11 ms·
Virgin Galactic successfully flies tourists to space for first time
- detritus 3y ago'Space'.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoThe final frontier?
- JPLeRouzic 3y agoSpace is the final frontier, not the last frontier, because we must make giant steps in biology to become a spacefaring species.
- Tronno 3y agoThe claimed maximum altitude on previous flights was 87.2 km. There are arguments for and against calling that "space", especially since the vehicle isn't designed for orbit. Either way it's an achievement, and I don't see value in belittling it. Why not express excitement for one day going higher?
- jacquesm 3y agoBecause it is a definition. Just like a kilogram or a meter.
- nickthegreek 3y agodefine it.
- TMWNN 3y agoOnly someone who does not understand what the Karman Line is and is not would claim that there is "a definition for space" like kg or m. If you are now going to resort to "the FAI's definition", by the FAI's standards Yuri Gagarin did not fly the first orbital flight because he ejected from Soyuz I near the end, something the USSR kept secret so it could claim the achievement.
- detritus 3y agoBecause I feel like it's an entirely pointless waste of resource? I don't know if you've noticed, but the world's on fire right now. Moreso though, if you're not achieving orbit, you're not really visiting space proper, imho.
- supazek 3y agoCan you explain why orbit is such an important point to you? If I got launched to 1000 miles out and just “fell” back to earth without achieving orbit I’d definitely consider it a trip into space. Smells like sour grapes. Turn off the news it’s not good for you
- detritus 3y agoIt's not important to me at all. It's a pointless ambition. I'm just sorry that it's seemingly important to other people. shrug
- nickthegreek 3y ago>Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic’s carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 50,000ft. Eve then dropped Unity which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers aboard experienced approximately 3Gs. suborbital, would still be an amazing experience though.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- biofox 3y agoWhen I first watched the XPrize flight in 2004 (!!) on a tiny pixelated video over an ISDN connection, I thought we would only be a couple of years away from regular space tourism. I never would have dreamt that chatbots would pass the Turing test before Virgin Galactic became operational. Predicting technological advancements is hard.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI really don’t think our current crop of chat bots can pass a Turing test. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37057043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37057043
- justrealist 3y agoNone of those examples are GPT-4
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI paid for GPT-4 and noticed some weird behavior that seemed reproducible, so you could test for those things to reveal if you’re talking to a person or a chatbot. Biggest thing is you can ask it for a story of someone’s childhood (you can’t ask it for its childhood) and it will provide a plausible sounding but not internally consistent story.
- 93po 3y agoYou can also just ask it what time it is, or what day it is, or how much time has elapsed since your last message. It doesn't know any of these.
- justrealist 3y agoThat's an incredibly stupid Turing test, and you know it.
- ojosilva 3y agoOceanGate in the making. Or would that be Blue Origin?
- xwdv 3y agoNot really. Space is a really chill environment. The worst that could happen is your spaceship blows up, but we’ve gotten pretty good at not doing that lately. The bottom of the sea is far harsher and less forgiving. Everything about it tells you you’re not supposed to be there.
- kayodelycaon 3y agoIt's a fair question because Virgin Galactic had played pretty fast and loose with safety in the past. It was only a matter of time before they killed someone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise_crash Fortunately, they don't seem to have had a major incident since 2014 and the FAA has certified them for commercial flights.
- consumer451 3y ago> It's a fair question because Virgin Galactic had played pretty fast and loose with safety in the past. This is a tangent, but I was thinking that we got a bit lucky with the first Starship orbital flight test.[0] When you look back, chunks of fondag could have easily taken out specific Raptors which would have led to a trajectory towards a city. Now we know that Booster 7's flight termination system was basically non-functional. SpaceX has a pretty great reputation with safety, nothing like Virgin, but that Starship test seemed far from safe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_Integrated_Flight_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_Integrated_Fli...
- panick21_ 3y agoKind of an overestimation. From the launch site to actually have a trajectory that hits the inhabited part of the island isn't that easy. One Raptor getting hit wouldn't be enough. The whole central steerable core of engines being knocked out, and not only that, in a way that shifts the trajectory in the exact 'right' place is incredibly unlikely. Specially as the rocket would likely also try differential steering. The flight termination system might very well have worked just fine in most circumstances. By the time it was triggered the rocket was in strange position and already flipping. We don't have official information yet but it seems likely that had something to do with it. For anything bad to happen a huge number of very low-probability events would have to combine to lead to that outcome.
- rasz 3y agoThats a lot of words just to not mention actual altitude.
- jacquesm 3y agoPrecisely my observation. My google fu seems to be failing me as well.
- dghughes 3y ago88.5139km (55 mi) according to https://twitter.com/virgingalactic/status/1689673869165305856?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet https://twitter.com/virgingalactic/status/168967386916530585... I would have assumed at least 100km.
- lostlogin 3y agoThe say 55 miles here - same km. https://www.virgingalactic.com/news/virgin-galactic-completes-first-private-astronaut-spaceflight-galactic-02 https://www.virgingalactic.com/news/virgin-galactic-complete...
- jacquesm 3y agoThis article carefully avoids mentioning how high they went, is there any information on what actual altitude they reached during the flight?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jyunwai 3y agoSpace.com's coverage includes the specific altitude [1], listing 88.4 km: "The space plane reached a maximum speed of about Mach 2.9 on Galactic-02 — 2.9 times the speed of sound — and a peak altitude of 290,000 feet (88.4 kilometers) before heading back down to Earth. It aced a runway touchdown at Spaceport America around 11:32 a.m. EDT (1532 GMT)." This tracks with CBC News's estimate [2], which reports that the flight generally reaches an altitude of "more than 80 kilometres up," though the CBC's report does not include altitude numbers specific to this flight. [1] https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-galactic02-launch-success https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-galactic02-launch-succ... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/virgin-galactic-tourists-1.6932451 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/virgin-galactic-tourists-1.6...
- jacquesm 3y agoThen they shouldn't be using 'space' in the title. If they're going to dilute that term then what's the point in having it in the first place.
- eagerpace 3y ago“Space” has a relatively arbitrary definition and these tourists vehicles have been designed to reach it just barely. Fun experience but they have little in common with orbital rockets.
- jgrahamc 3y agoThis is going to be like hackers vs. crackers. We're going to try to fight for space to be > 100km and astronauts to be people who've been to space and we're going to fail. Especially since space in the US sometimes means > 80km and hence astronauts are people above 80km. I think we need a word for someone who's gone orbital into space.
- ilaksh 3y agoIs it feasible for them to build an orbital version? I want the concept of launching from altitude to work because it seems like the heavy atmosphere part has different requirements and so having another vehicle to help with that seems intuitive. I also wonder if you could make orbital flight with this type of system more achievable if the delivery aircraft and/or the rocket had scramjet ability so that it was more efficient.
- Analemma_ 3y agoNo, it can't even come close to reaching orbital velocity. Fundamentally it's just a plane with a rocket motor on it that can go up and back down; something which could orbit and deorbit would be a completely different vehicle entirely.
- rqtwteye 3y agoNot an expert but as far as I know, orbital is way, way more difficult. You need to reach speeds several times higher and then also deal with reentry
- brucethemoose2 3y ago> I want the concept of launching from altitude to work because it seems like the heavy atmosphere part has different requirements and so having another vehicle to help with that seems intuitive. This is essentially what multi-stage rockets are. Only the lowest stage is optimized for heavy atmosphere. The "dropping from a plane" thing is theoretically a good idea. Wings and jets save lots of fuel. But in practice one needs a hilariously large plane to carry a modest rocket, and it needs to be hypersonic to really give the dropped rocket a good orbital kick, and the linkage between the rocket/plane needs to not blow up. Historically... You mind as well build a massive vertical first stage. You could strap jets to a first stage and try to reuse it. Hello KSP!
- ramesh31 3y ago>I want the concept of launching from altitude to work because it seems like the heavy atmosphere part has different requirements and so having another vehicle to help with that seems intuitive. This is what they tried and failed with Virgin Orbit. The economics of plane launch just don't work out versus the logistical hassle of it.
- darkclouds 3y agoWhilst its to the edge of space where weightlessness is only experienced for a few minutes, in terms of scalable processes for the masses to experience space, this seems to be one approach that could scale up quickly.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoOfficial release: https://press.virgingalactic.com/virgin-galactic-completes-first-private-astronaut-spaceflight-galactic-02 https://press.virgingalactic.com/virgin-galactic-completes-f...
- wunderland 3y agoWhat a massive waste of the limited carbon budget we have remaining as a species. The techno-optimists who think this is bootstrapping more humanity-serving missions (like a colony on Mars or the Moon) are lying to themselves. We are squeezing every last resource that makes Earth livable to enrich a few people short-term, but we will all suffer for this in the next few decades.
- throwaway4220 3y agoI share your sentiment but rocket launch is not that massive right now actually.
- gnulinux 3y agoVery poor point. The entire point of creating a company that wants to operate in this market is to invest in it, make it more efficient and "space tourism" more accessible. It costs a kidney (or a billionaire's savings) now but surely their business plan is for more people to buy their product.
- throwaway4220 3y agoFair. I guess my counterpoint would be it may enable off world manufacturing which may be a net benefit for the planet?
- gnulinux 3y agoIt's devastating to see comments like this downvoted. Sure, maybe the tone could be improved, could be perhaps less arrogant or judgemental, or maybe whiny. I don't know what the downvoters thought. But I hope people realize how extremely precarious of a position we're in as species. To live sustainably on this planet we all must be asking these questions, whether space travel -- or, suborbital flight tourism -- is in the budget.
- tgv 3y ago> Sure, maybe the tone could be improved Sometimes, you just have to call out the obvious. But it's been upvoted again. It seems more people have a rather dim idea of this contribution to science and humanity.
- yieldcrv 3y ago> Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth’s curvature Glad they acknowledged that, never realized how close commercial airplane flights were to that
- kayodelycaon 3y agoNot quite. :) The Conorde flew at 60,000 ft and modern corporate jets can get up to 50,000ft. For comparison, the SR-71 flew at 85,000 ft.
- yieldcrv 3y agoOh okay then thats pathetic
- hnthrowaway0315 3y agoI wonder what's the commercial price point. I wish it could be as low as 30k USD in 10 years so maybe I can do that too.
- vkou 3y agoA suborbital flight is not exactly 'going to space' in any meaningful terms. If lack of air qualifies as going to space, then the economy flight I was on last week got me four-fifths of the way to space. Neither it, nor VG is anywhere close to capable of taking me into orbit, though.
- pavon 3y agoVirgin Galactic prices will likely never go down. They had to spend far more money than expected to scale up from SS1 to passenger flights. They have around 600 reservations at $200K, and it is questionable whether they can break even providing flights at those prices. They won't begin to make profit and be able to earn back their upfront investments until they complete those reservations, and start flying new customers for whom the price is now $450K. Blue Origin's approach is more scalable, but they won't talk price at all which suggests they are charging just as much if not more - likely whatever the market will bear. It will be a long time before they've flown all the customers who are willing and able to pay current prices, so there is no profit incentive to decrease prices. NASA has contracted SpaceX Dragon flights at about $70M per seat, and the OIG estimates the cost to SpaceX at $55M per seat. If we are extremely optimistic about Starship and say it will cost the same amount to launch as Falcon 9 / Dragon, and has 100 passengers instead of 4, that brings the price down to $2-3M per seat, so still way more than Virgin Galactic, although you get more as well (Inspiration 4 was LEO for 3 days, instead of freefall for 3 minutes). The only way I could see the prices going down significantly is if you had something like Starship alone (without super heavy booster) doing frequent sub-orbital hops (like daily). I won't venture a price WAG for that though.
- dotnet00 3y agoPlus the insurance on virgin galactic flights is probably pretty expensive too, assuming they can get it at all. It's a deliberately dangerous design, needlessly putting passenger lives at stake for the sake of claiming to be human piloted. At least Blue's vehicle has shown itself to be pretty safe for passengers.
- SonicScrub 3y agoI see a lot of discussion/arguments on the definition of space here. Allow me to fill in few relevant details of how "space" is defined. There is no clear definition of a boundary between space and not-space. Some like to use the definition of "space" as "no-meaningful atmosphere". Note that the atmosphere does extended very far indeed into what we typically deem "space". Typically we model gases (like the atmosphere) as discrete packets of continuous properties. If density is below a very low threshold, we can't do that, and have to model gases using rarified models (where gas behaves more like individual particles). If we use the 1976 Standard Atmosphere model this happens at above 86km. Therefore to atmospheric scientists, space is 86km. Now let's say you're building an orbital space plane. To stay aloft, your gravity opposing forces come from two sources: aerodynamic lift and centrifugal force. When you go faster, both forces increase, so for every altitude, there's a speed which keeps you aloft. However lift force is a function of density, and density drops with altitude. Therefore there is a point where aerodynamic lift is essentially meaningless compared with the centrifugal. At this point, you are more of a orbital vehicle than an aerodynamic one, so we can say that you are "in orbit". This altitude is The Kalman line. The important thing to note is that the Kalman Line is a definition prescribed to a specific vehicle (the Bell X-2, although it is rarely discussed in that context). Changing the weight and lift properties change it. Hence the boundary is very fuzzy and the exact source of definition changes depending on how it's calculated. It's also been calculated based on aerothermal heating considerations, and based on the operational limits of air-breathing engines. Therefore, it's been cited as 83km, 86km, 90km and 100km depending on the specific source. A key takeaway here is that The Kalman Line is a speed as well as an altitude, so it doesn't even make sense to use this as a boundary in a suborbital context. But for orbital scientists/engineers, you safely say that's space is not below 80km, and certainly above 100km. Now imagine you are the US Air force and some of your pilots flew an experimental aircraft (the X-15) 90km altitude, and you want to put astronaut wings on them to gain some inter-service rivalry clout. Well for you, the definition of space is then 90km. Now let's say you are the FAA and want to quantify where your jurisdiction ends. Well, pick an arbitrary definition based on Kalman's notes. 100km should be good enough for your needs. Now let's say you are a satellite engineer and want a definition where your satellites will actually stay in orbit for a few trips around the earth without thrust corrections. Pretty hard to do at 80km, there's too much air. As it turns out the lowest sustained circular orbits occur at around 125 km. So 125 km is a good definition of space for you. There's some much needed historical context. Now let the useless arguments surrounding the pedantry of fuzzy definitions continue.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoBut there's nothing to do out there. Unless they build a casino or resort (moon seems like best target) what's the point.