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Branson and crew reach space, return in runway landing
- cjbenedikt 5y agoAren't we all so glad that a "billionaires" challenge was won.
- 0-_-0 5y agoA much better way to spend that money than blackjack and hookers I say
- pstuart 5y agoThe technical term is "hookers and blow" ;-) Edit: I retract my counter -- Bender uber alles.
- neom 5y ago"Air travel has evolved from the privilege of a few into a service for many." - https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/history-of-flight-costs https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/history-o... Sure am.
- inglor_cz 5y agoLooking at the vast majority of rich people out there, this is at least kinda inspiring. Don't underestimate the motivational pull of such shows on kids. I'd rather the best brains of the coming generation to concentrate on space and aeronautics than on pushing even more intrusive ads on the rest of us.
- shoto_io 5y agoFor that to happen, I believe the pictures must have been better. I watched the live stream and was quite underwhelmed to see how poor the footage was.
- inglor_cz 5y agoTrue, but it adds a level of mystery to the activity. When everything is expected to be perfect, unexpected imperfections draw attention.
- tzfld 5y agoI think intrusive ads / kids dreaming to become influencers and other bad things are just a temporary derailment, typical to current generations, and disappear as the internet related technologies and ecosystem become more mature and settled down. Future generations will be more inspired by space travel, like in the 50s/60s. There are already signs of this.
- inglor_cz 5y agoLet us hope so. Most derailments are temporary. Certainly the technological window of opportunity in space seems to be opening again.
- alisonkisk 5y agoI don't need kids dedicating their lives to building toys for billionaires.
- dageshi 5y agoYup, seems a pretty cool achievement.
- basisword 5y agoNice to see someone doing something exciting and inspiring with their money. Much more inspiring than people whining about billionaires on social media.
- mylons 5y agoyour cynicism is outdone by a new method of getting into space for the general public, that will have implications for travel around the world, faster, cheaper and more energy efficient. try looking up sometime, instead of down.
- alisonkisk 5y ago$250K/trip is not "general public". Try looking down sometime, at the billions of people who need better things than space travel.
- mylons 5y agoget over yourself. you think it’s going to be $250k in 10 years and the billions of people on the planet will not see benefit from the tech advances that come from that?
- machinehermiter 5y agoThe Concorde was inflation adjusted $12,900 round trip and failed miserably. It feels like every 10 years we bail out airlines when we hit a bad recession. I would really question how much of a business model there will be for this at this price point once you don't make a headline by just taking a flight on it.
- fighterpilot 5y ago> $250K/trip is not "general public". Almost every major hard-tech innovation was once prohibitively expensive. Look at solar panels, cars, phones, computers, etc. The cost comes (way) down later on with economies of scale and perfection of the production process.
- mylons 5y agoexactly. alison’s view is completely ignorant of history.
- neither_color 5y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoI think that what's most impressive is seeing a billionaire put his money where his mouth is. The rich can live a life with near zero risk and live in absolute luxury for a longer than average life span. Or you can do things like this.
- cptaj 5y agoI've never understood why most millionaires don't use the money to do interesting things at all
- ausudhz 5y agoFear or loosing them all
- jdavis703 5y agoAn average house in most Bay Area counties costs over $1,000,000. That’s even outside SF and Silicon Valley. Being a millionaire is hardly enough money to do interesting things that require intensive capital.
- chacho 5y agoIn the US. Different story in Europe or other places
- alisonkisk 5y agoLand is expensive, not houses. Land is non depreciating, financed by loans, not substantially part of wealth. Houses are mostly under $300K depreciating consumables.
- giantandroids 5y agoI don't know much about this project at all and that will be illustrated well with my following question. What are we talking about as far as going into space? This craft resembles a passenger plane more than a rocket.
- cptaj 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=352P0sLMnsw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=352P0sLMnsw Quick explanation of orbital vs suborbital spaceflight
- ausudhz 5y agoThey idea is to have fast international flights by allowing the plane to go in the orbit for a short while and come down again. So instead of spreading 10 hours in a flight you may cut it down to 3
- ricardobeat 5y agoIs it? I can’t find any mentions of that plan. This ship was designed for space tourism, the burn is so short it doesn’t really go much far - it even lands back on the same location it launched from. On top of that, a seat will cost half a million dollars. SpaceX and maybe Blue Origin can do that, but Virgin would need a different aircraft.
- ausudhz 5y agohttps://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-unveils-mach-3-aircraft-design-for-high-speed-travel-and-signs-memorandum-of-understanding-with-rolls-royce/ https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-unve...
- ricardobeat 5y agoYeah, that’s a completely different design for high speed travel in the atmosphere.
- jerkstate 5y agoProof that space travel is easier than Formula 1
- gonzo41 5y agoLess rules! you only have to obey physics and not the stewards.
- cj 5y ago> If today's flight reaches space successfully it will set a record: there will be 16 humans in space simultaneously for the first time ever. I hope Moore's law applies to this!
- Darmody 5y agoIn a couple years we all should be in Space then.
- baggy_trough 5y agoOr at least 32 of us.
- Darmody 5y agoWe're going to have more and more launches like this. Virgin did it today, Blue Origin will do it in a few days and others will come later.
- trothamel 5y agoSpaceX will be launching the Inspiration4 flight sometime this year. I believe that will be the first private orbital flight. (Without at least one government astronaut or cosmonaut on board.)
- nabla9 5y agoGoodbuy to CO2 limits then.
- cjbenedikt 5y agoI surely get down voted for this as well. Good thing we can openly debate things on HN. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The lowest-hanging fruit for solving global warming+air pollution is REDUCING energy use<br><br>Instead, these bozos are wasting energy+polluting the troposphere+stratosphere.<a href="https://twitter.com/richardbranson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@richardbranson</a> https://twitter.com/richardbranson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ric... launch to space looks to beat <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JeffBezos</a> https://twitter.com/JeffBezos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JeffBezo.... But all of humanity loses.<a href="https://t.co/nwREJ2muSU">https://t.co/nwREJ2muSU</a></p>— https://t.co/nwREJ2muSU">https://t.co/nwREJ2muSU</a></p>&mda... Mark Z. Jacobson (@mzjacobson) <a href="https://twitter.com/mzjacobson/status/1414246454227456005?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July https://twitter.com/mzjacobson/status/1414246454227456005?re... 11, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
- quijoteuniv 5y agoI am really surprised these billionares do not get more bad press for taking their greed and selfishness to suborbital levels!
- aardvarkr 5y agoIs pushing the frontier of space such a bad idea?
- user-the-name 5y agoZero frontiers have been pushed here.
- robotresearcher 5y agoSpace tourism, not space. There are two space stations orbiting overhead this flight today, which is very much more technically difficult.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoWith them making such a big deal out of it I thought they were going into orbit and would stay there for a bit. I regret wasting time watching this, the celebrities and fake grandiosity didn't make it any more interesting.
- tailspin2019 5y agoCan you see past the showmanship of the stream and at least recognise the technical achievement?
- user-the-name 5y agoThe technical achievement happened years and years ago.
- jeffbee 5y agoWhy is this even remotely interesting in light of the fact that Scaled launched pretty much this same aircraft to a higher altitude, 18 years ago?
- nine_k 5y agoThe news is that it's still alive and successfully kicking. Oh snap, I was mistaken. ~~The death of Burt Rutan changed a lot :( As far as I understand, the original launch craft was lost in that crash, too.~~
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoWrong guy? A quick check on Wikipedia seems to show Burt Rutan is still alive.
- tailspin2019 5y agoYeah, I had to quickly fact check that one too.
- hindsightbias 5y agoRutan is alive.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoBecause you can too! For $250k. Including beverages. I'll be interested to see if Branson stops there or tries to go for orbit. The obvious long-term play would be a space hotel, because the Scaled craft is really just a fast car ride. And It's taken a very long time indeed to get that far. Orbit is an order of magnitude more difficult, and a full-time space station at least one or two orders of magnitude more difficult than that.
- tailspin2019 5y ago> Orbit is an order of magnitude more difficult See Virgin Orbit [0] (a separate entity to Virgin Galactic) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit
- kiba 5y agoI get that we're all excited about space, this one rated a "meh" for me. SpaceX is doing more ambitious things and already launched people into space.
- zeroonetwothree 5y agoIt concerns me that we are so celebratory about these hugely energy wasting vanity projects.
- nosianu 5y agoI think you just described life (not that of any one individual, but all of it, the biological meaning). PS: I usually hate snarky one-liners, especially on HN which is supposed to have more substance, but in this instance I stand by my one-liner because even after giving it some thought I think it's a valid reply. Asking for a reason is just useless after a few iterations. The first time I noticed this was when I was still pretty young and watched one of those nature documentary movies (The Living Desert, possibly). When, completely by chance, conditions are right life "explodes". There is no reason apart from that it can. And then it all goes away (meaning everything dies!) when conditions are not good any more. Stuff (and life) just happens.
- tailspin2019 5y agoWow, some of the negativity in the comments here astounds me.
- Hoasi 5y agoHaving differing opinions is healthy. Some of the negative commenters offer valid points that are worth discussing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- songzme 5y agoImagine the heat waves when space travel becomes more accessible. 10 years ago I would have celebrated this because it is an incredible technical achievement. But today, I just have a hard time celebrating such flagrant acts of pollution.
- the_third_wave 5y agoImagine this were the reaction when Kennedy proposed the USA should put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, "not because it is easy but because it is hard".
- alisonkisk 5y agoDoing it the first time is interesing.
- songzme 5y agoI'm sorry I don't see your point. When Kennedy proposed USA should put a man on the moon, fewer people were concerned about climate change than there are today. How do you make sense of the intensifying forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, and someone burning fossil fuels to go to space?
- the_third_wave 5y agoPeople had another cause to worry over back in those days, this being the cold war between the west and the east. With the demise of the Soviet Union came the freedom (for some) and need (for others) to find new causes to fight for, climate change being one of them. The USA was hit by a number of record-setting heat waves in the 30's [1,2] which are probably best-known under the colloquial term "Dust Bowl" - the 1930s (the Dust Bowl years) are remembered as the driest and warmest decade for the United States, and the summer of 1936 featured the most widespread and destructive heat wave to occur in the Americas in centuries [3]. Even though many of the temperature records set in those years still stand [4] there was no talk about climate change because people were too busy trying to survive the dust bowl and the resulting economic effects while still reeling from the great depression which preceded it. [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1815380C/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1815380C/abstra... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave [3] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/06/the_heat_waves_of_the_1930s.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/06/... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_tempe...
- antupis 5y agoCan that kind spaceship design get orbit in future or is this design dead end without somekind breaktrought in material and rocket science?
- Robotbeat 5y agoThat exact design is a dead end but no breakthroughs are needed for orbital spaceflight. See what SpaceX is doing with reusable rockets, for instance. And Space Shuttle, although economically unsuccessful, showed that material and rocket science from 40 years ago made it physically possible.
- x43b 5y agoI think the tilting tail and minimal thermal protection system concept will always remain suborbital. But there are reusable space glider concepts like X-37 and Dream Chaser.
- Liron 5y agoBranson’s decades-long passion and perseverance is an inspiration
- astatine 5y agoThe launch event was revealing in itself. From NASA to SpaceX to Virgin, there is a huge shift in the launch coverage. Today's event was for the large part an ad for future passengers and I suspect that it was due to the rather "routine-looking" take off and landing. Despite the fact that this was path-breaking, the natural theatre of a launch was missing and had to be created by artificial means with the colorful space suits, the music launch and so on. In a way, this is great. It makes it very likely that we will have thousands of "astronauts" in the not too distant future and scheduled flights to space.
- tailspin2019 5y agoYeah this is an interesting take. I felt the same, the "theatre" was a bit (very?) awkward at times, but you're right that this is really a sign that that we're on the way to things like this becoming increasingly "routine". Edit: I should add that I find any opportunity to hear Chris Hadfield talk about space is well worth the time.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SergeAx 5y agoIt was a demo of quite expensive commercial entertainment product, of course it would look like that.
- xyst 5y agoIs it ever mentioned how much pollution is generated per flight? I can’t see suborbital space travel becoming common if each flight emits millions of pounds of GHG. With the rise of environmental awareness and even talks of introducing environmental crimes, I hope these companies address these problems before becoming generally available to the public.
- xwdv 5y agoA single cargo ship pollutes an order of magnitude more than any of these space flights. On a one way trip.
- jorge-d 5y agoOne can argue that a cargo ship is benefiting much more people than a spaceflight only enjoyed by the very rich. The carbon footprint per capita is quite incomparable.
- relativ575 5y agoThe excitement and inspiration that something like Apollo or Falcon Heavy generate cannot be quantified. Many young people have chosen science career because of spaceflights they follow. That include climate and earth science. To use as an analogy, can you measure the impact of Chopin or Mozart's music? Mozart made a lot of money performing at private events sponsored by the riches, as well as from lessons for their children.
- jorge-d 5y agoI have nothing against private space exploration, I just don't see how this applies to this kind of space tourism. They are not breaking any frontier or discovering anything, just using a huge amount of resources and energy to put very wealthy people in zero-g flights for x minutes. I don't see how we can justify that given how unsustainable that industry is.
- bashinator 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- yepthatsreality 5y agoIt is not clear who this benefits. A lot of commentary is cheering on science which is noble, but what exactly does “faster flights around the world” really help? I think most people can’t think of situation for the near future that a rocket would help solve. The other side is people wishing money was better spent on issues of the world. I can’t help but admit it is a bit solution in search of a problem.
- jpollock 5y agoIt's a business, it benefits the shareholders. Virgin Galactic believes there is a market for tourism packages to space at $250,000 per seat.
- yepthatsreality 5y agoYes, I felt better need to paint the rest of the picture. Essentially humanity is cheering on the equivalent of $0.25 kiddy rides outside of a grocery store for the wealthy.
- antoniuschan99 5y agoThis map that shows how fast it takes us to travel from days in 1900s to hours in present time https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3385856/amp/What-difference-century-makes-Maps-reveal-long-takes-travel-world-1914-2016.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3385856/amp/... Eventually it will be minutes
- aazaa 5y ago> Branson, in remarks from his Virgin Galactic flight on Sunday, said the spaceflight was the “complete experience of a lifetime” shortly after the spacecraft successfully took off over New Mexico. The most striking thing about this is not the idea of suborbital flight (not new), nor the involvement of a private company (also not new), nor the idea of a spacecraft launching from a plane (also not new). What's new and mind-blowing is that space travel can be an experience that people will pay for. You're not taking a suborbital flight, you're becoming an astronaut. As the initial novelty of "being to space" wears off, there will be demand (and money) to fund ever more unusual space experiences. At some point, it will become clear that there's not just one or two space travel companies, but a space travel industry. Then what?
- ronyfadel 5y agoThen we go spend a week of vacation on another planet.
- isoskeles 5y ago> What's new and mind-blowing is that space travel can be an experience that people will pay for. You're not taking a suborbital flight, you're becoming an astronaut. This is like saying being a passenger on a plane makes me a pilot.
- coldcode 5y agoThe only people that can pay to be an "astronaut" atm are billionaires, or close to. Someday maybe it might be something ordinary people can do, long after I am dead. When Disney builds a park in orbit or on Mars and fills it up, then space travel is affordable (if you view Disney as affordable today!).
- kevinventullo 5y agoI thought the cost of going up was going to be ~ $100k’s? If so, that means it’s accessible to millions of people, but definitely not billions.
- nradov 5y ago
- geocrasher 5y agoI think that what's rubbing so many people the wrong way in this thread isn't the technical accomplishment. That was incredible. On the other hand, the self-congratulatory rhetoric was thick. While I was watching it, I said to myself "their video probably isn't working because they knocked the antenna out of alignment when they pat themselves on the back so hard." It didn't help that the narration was just awful. When the stream buffer finally started playing and we got a mashed up snippet of Branson talking, she (the narrator/commentator) commented that it was late because it was really far away... what!? I know it was off the top of her head but that's just stupid. So: Congrats on the technical accomplishment, but the rest of the dog and pony show made it look like the worlds most expensive carnival ride.
- Schweigi 5y agoBut it is the most expensive carnival ride! What we saw today is the birth of space tourism. That’s what made the live stream so exciting. Right now it’s still expensive but with the super re-usable approach of Virgin Galactic costs will get lower and lower. In the future (years) it mit might only cost a few thousand bucks for a ride. That’s also why the live stream was so “commercial” - to show you the future where going to space (even if briefly) is nothing more than a plane ride with Dave and Mike as your pilots.
- SergeAx 5y agoI would not call it "space tourism". "Suborbital tourism" is better term.
- skrebbel 5y ago> she (the narrator/commentator) commented that it was late because it was really far away Sounds like it might have been a joke? I'd giggle for sure.
- TheJoeMan 5y agoI really appreciated the Bicycling up antics … surrounded by 2! huge SUVs.
- Pulcinella 5y agoDidn’t Branson already go to space in one of his Virgin Galactic craft years ago?
- totoglazer 5y agoNope, this was his first.
- alea_iacta_est 5y agoI can't wait for that new wave of rich people telling us how "earth is beautiful from above" and how us peasants should "stop making kids and eat burgers" that they can continue jumping in their little rocket and enjoy being above us all.
- king_magic 5y agoBased on the comments in this thread, this is the most I've ever been disappointed in the HN community. What Branson & his team did today was incredible and will pay off in spades for the future of humanity. I'd rather live in a world with folks like Branson instead of a world made up of the astonishingly short-sighted naysayers here.
- mikewarot 5y agoNo, its not incredible. It's basically a supersonic airplane with a few rockets attached so it re-enters the atmosphere the right attitude. Top speed: ~4000 kph Orbital Speed: ~28,000 kph, which is 7 times the speed, 49 times the kinetic energy. Meanwhile, Elon's old car is in space, moving away from earth at about 60,000 kph Source: https://www.whereisroadster.com/ https://www.whereisroadster.com/
- alea_iacta_est 5y ago> What Branson & his team did today was incredible and will pay off in spades for the future of humanity. Terrestrial tourism has already pretty much destroyed this planet, what long-term good can you foresee here, seriously?
- veryoldaccount 5y ago> June 3, 2020 > Just created a new account just to tell you we're at least 2 conservatives in tech. Pretty sure I'll get angry and abandon this account very soon again because of the liberal bias here, and their adoration for the downvote button, but whatever, anything for a conservative colleague :) Glad to see your account is living its best life, and that you're using HN as an outlet for your anger. Really this sort of thing should last 3-6 months at most though, that's been the case for me anyway. Maybe you're in a rut? Cheers.
- thehappypm 5y agoI agree. A new industry was just created today. Can’t we just take that in?
- SergeAx 5y ago
- DerekBickerton 5y agoDon't forget, this is not just billionaires and their toys, it's about Democratizing Space Tourism[0]. You have to admire the billionaires who act as guinea pigs in these endeavors. Soon people with a lot less money than Branson/Bezos will be able to fly to space and see the curvature of the globe, all thanks to the initial experiments by explorers like Branson/Bezos. [0] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/05/08/democratizing-space-one-billionaire-at-a-time-the-return-of-space-tourism/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/05/08/democratizing-space-o...
- maverick-iceman 5y agoWhat's the point? Astronauts and cosmonauts who have been on the ISS's famous globe window...it's not like they were overwhelmed or collapsed onto the ground crying because of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXi9PTh96w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXi9PTh96w What makes our jaw drop is wired into our brain for evolutionary purposes. A wonderful wheat field = means abundant food An amazing lake/river = means abundant drinking water An incredibly attractive woman = means possibility to pass down genes If travelling at 600mph and 40000ft gets old so fast, I think so will the trip at 50 km or 100 or even 200. Bezos and Branson are happy and pumped because they are the people behind the effort and managed to allocate raw materials, human resources, goodwill, money...in a way which made them succeed at something so hard as space travel. But it's not unlike what the CEO of BioNtech and Moderna felt, or even Zuckerberg , Brin or Gates for their endevours.
- DerekBickerton 5y ago> It's not like they were overwhelmed or collapsed onto the ground crying because of it. Being able to see the curvature of the very planet you live on shouldn't have to be a a rare and expensive privilege. After all, you were born on this planet, and it would be nice to see roughly half of it in one glance from space. You don't know what that feels like if you haven't experienced it.
- maverick-iceman 5y ago> rare and expensive privilege Rare and expensive privileges give us satisfaction. Besides the things we are wired to like for evolutionary purposes, the more expensive and exclusive a thing is, the more we are satisfied with it. It's not the thing in itself, but the validation we get because it's something done by few. As soon as you step into a commercial plane you look down for like 1 hour and then go straight to the movies. As soon as you get in a private jet it seems amazing for like 5 hours before you realize that you are in an RV which is capable of flying. The half life of non evolutionary driven experiences is very short.
- Vaslo 5y agoIs that really the crew? Or is this like a Milli Vanilli kind of thing?
- Donckele 5y agoCongrats to the team but what a rushed job. The live stream was a disaster and I’m sure it had to do with Branson vs Bezos. It was so amateur and commercial. I bet Bezos will demand a far better demo of the new spaceport service.
- dev_tty01 5y agoAt peak altitude when the video/audio link failed, the commentator, referring to the lack of comments from Branson: “We’ll be sure to capture his magical words and share them with the world when they are available.” Had a hard time keeping my breakfast down. Geez. Seems they should have purchased time on the Starlink sat network for comms. This was followed by: “Remember the day, remember where you are, remember who you shared this with, and remember the name Virgin Galactic, because today, space is Virgin territory.” If over-hype leads to business success, I guess they are on their way. The professional, highly trained pilot/astronauts were referred to as Dave and Mike. Every mention of Branson was Sir Richard Branson. Amazing tech, but $250K for 6 minutes of weightlessness? Not exactly democratizing space. It might work out eventually, but hard to see the payoff for the massive investment to date.
- avmich 5y ago> It might work out eventually, but hard to see the payoff for the massive investment to date. I guess for many it was hard to see the payoff of "beep, beep" on October 4th, 1957. I likely wouldn't see its importance - by myself, but I've got good explanations. Now I see. Virgin Galactic flight is lower than what Blue Origin promises to do in several days. Both of those systems are examples of pretty good engineering, and both promise even better performance in the future. I think VG's approach is overall better on the grounds of more inherent safety. And the safer the flights are, the easier it's to make them accessible to everybody - thus the path to the democratization. The big investments are done today and last decades - remember SpaceShipOne? - but today we see another milestone reached, and even though it's $250K for 4 minutes (?) of weightlessness, it's way more than unavailability of the past. But we won't stop here, of course.
- SergeAx 5y agoThe actual message from "beep, beep" on October 4th, 1957 was that: hey, we can now deliver a bomb over the ocean in an hour and it is unstoppable.
- SergeAx 5y agoMore likely 3 minutes from what I heard on the stream.
- xamdam 5y agoThis is amazing and inspirational engineering. Can they scale this up to taking humans & large payloads to orbit? It seems hard to run this business sustainably on millionaire tourists, 4-minute science experiments and ads. Anyone have an idea of what their business plan is?
- gameswithgo 5y agono, the design isn’t applicable to orbital flight
- mch82 5y agoToday’s launch vehicle was SpaceShipTwo. The next model (SpaceShip III, revealed in March) is planned to be capable of flying London to Sydney in less than three hours.
- f00zz 5y agoThat was the original concept, unfortunately the current SpaceShip III won't be capable of point-to-point transportation. > "The current SpaceShip III is designed to provide just a few minutes of weightlessness and views for space tourists for Virgin Galactic, and is a production version of SpaceShipTwo, with improved maintenance and flight rate performance and does not have point to point transportation capabilities as previously envisioned in 2016." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShip_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShip_III
- failwhaleshark 5y agoI guess there's really a slippery, spectrum definition of "space." FL3300, FL2600, etc. The Kármán line (FL3300) could be considered "space" since it's roughly where aerodynamic lift is no longer possible.
- courtf 5y agoBranson got infinitesimally closer to the stars and supposedly achieved his dream, although the 50 years spent on other businesses would seem to indicate he took a rather circuitous route to that dream. His pyramid is made of assets and holdings, rather than the sandstone of the ancient Egyptians, but we shall see whose monument to narcissism outlasts the other.