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Articles like this feel awfully fuzzy when it comes to how they suggest VG is in some kind of "race" with actual orbital companies. I'm just not seeing the path

by xoa 8y ago

Articles like this feel awfully fuzzy when it comes to how they suggest VG is in some kind of "race" with actual orbital companies. I'm just not seeing the path from A to B for VG's current efforts there, and without that I'm also not seeing what their future is at all? >The company said the space ship's motor burned for 60 seconds, travelling at 2.9 times the speed of sound as it gained height. So they managed to briefly beat the Concorde (top speed a bit of Mach 2) and are still well under half the speed of the X-15? I mean, good for them I guess but it seems pretty ridiculous to put VG in even vaguely the same game as anybody doing actual orbital work (not just SpaceX or BO but smaller outfits even). Mach 2.9 isn't even 1 km/s, and LEO average orbital is more like 7.8 km/s (and required delta-v for that will likely be at least a good extra 1.5 km/s over that accounting for drag/grav). Yes "space" may start at 100 km as the atmosphere drops sufficiently, but I think what most people think about when it comes to "going to space" and doing something useful involves orbit, even for tourism purposes (orbital space hotels say). The challenges of every bit of it, from delta-v to heating to in-orbit survival is all on an entirely different plane. Meanwhile with the BFR it looks quite possibly that SpaceX may well drop below $500/kg to LEO, possibly by a lot. They claim to be aiming for $10m a flight which would be more like sub-$100/kg, but I take that as more a long term aspirational goal approaching the costs of fuel a minimal maintenance then anything in the immediately realizable future. But even a conservative guess of more like $40m would still mean being able to get people into real orbit for less money then VG's up-and-down. BO is pursuing similar cost economics, and both are fighting through the very hard R&D work in actually getting scalable long term cost reductions like methalox working right now. Can anyone explain what if anything about VG's current R&D would actually carry over to a real spacecraft, or what they use case for it would be if it can't reach that? For merely going very high and very fast on Earth low boom supersonic R&D seems more promising, and for actual space, well this isn't it. What am I missing here?

ohitsdom 8y ago
Virgin Galactic doesn't have any orbital aspirations, as far as I know (unlike Virgin Orbit). The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere. But that was awhile ago, I haven't seen any kind of that talk. I think especially since the accident, they've been focused on just doing these suborbital up and down trips and trying to make them a regular commercial activity. Anecdotally, people in the space industry don't seem too thrilled with VG. This type of ship was great for the X prize, but it remains to be seen how robust it is. Some of the test flight footage has looked almost unstable. Also their hybrid motor approach (solid & liquid fuel) was said to have gotten all the drawbacks of both approaches with little benefit.
- xoa 8y ago
  Thanks for the reply, that was my rough impression from eyeballing it but the article certainly talks quite optimistically and I'm not at all an expert. >The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere Yeah, that definitely seems like a wild thing thrown out, particularly given research like the X-59 QueSST NASA is doing [1]. I can't see them possibly competing successfully with an air breathing supersonic aircraft capable of legal overland flight in terrestrial transport, so there's a squeeze from the bottom. And even from a joyride and "I've gone to space!" angle it doesn't feel that compelling vs actually going into orbit for a similar price (or less!). So it seems like a dead end, albeit a cool one, but also a significant amount of money just for that given the context of the times. ---- 1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html
- Thibaut1 8y ago
  Free fall. Like inside an elevator with a broken cable. Here the aeroplane starts the free fall with considerable upwards speed. That and the horisontal speed form an upward parabola path of free fall.
melling 8y ago
“Can anyone explain what if anything about VG's CURENT R&D would actually carry over to a real spacecraft,” Why do you limit it to current R&D? Build profitable “space” business. Make it cheaper, scale it up, reinvest to grow company, more R&D, ... trips into orbit, around moon... Maybe VG never does but venture capitalists see a market and invest in more space ventures. Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic sparked the next generation of flight.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  There's no clear path from their current style of rocket to "trips into orbit, around moon". It's dead-end tech - VG going orbital would require either a totally new vehicle (for which little of the current one's work applies) or buying rides with something like SpaceX.
  - melling 8y ago
    Correct. I never said there was a direct path. I said there might be a profitable path. There wasn't a direct path from search to self-driving cars, for example. Google makes its money with search ads then reinvests.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > There wasn't a direct path from search to self-driving cars, for example. Google went in the self-driving car direction only after a) search became wildly profitable and b) search expanded to things like mapping, street view, and heavy investment in AI. VG isn't in a similar situation - there's little reason to believe suborbital rides for tourists is going to be raking in billions of dollars of cash.
      - melling 8y ago
        Here I dug this up from 2006. https://www.space.com/3097-virgin-galactic-anatomy-business-model.html https://www.space.com/3097-virgin-galactic-anatomy-business-... There’s probably more. I’ll leave the rest as an exercise for you. I’m not sure why you can’t use your own imagination. I can easily see this being a catalyst for many other businesses.

by xoa 8y ago

ohitsdom 8y ago

Virgin Galactic doesn't have any orbital aspirations, as far as I know (unlike Virgin Orbit). The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere. But that was awhile ago, I haven't seen any kind of that talk. I think especially since the accident, they've been focused on just doing these suborbital up and down trips and trying to make them a regular commercial activity. Anecdotally, people in the space industry don't seem too thrilled with VG. This type of ship was great for the X prize, but it remains to be seen how robust it is. Some of the test flight footage has looked almost unstable. Also their hybrid motor approach (solid & liquid fuel) was said to have gotten all the drawbacks of both approaches with little benefit.

xoa 8y ago
Thanks for the reply, that was my rough impression from eyeballing it but the article certainly talks quite optimistically and I'm not at all an expert. >The biggest change I saw was they floated the possibility of actually traveling this way- e.g. London to New Mexico or somewhere Yeah, that definitely seems like a wild thing thrown out, particularly given research like the X-59 QueSST NASA is doing [1]. I can't see them possibly competing successfully with an air breathing supersonic aircraft capable of legal overland flight in terrestrial transport, so there's a squeeze from the bottom. And even from a joyride and "I've gone to space!" angle it doesn't feel that compelling vs actually going into orbit for a similar price (or less!). So it seems like a dead end, albeit a cool one, but also a significant amount of money just for that given the context of the times. ---- 1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html
Thibaut1 8y ago
Free fall. Like inside an elevator with a broken cable. Here the aeroplane starts the free fall with considerable upwards speed. That and the horisontal speed form an upward parabola path of free fall.

melling 8y ago

“Can anyone explain what if anything about VG's CURENT R&D would actually carry over to a real spacecraft,” Why do you limit it to current R&D? Build profitable “space” business. Make it cheaper, scale it up, reinvest to grow company, more R&D, ... trips into orbit, around moon... Maybe VG never does but venture capitalists see a market and invest in more space ventures. Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic sparked the next generation of flight.

ceejayoz 8y ago
There's no clear path from their current style of rocket to "trips into orbit, around moon". It's dead-end tech - VG going orbital would require either a totally new vehicle (for which little of the current one's work applies) or buying rides with something like SpaceX.
- melling 8y ago
  Correct. I never said there was a direct path. I said there might be a profitable path. There wasn't a direct path from search to self-driving cars, for example. Google makes its money with search ads then reinvests.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > There wasn't a direct path from search to self-driving cars, for example. Google went in the self-driving car direction only after a) search became wildly profitable and b) search expanded to things like mapping, street view, and heavy investment in AI. VG isn't in a similar situation - there's little reason to believe suborbital rides for tourists is going to be raking in billions of dollars of cash.
    - melling 8y ago
      Here I dug this up from 2006. https://www.space.com/3097-virgin-galactic-anatomy-business-model.html https://www.space.com/3097-virgin-galactic-anatomy-business-... There’s probably more. I’ll leave the rest as an exercise for you. I’m not sure why you can’t use your own imagination. I can easily see this being a catalyst for many other businesses.