Vrgin Galactic, your thoughts?

[ollypenrice]

For me this whole thing is a glorified fairground ride intended to toss the very rich far enough up into the air to let them experience free fall in an equivalently free falling environment for a few seconds - and all this at a staggering environmental cost. (The old 'zero G' fallacy is constantly a-lurknig in the background here.)

But, attack being the best form of defence, the Virgin website markets the thing as a way of pioneering greener access to space via lighter technology than used at present.

Are you convinced?

Olly

[brianb]

this whole thing is a glorified fairground ride

Agreed

Virgin website markets the thing as a way of pioneering greener access to space via lighter technology than used at present.

The concept of using an airborne launcher for light low earth orbit satellite launches is not new e.g. the Pegasus satellite launcher. And Burt Rutan's mothership design is significantly better than using converted commercial / military transports for the purpose. But it's essentially doing about 1/2 the work of the first stage, at best, and the concept is not viable for heavy satellites including manned orbiters.

IMHO the alternative concept of using an air breathing first stage, gradually changing over to stored oxygen as the usable atmosphere is left behind, has more potential in the long term.

[Ben Ritchie]

I guess as well as zero-G you get to see the curvature of the Earth and a black sky above you. Must be quite a view.

[Starblazer]

And you get an astronaught badge

[TheThing]

I think it's great. You need to look at the big picture. Govt funded space agencies will soon be a thing of the past and, unless we want space exploration to become dead in the water, private enterprise is the way forward.

As with al things, you have to walk before you can run.

[Starblazer]

And on another note, If I won the lottery ... i'd take as many of those who are close to me, up there for a view also Wonder if you get a discount for group booking lmfao.

[ollypenrice]

Hmmm, but if you want to make good shuttles then you should set out to make good shuttles, I reckon. Similarly if you want to make good road cars then set out to do that. Making Formula One cars and using road cars as an excuse is one of those bogus bits of reasoning that I can never accept.

Olly

[lukebl]

I'd feel pretty short-changed about it. Let's be honest, it's not as though you'd really be going into space, just a few miles into the upper atmosphere and very much still tied to planet earth. Even the Space Station orbits at only a couple of hundred miles up.

[SniffTheGlove]

Burt is a good designer and his route to space was quicker that the other x-prize contestants but it is a cheating method of using a aero launcher as the first stage as this limits the payload capacity severly.

Also, you have to remember that the SpaceshipOne design is a sealed presserised environment without any form of environmental protection for the passengers (ie they do not wear pressure suits), so if there is a problem them they are in deep do do.

I suspect Spaceship2 is of similar design.

So, it is a fair ground ride, an expensive one and a potentially dangerous one just for a small sub-orbital hop. Compare Alan Shepard's sub orbital hop to Burt's and see the difference in technology and also safety in those last 50 years. Is Burt's better and safer?

[SniffTheGlove]

it's not as though you'd really be going into space, just a few miles into the upper atmosphere

Those few miles is 62.5miles and believe me that is a long way up if something happens. I don't know if Burts design has escape hatches as in SpaceShipOne the access hatch was the nose of vehicle which was only able to be opened from the outside.

[brianb]

if there is a problem them they are in deep do do.

It's no more lethal than Concorde cruising at 56,000 ft.

The real issue here is that Spaceship 1/2 only gets to ~3,000 mph ... as a space experience, it's much less than Shepard & Grissom got on the first two ballistic Mercury flights. However a great deal more comfortable, the Redstone ride gave around 7G peak accelleration in boost and re-entry.

Bear in mind that you need 18,000 mph to enter low earth orbit ... and that the energy required is proportional to the square of the velocity, so Spaceship 1/2 only gets about 3% of the way to orbit by my reckoning.

[TheThing]

Hmmm, but if you want to make good shuttles then you should set out to make good shuttles, I reckon. Similarly if you want to make good road cars then set out to do that. Making Formula One cars and using road cars as an excuse is one of those bogus bits of reasoning that I can never accept.

Olly

If that's the case, why didn't NASA/Russia just go straight for the moon/Mars etc? Why did we have the Ford model T and not straight in with the Focus etc etcPractise makes perfect. Taking members of the public into space is still very much in its infancy.

[ZOG]

Great journeys start with small steps. The time lapse between Gagarins first orbit and the moon landings was short in real terms. With the financial clout of private enterprise, it's entirely possible that orbiting hotels and even moon bases will be in place in the next twenty years. This of course wouild open up a new phase of inter planetary exploration.

[ollypenrice]

No problem with taking incremental steps. Is the purpose of Virgin Galactic really to create new commercial-scientific launchers? I really don't know but I'm deeply suspicious.

Olly

[FraserClarke]

They're a business -- their purpose is to make a profit...

Whether they do that by flinging up satellites (which they probably don't have enough energy to do as Brian says) or giving you a 5 minute freefall in return for $120,000 doesn't matter I suspect; whatever makes most money.

This seems like a very cheap way of getting into space though, and I suspect you'll find the project cost is highly (anti-)correlated with likelihood of accidents. The shuttle costs $60 million dollars per launch (though if you amortize the whole programme costs, it is more like $1 billion dollars per launch), and you still have a 1:75 chance of dying... VG's business model is to make a profit from ~0.5M$ per launch...

A very different challenge of course (20 days in low earth orbit vs 5 minutes above the atmosphere), so it's probably not fair to compare risks directly. Probably It'll all go fine until one blows up, they cancel flights, someone sues them, and the business model collapses. I can't imagine commercial air flight would ever have evolved they way it did in today's litigious culture...

Still, I think it's very cool someone is trying

[perrin6]

My thoughts on the it; 'It has no toilets !', (is what I heard on the news anyway',

Alan

[barkis]

Apart from the view you'd get, and I concede it will be spectacular, It would be cheaper taking a parabolic dive in a plane to get the weightless experience.

I'm an admirer of Richard Branson, but I'd prefer he confined his entrepreneurial endeavours to ground based enterprises.

Ron .

[brianb]

I can't imagine commercial air flight would ever have evolved they way it did in today's litigious culture...

The difference was, commerical air flight essentially started as inter-city transport (faster than train+ferry between London and Paris), not as a very expensive joyride.

[Doc]

Well if I was a multi millionaire I would happily pay £120k to see the thin blue line, the blackness of space and feel weightlessness, even if it's for a few minutes, the feelings you would have running through your mind and body would be utterly fantastic.

Not many people get to feel this so in my books, money well spent.

[Peter Drew]

I'm not one for pooh-pooing something just because I can't afford it. If I won the Euromillions I would put my name down just to see the Earth from space but I don't play so I never will (untill I die! :)). In the meantime I'm happy to hear about the experiences of others. As far as wasting money, I could fill the page with, IMO, much more wastefull enterprises.

[FraserClarke]

The difference was, commerical air flight essentially started as inter-city transport (faster than train+ferry between London and Paris), not as a very expensive joyride.

Yes, but my point was that it's early history is littered with fatal crashes. If that happened today, it would close the whole industry down before it started.

Out of interest, I looked up the cost of very early air travel. The one reference I could find quoted ~$200 for the very first commerical service in 1914; equivalent to ~$5000 today. Quite a lot cheaper than going into space -- but the flight altitude was only 15 feet

[Guest]

Going into space is one of the things I really dream of doing, and I would not hesitate to book if I got the money. When I finish school and get my career going, this is what I want to put most of my spare money aside for, and hopefully I will get a flight in the end.

[JB80]

My thoughts on the it; 'It has no toilets !'

This is what I was going to say, 3 hours and no bog could get rough.

Still I am all for it even though it is unlikely I will ever get to experience it, given the opportunity I would jump at it. As it's been mentioned it is the first step in making space accessible to the public. Things can only get better from here, I mean the Russians are talking of a space hotel and other companies will be entering the market I would imagine pending success of Galactic. So what if money is the major factor, tbh it is with most things these days.

Frankly it gives the common person hope of maybe one day living out there boyhood dreams even if it is not to the extent you may of once imagined.

But even the training alone will be a blast.

I can't help of being reminded of the 'James May at the Edge of Space' documentary where he went to 70,000ft, 13 miles in a U2 spy plane and after he made a comment along the lines of 'everbody should get to experience this and the world may be a different place'. I was moved just watching that, imagine the feeling of being being 6X higher than that.

I don't know, I can't see anything negative about it, certainly it is time somebody broke the monopoly that governments hold on space travel.

[pete_l]

Personally, I think private enterprise is the only thing that could possibly save space exploration and travel. The various governments have had a monopoly on spaceflight and the means of access to space for a little over 50 years. What innovations have we seen in that time? Basically nothing. The liquid-fueled rockets used today are essentially the same as the ones that put Sputnik and Mercury into space (the Proton is a direct descendant of the Sputnik's SS6 launcher - just bigger). This is because governments have little incentive to lower costs and improve efficiencies.

All the previous attempts at something new (remember Hotol ?) were pooh-poohed out of existence, as the people who supply launchers regard anything reusable as a threat. For example, a launcher that can be flown 50 times is seen by the suppliers of rockets as 49 lost sales!

Compare that with aircraft development - which had a great deal of private enterprise. That went from little wooden planes with propellers and piston engines to 747's in the same amount of time.

[Glider]

$5000, MIG, straight up, it goes black, thin blue line.