Virgin Galactic Launch Today Sun 11 Jul

[jjohnson3803]

Ok, so the live coverage is a little schlocky, but congratulations to Virgin on a successful mission!

 

[saac]

1 hour ago, Alien 13 said:

At what altitude can you say you touched the edge of space? my best effort was on board a Korean airlines 747 flying over Russia at 52,000 feet due to the missile threat at the time, still got buzzed by a couple of Migs..

Alan

The Karmen line 330,000ft (62 miles) above sea level is general standard  to mark the boundary .  52,000ft is not bad going Alan , not surprising you got buzzed. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line

Jim 

[Alien 13]

5 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

Ok, so the live coverage is a little schlocky, but congratulations to Virgin on a successful mission!

 

I guess they added some delay into the live transmission which may have added to this so if anything went wrong they could pull the plug quickly.

Alan

[AstroNebulee]

Very underwhelming 

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

My question is,

If offered a free ride on this one, would you take it?

No, I'd rather go to proper space I think 

[Paul M]

4 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

If offered a free ride on this one, would you take it?

I've had a couple of rides in one of these:

Not a huge difference, but I'd go for a ride if offered. 

[saac]

9 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Very underwhelming 

Mach 3, 300,000ft  lol.  Ironically the aim is to make space travel like this this "underwhelming" for the armchair warrior  

Jim 

[saac]

2 minutes ago, Paul M said:

I've had a couple of rides in one of these:

Not a huge difference, but I'd go for a ride if offered. 

Highly recommended , good giggle .  

Jim 

[maw lod qan]

My fun was owning one of these for a couple years! Wish I had it again! I would put my grandkids in my lap!

[reddoss]

The Virgin Space program seems to me little more than a multi-millionaires roller coaster ride with extremely limited scientific value. 

[johninderby]

They are starting a satellite launching service that should use a lot less energy than conventional rockets to put a satellite into orbit. 

https://virginorbit.com

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Admittently a fantastic achievement and superb engineering feat, however still aimed at the very upper financial echelon of society and likely to remain so for a long time. So yes, impressive but only for the so called 'elites'.

"We are at the vanguard of a new industry determined to pioneer twenty-first century spacecraft, which will open space to everybody — and change the world for good.", is utter nonsense and patronising marketing blurb. 

A few hundred, maybe a few thousand potential seat buyers compared to 7 billion on spaceship Earth is hardly, "everybody".

Maybe Virgin Galactic has kicked off an industry for many people to enjoy in the far future if they can get costs down, but ultimately unless global politics changes and the gap between rich and poor closes, rather than becoming wider as it currently is doing, then Branson is talking to a select few.

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[wxsatuser]

On 11/07/2021 at 16:24, Alien 13 said:

At what altitude can you say you touched the edge of space? my best effort was on board a Korean airlines 747 flying over Russia at 52,000 feet due to the missile threat at the time, still got buzzed by a couple of Migs..

Alan

A 747's maximum ceiling is 45000feet and modern SAM missiles  go well above 52000feet anyway so it would'nt have mattered anyway.

As to Mr Branson, when he does an orbit and reentry then that will be different and worth doing.

Edited July 14, 2021 by wxsatuser