3 ms·

I have to be honest, whenever I read a tech company with the name 'Virgin' in front, I believe that will spend huge amounts of money and not achieve much. Virg

by nickik 6y ago

I have to be honest, whenever I read a tech company with the name 'Virgin' in front, I believe that will spend huge amounts of money and not achieve much. Virgin Galactic and Vrigin Orbit are both burning huge amount of money and have really not achieved much in relation to the amount spend. However they are always big in the media and Branson is always mentioned along side of Elon Musk. As if Virgin Orbit and SpaceX are even remotely comparable. As soon as the Hyperloop concept was shown, a company pops up doing it, again making sure the name Vrigin is always mentioned when Elon Musk Hyperloop comes up. Their method and approach often seem more about big hype and big money raising. These companies also tend to find financing from big money people in the middle east, where with a lot of flash and not much substances you can finance. Virgin Orbit is public and promising intercontinental flight, system they are simply not able to develop by any evidence so far, its honestly borderline scamy. This plan of spending 100s of million to develop a short test track seem like the same sort of thing. If it cost this much, how much will it cost from SF to LA? > In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent trave In Elon Musk original hyperloop paper, he was explicit not using magnetic levitation. Saying: "A viable technical solution is magnetic levitation; however the cost associated with material and construction is prohibitive." I hope of course they are successful, any attempted at developing new technology is great however I would never bet on them to achieve anything. I still think the Hyperloop as described in the paper is mostly a good idea, but I think its smart of Elon to switch to tunnels. It makes the legal and safety situation way easier. I think the Boring company is actually developing a Hyperloop test track as well, but this is somewhat speculation at this point. Here a link to the original paper: - https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperl...

sakopov 6y ago
I don't know about Virgin Orbit, but isn't Virgin Galactic actively testing their aircraft for space flights? [1] I think it's a bit of a stretch to either call them a scam or argue that they didn't achieve much. This area has so many regulations it takes decades to innovate and go from idea to market. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo
- nickik 6y ago
  They are suborbital, while this is certainty an achievement its also far more limited in value and market. They have existed for a very, very long time. They have done the first test flights a long time ago now and have for years promised to be operational. The problem is this, the amount of money they are spending is essentially impossible to make back with suborbital tourism, even if NASA helps them out with some extra flights. The have a large team and they have burned threw 100s of millions to get to this point and there is still no clear schedule. The continue to make flashy media events showing of seats and designs and so on. At the same time, their public stock price is incredibly high. To get it there, they seem to imply that they are gone develop hypersonic transport. Hypersonic transport is much, much, much harder then what they are doing so far, and they have struggled mightily for a long time to even get the engine to the point where it is now.

by nickik 6y ago

sakopov 6y ago

I don't know about Virgin Orbit, but isn't Virgin Galactic actively testing their aircraft for space flights? [1] I think it's a bit of a stretch to either call them a scam or argue that they didn't achieve much. This area has so many regulations it takes decades to innovate and go from idea to market. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipTwo

nickik 6y ago
They are suborbital, while this is certainty an achievement its also far more limited in value and market. They have existed for a very, very long time. They have done the first test flights a long time ago now and have for years promised to be operational. The problem is this, the amount of money they are spending is essentially impossible to make back with suborbital tourism, even if NASA helps them out with some extra flights. The have a large team and they have burned threw 100s of millions to get to this point and there is still no clear schedule. The continue to make flashy media events showing of seats and designs and so on. At the same time, their public stock price is incredibly high. To get it there, they seem to imply that they are gone develop hypersonic transport. Hypersonic transport is much, much, much harder then what they are doing so far, and they have struggled mightily for a long time to even get the engine to the point where it is now.