). It’s unusual, at least in the nearly 3 years I’ve been monitoring. Could be due largely due to Amazon hiring freeze.
Amazon is required by its FCC license to get over 1,600 Kuiper satellites launched in the next 40 months. The first two are only scheduled for launch on the first Vulcan launch now targeting a late March liftoff. As test prototypes, they will have to be tested for a period of time in orbit, followed by an assessment that might require changes in the design and construction of later satellites. These satellites would then have to be launched at an unprecedented rate, almost faster than anything SpaceX has done with its Starlink constellation.
At the moment it thus seems impossible for Amazon to meet the FCC deadline.
That the company appears to have stopped hiring space-related positions in Seattle at this very moment makes that goal even more impossible. This hiring freeze thus suggests that management has decided that the Kuiper project is untenable and is quietly cutting it off at the knees.
Or it could be that the hiring freeze is instead an indication that Amazon is slowly shifting operations out of leftist and insane Washington state. If so, work on the Kuiper project, including hiring, might be going on elsewhere.
Regardless, the state of the Kuiper project continues to be tenuous and uncertain, at best.
Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
According to a on-going listing of open space-related jobs in Seattle, Amazon has almost completely ceased hiring in that city, even as it is about to launch the first prototype test satellites in its proposed internet Kuiper satellite constellation.
To see the decline, take a gander at the graph here.
The analyst at the first link also noted in a later tweet this fact about Amazon hiring in Seattle:
…Went from 189 at end of October to 14 yesterday (in WA state, not total). It’s unusual, at least in the nearly 3 years I’ve been monitoring. Could be due largely due to Amazon hiring freeze.
Amazon is required by its FCC license to get over 1,600 Kuiper satellites launched in the next 40 months. The first two are only scheduled for launch on the first Vulcan launch now targeting a late March liftoff. As test prototypes, they will have to be tested for a period of time in orbit, followed by an assessment that might require changes in the design and construction of later satellites. These satellites would then have to be launched at an unprecedented rate, almost faster than anything SpaceX has done with its Starlink constellation.
At the moment it thus seems impossible for Amazon to meet the FCC deadline.
That the company appears to have stopped hiring space-related positions in Seattle at this very moment makes that goal even more impossible. This hiring freeze thus suggests that management has decided that the Kuiper project is untenable and is quietly cutting it off at the knees.
Or it could be that the hiring freeze is instead an indication that Amazon is slowly shifting operations out of leftist and insane Washington state. If so, work on the Kuiper project, including hiring, might be going on elsewhere.
Regardless, the state of the Kuiper project continues to be tenuous and uncertain, at best.
Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.
Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!
From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.
“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.
All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.
Businesses aren’t the only things fleeing Seattle:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/seattle-city-council-quitting-homelessness-crime-liberal-policies
Seattle used to be such a beautiful city.
Prostitutes Prowl Seattle Streets With Hamstrung Police Watching Helplessly a Block Away
https://thelibertydaily.com/prostitutes-prowl-seattle-streets-with-hamstrung-police-watching-helplessly-a-block-away/
Amazon has been shifting some of it’s business to outside Seattle even if it remains in the greater Seattle area. Their big growth location in the area is now in Bellevue. How much of that is due to dissatisfaction with Seattle’s government, vs. a desire for local cities to compete against each other for the business, vs. desires of employees to be closer to home, vs. a random VP’s desire to be closer to a specific restaurant for lunch is anybody’s guess.
How soon will Seattle end up as a ruin like like when the archologists find