SpaceShipTwo Flies Free For the First Time 164
mknewman writes "SpaceShipTwo was successfully dropped off its WhiteKnight 2 mothership today from an altitude of 45,000 feet and glided to a landing in the Mojave airstrip." From the article: "More than 300 would-be passengers have already put down more than $45 million in deposits for $200,000-a-seat rides on the plane. The experience will include a roller-coaster rocket ride to a spaceworthy altitude of more than 65 miles, several minutes of weightlessness, a picture-window view of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space ... and spaceflight bragging rights for years afterward."
This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly how train and air travel began, too. The rich will get to play with it at first, then businessmen will get to use it, and finally it'll be available to the rank-and-file citizenry of the world. Within two decades, we'll likely all be able to fly on space trips.
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly how train and air travel began, too. The rich will get to play with it at first, then businessmen will get to use it, and finally it'll be available to the rank-and-file citizenry of the world. Within two decades, we'll likely all be able to fly on space trips.
Except trains and planes took people from where they were to where they wanted to go, for traveling between two earth-based locations space is mostly a big detour. We need some targets out there (space stations, moon base, mars base, something) before traveling in space makes any financial sense. In the big picture these people just lift off, circle the landing strip and come back down. They don't go anywhere.
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Going on foreign holidays doesn't make financial sense either. People do it anyway, for fun.
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People don't fly to a foreign country to stay inside the plane and look outside in awe, then fly back home. That's the problem with space travel, there's literally nothing out there for them to go to yet.
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Sure they do, mostly. They get on a cruise ship, stay aboard most of the time, get off at the ports for short walking trips or whatever, and get back on. Sometimes, they get on a submarine [atlantisadventures.com] and look out the windows in awe, and then go back to their cruise ship.
What exactly do you think people do on foreign vacations? Start businesses or get involved in archeology digs? They walk around (mainly at tourist traps), gawk at everything, then fly back home.
There's tons of stuff to see in space: Earth from orbi
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Going outside to have fun doesn't make financial sense either and is overrated especiually with that big glowing yellow ball outside. [grin]
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We need some targets out there (space stations, moon base, mars base, something) before traveling in space makes any financial sense.
Just release the next ishiny on the moon. They will come.
Long haul trips (Score:4, Insightful)
It still takes me 18 hours fly time + couple hours in transit somewhere in Europe to fly from North America to India.
Orbital technology promises to cut the time to a few hours. I think there is a market there. More so as we increasingly do business with India and China. Sure there is still some time before 65 miles turns to orbital, nonetheless this is a step in this direction.
It excites me that I can consider flying across the globe faster than Earth can rotate the same amount.
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It excites me that I can consider flying across the globe faster than Earth can rotate the same amount.
Concorde's cruising speed was 2170 km/h, which is faster than the Earth rotates. I think they sometimes did sightseeing trips to see a solar eclipse twice (fly across it's path, then fly across it again).
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first trains didn't go anywhere either (Score:5, Informative)
The first trains and planes tended to be just for demonstration as well: check out Trevithick's 1808 Catch Me Who Can [sciencemuseum.org.uk] circular railway in London. People paid to see and have a go on this novelty ride. Others took the concept on from there.
Re:first trains didn't go anywhere either (Score:5, Informative)
The first trains and planes tended to be just for demonstration as well: check out Trevithick's 1808 Catch Me Who Can circular railway in London. People paid to see and have a go on this novelty ride. Others took the concept on from there.
There was also the important barnstorming phase of early aviation, where much of the early cash-flow was people paying to watch pilots perform stunts, or pay to go for a short ride themselves, taking off and landing at the same field:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnstorming#Initial_growth [wikipedia.org]
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Absolutely not! Space is just 100 km up while earth-based locations can be 20,000 km apart. By climbing above the atmosphere a ship avoids air resistance so it can travel much faster. This can definitely make financial sense.
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the thing with Concorde is, when flying fast, the atmosphere is a burden
The longest commercial flight on schedule today is Newark->Singapore at 9500Mi, almost a 19h flight (see wikipedia Non-stop_flight)
I'm sure some will shell the money to get there faster.
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Some will, but not enough to keep the program running. A plane the size of the Concorde needs hundreds of people per day to keep operating and funding its fuel-guzzling engines. Not that many people are willing to pay $5k/seat, so it went bust. Making the plane smaller won't work either; the fuel usage won't fall that much, so the ticket price will increase greatly, further reducing the number of people willing to pay for a seat (the biggest planes like 747s are the most fuel-efficient per passenger).
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Concorde did NOT go bust... it was still a viable business model at the seat price... it got killed because it had a crash that was mightily spectacular and BA dropped the route and kept them grounded long enough for their airworthiness certs to lapse... then some shenanigans happened between BA and the manufacturer to prevent the other operator who wanted to operate the aircraft from getting them re-certed... BA did not like the idea of a no
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Very informative. Thanks.
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Why do you have to continue accelerating in space? As the air thins, accelerate less. You're still doing Mach 10+ when you leave the minimum air density for your engines to work. (of course no one does JUST this, but it's an option to go along with rockets)
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Air also gives you oxidizer for free. That aside, the obvious solution is to go for a ballistic orbit: aim up at an angle and accelerate to a high enough speed in the atmosphere so that you don't need to hit t
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Absolutely not! Space is just 100 km up while earth-based locations can be 20,000 km apart.
Considering that Earth has a diameter of about 12750km, I'd highly doubt that.
<pedant>The circumference of the Earth is between 40,075.16 km (equatorial) and 40,008.00 km (meridional) according to Wikipedia. It is possible that the shortest surface path between two points on Earth is more than 20 000 km :)
I'll guess that for any given point on the surface there exists an area which is more than 20 000 km distant.
Finding two such points that you'd actually want to travel between is left as an exercise for the reader.
</pedant>
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Absolutely not! Space is just 100 km up while earth-based locations can be 20,000 km apart.
Considering that Earth has a diameter of about 12750km, I'd highly doubt that. You started mixing vertical and lateral distances... ;-)
That's still up to 20,000km as the crow flies, or distance between points as measured in 3d polar coordinates. GP's terminology is just fine, nobody here is assuming a Euclidean metric. :S
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't go anywhere.
They go up!
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sub-orbital flights between two different destinations on the Earth is something that has been talked about in several cases, giving a huge advantage over airplanes in terms of travel time between two locations. For intercontinental distances, it is something that has been seriously talked about.
It is this that I believe the original poster is sort of hinting at too, BTW.
Something like this also gives the ability to have something like FedEx deliver a package to a destination yesterday (crossing the international dateline) for things that really need to get there. I'm sure there are things that people would be willing to pay $1000 per pound to deliver in that fashion if they could get from say New York to Tokyo in three hours. For some items there are people who would be willing to pay 100x that price if it could be done quickly.
Yes, there is a realistic commercial market for these kind of vehicles, even though SpaceShip Two isn't going to be able to pull off those kind of flights any time soon. It doesn't necessarily require a destination in space in order to be useful for point to point travel.
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Oh certainly there are people who need such a service and are willing to pay. The question is whether there is enough such people with enough cargo/passengers on a regular basis to repay the R&D, construction, and operations cost of the
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Pure and plain commerce will take care of that.
For now, it's a toy for the filthy rich only. A few technological evolutions down the line it will be affordable for the masses.
Competition will grow but the money machine needs to keep on rolling so new ways have to be found to get my money in their pockets.
How about a space hotel? How about a moon fly-by? How about a 6 day space-cruise? etc.
Commercialism will prevail where governments fail.. goodbye Nasa, Hello Virgin.
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> Commercialism will prevail where governments fail.. goodbye Nasa, Hello Virgin.
NASA is in the business of space joy-rides?
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Yeah, that's essentially what the manned space program is.
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Senators? Elementary School Teachers? Yeah, those were joy-rides done as publicity stunts.
Interesting aside, Nova had a great episode about the space spy business. Did you know that the Soviets had a manned space station in the 70's that served as a spy station? Neither did I. During the Apollo-Soyuz docking mission we were told that the Soviets lacked the ability to do the maneuvering necessary to dock in orbit, so the Apollo capsule would have to do all the maneuvering. Turns out that was all bullsh
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It all depends on how they market it. Envision a small blimp floating above the Los Angeles nightlife with speakers blaring "A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies, the chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. New climate, recreation facilities ..." Get Daryl Hannah to be their spokesperson and they'd be golden.
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Commercialism will prevail where governments subsidize all the upfront R&D and construction costs.. goodbye Nasa, Hello Virgin.
FTFY.
Re:This is how train and air travel began, too. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, a ballistic arc (sub-orbital spaceflight) is the fastest way to travel between two points of the globe. You'll get from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in about half an hour or so. You'll also avoid the need to worry about weather anywhere except the start- and endpoints, and last but not least, the view is fantastic.
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Actually, a ballistic arc (sub-orbital spaceflight) is the fastest way to travel between two points of the globe. You'll get from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in about half an hour or so. You'll also avoid the need to worry about weather anywhere except the start- and endpoints, and last but not least, the view is fantastic.
And giving your average well-heeled traveller, who can afford such a flight, up to 40 minutes of zero-gee. This creates a new business opportunity - developing next generation barf-bag technology! There will be a significant number of passengers hurling in zero gee for sure!
Famous predictions (Score:2)
"No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920's.
"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine." -- Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936.
"I think there's a world market for about five computers." -- Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM.
"There is no reason anyone
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Yeah, this is stupid, especially since the 'destination', weightlessness, lasts 'a few minutes' and costs $200,000.
What a waste - with all the expense of getting them up there, would it really have costthat much more to give them an hour or so? If they're really weightless, it wouldn't even require fuel to keep them up, though maneuvering would be more complicated over a longer flight.
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Umm.. yes it would be a lot harder, and take a lot more fuel to stay up for longer. They are only hitting 65mi AGL. That's technically in space, but just barely (either 62 or 50 miles depending on who's counting). To stay up for an hour or so, they would have to reach something near Low Earth Orbit (LEO). For reference, the ISS is in LEO, and it takes ~90 minutes to complete one orbit. It's orbiting at an altitude of 190mi. Besides, weightless is a rather misleading term. Gravity is still pulling t
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Further explication: it is not the "up" that makes you weightless in orbit, it is the "sideways". You have to be going around the earth very fast to maintain orbit, otherwise you just fall right back down. The "very fast" part is "very expensive". Of course you could continue with "straight up" until earth's gravity no longer dominates and obtain weightlessness, but that's a really, really expensive proposition.
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It's "zero-g" that's the common, but misleading term, because that force is still being applied to them (as you say, just to a somewhat smaller degree). Weightlessness can be correct, depending on how pedantic you are. My good friend prof. Walter Lewin of MIT agrees that in the absence of any other forces besides the gravitational acceleration, the object is weightless. Consider this - we're all in a free fall relative to the Sun, but you won't hear your girlfriend (ok, or mom) say that their weight is 2 to
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The very first trains were basically just technology demonstrators that didn't go far enough to be
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I once went parachuting. If I remember correctly, I ended up right where I started. In between I just circled the landing strip and came back. Worked for me.
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> for traveling between two earth-based locations space is mostly a big detour.
Not if you do the maths - the altitude becomes insignificant compared to the distance travelled. What's 30 miles of altitude if you're travelling 5000 or 10,000 miles? You also need to take into account how much faster you could feasibly get there if inconveniences such as air aren't getting in your way. If they could make a self-launching vehicle which could get out of the atmosphere we could do London to New York in an hour
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Change it to "this analogy is so sexist that a grandmother could be offended by it."
Misinformed (Score:2)
I know you are trolling, as the article did not say any such comment, but I know we did use use Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime as an informal pilot input design case. If this plane is easy enough for a grandmother, let alone a C programmer to fly, then I did my job too well. All joking aside, Pete Siebold, who piloted the craft today, did almost all of the C/C++ programming for the SS1 program and its simulator, and he flew this craft very well today.
The article did mention Burt Rutan as the designer,
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As a 28Yrold father of two (my first was born when I was 24, and the third is on the way) I take great offence at this.
I love my life, I love my kids, and I have no regrets.
YMMV but seriously, give up on the judgement.
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Keep in mind space flight doesn't have as much use to the citizenry and businesspeople of the world when compared to traditional air flight. It's likely to remain a toy unless they can turn it into some kind of economically advantageous form of travel. You can fly around the world for under under $10,000. Or you can fly a quick trip into space and back for $200,000. Prices will go way down though, due to standardization and marketization.
SS2 is not a real space ship (Score:2)
I don't think that what SS2 does can really be called space flight in the proper sense. Firstly, it goes nowhere near the altitudes that even the Space Shuttle reaches. Secondly, the speeds it reaches are nowhere near what is necessary for orbit at any altitude. Sure you might get the sensation of being "in space", with the experience of weightlessness and the blackness of space. And to many non-scientists, this will be enough. However, in terms of energy and difficulty, SS2 is an order of magnitude or
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It goes to space based on the current understanding of the atmosphere highest limit (above that is space). The edge of space is conventionally at 100 km (or 62 miles).
It is true, the velocity of the Space Ship 2 at that altitude is negligible - and it would need some 6+ km/s (I think), or more than four miles a second to stay in orbit.
So, in the end, it's just a novelty thing. Just like the first flights of the Wright brothers (and other pioneers in aviation) were
Lucky Bastards (Score:2)
Re:Lucky Bastards (Score:5, Funny)
>>I can't wait till it becomes cheaper.
Didn't you read the headline? It flew free for the first time today.
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You don't know why it's taken so long?! We are talking spaceflight. crude and low-performance, but spaceflight. They also had a fatal accident in testing. I would say given the starting point (almost nothing and apparent disregard for previous experience of others) they are doing pretty good.
Brett
not so... (Score:4, Insightful)
and spaceflight bragging rights for years afterward
Hopefully, this won't turn out to be true. Brag in the short term, you bourgeois pig, but I'm still among the idealistic holdouts, with thousands of dollars in my hand waiting in line to sign up, who believe in Virgin Galactic and economies of scale.
Re:not so... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was one of my first thoughts reading the summary - I hope it's not *too* many years of bragging rights. I want to live in a world where "I saw the curvature of the Earth and experienced a few minutes of free fall" is worth about as much bragging rights as an American of today saying "I went to Canada once!" Sure, a lot of people still will never leave a 100-mile radius of their home town, but anybody who wants to will be able to go much further and see much more.
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Re:not so... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the point where you will be in space for a few minutes, they will be in orbit. At the point where you are in orbit, they will be doing a flyby of the moon. When you are doing a flyby of the moon, they will be spending some time on a moon base...
(Well, not true exactly. There has to be some minimum practical level of fuel use that you just can't get below, and some cost to the energy that will bring about an affordability floor. And in all likelihood, energy will only be a part of such costs. For each of these steps, the fuel bill rises.)
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True, there's minimum energy-requirements. But they depend on the technology. The energy required to lift something to geosynchronous orbit, is about 15Kwh/kg so the lower bound for energy-costs, is the price of 15Kwh. In practice, it's likely to be atleast an order of magnitude more, even with a space-elevator.
But relatively speaking, energy gets cheaper all the time. I can buy aproximately 400Kwh worth of electric energy, with what I earn for one hour of working, if you plotted Kwh/average_work_hour for t
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Its hard to imagine it coming down to mere "thousands" any time soon -- adjusted for inflation and whatnot, airline ticket prices haven't fallen by a factor of 100 in the last 100 years.
That said, there's a lot more of us who could justify $50k or $100k than $200k.
It'll come down eventually, but IMO not using this technology. At, say, $2k a person you're only making $12k on a flight. With crew costs for SS2 and WK2, insurance, consumables like fuel, taxes, etc ... its hard to imagine ever hitting a "thousan
No need for hurry. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I'll wait for iPhone version 8. SpaceShipTen will carry people more safely, and all the way into orbit, for only $10,000, I'm guessing.
What would you see? (Score:2)
I don't think there is any hurry. What would you see if you flew into space? It would look exactly the same as in the photos. What would be the purpose of risking your life?
Not a good comparison (Score:2)
To the early adopters - Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Please excuse the others saying how going first is wasteful/stupid/reckless, they do not understand.
Thanks for helping to push us forward.
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Space Craft [feeddistiller.com] feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
deposit? (Score:2)
Re:deposit? (Score:4, Funny)
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I didnt know RyanAir went to space already...
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What about travel insurance? Think of the cost of flying you home if you get stuck in space.
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Given that the seats are 200k (from TFS), it's fair to call that a deposit, though a pretty big one.
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I believe the founder's group (the first 100 passengers) have paid the full price for the priveidge to be in that group. I've met a few of them, and many are more ordinary middle class people than one would think.
The desire to be among the first private people in space is strong with many, and not limited to the super-rich.
--Len
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It's not like the people paying for this don't have some disposable income to be spending, and if it fails to happen I'm sure most of them have a damn good accountant who can write that off in tax.
What if Richard Branson keels over tomorrow?
The first space-plane would be renamed the Branson One, and the rest of the company would probably still go ahead with it. It's not like Richard is the pilot or something.
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Virgin Galactic is far enough along, as is SpaceShip Two, that I think any group of investors that takes over after Richard Branson is going to at least continue to offer SS2 flights for the foreseeable future. I think the flight deposits that have been offered so far will be honored and the flights are going to happen.
What might put a monkey wrench into the company would be if something happened where the engine on the vehicle couldn't be certified (it is still going through R&D development) or some s
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Your definition of "middle class" appears to be slightly skewed. At prevailing US wages, the cost of a single seat would take the entire after-tax income of a median US family for 5 years. In fact, making over $70-75k puts you in the top 10% of US wage earners. I have no doubt there are some people who would trade their family for a shot to space, but in general there will be no "middle class" people on the first flights.
Even though we don't have flying cars (Score:5, Funny)
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This YouTube video has an even cooler "1930's SciFi" look to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nATMe_NKgo0 [youtube.com]
Watch for the landing gear extend at the end of the flight.
Yeah, it seems like the new rocket designers forgot that spacecraft weren't supposed to have those sleek designs like those old magazine covers illustrated. Yes, that is a real rocket in this video too.
Space Precautionary Act (Score:3, Insightful)
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That's easy. If one of these crashes, the company goes bankrupt and liquidates all assets. A shadow corporation buys the parts at a steep discount, and turns around and with the same people to open a new shop.
You'll note that you aren't actually buying a ticket from Rutan or Branson, or either of their respective parent companies. You can be certain that the corporations are set up to be as air-tight as a billionaire can buy.
That said, if I had to bet on someone to pull this off, my money would be on Rutan
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The FAA office of commercial space (AST, dont ask me how the acronym is related to the office name) is doing exactly that. Some dedicated, motivated people there are trying to give these kinds of companies a sound legal framework to work within.
When will it make it into space? (Score:2)
I've heard some rumors that the engines on this vehicle are being a tad bit temperamental and that there are some problems trying to get the SS1 engines to scale up to the size that SS2 is going to need. Yes, I could post some on-line references for this rather than pure gossip, but the issue still is outstanding. There were some unfortunate deaths that happened with the engine testing that I'm quite certain have been part of the delay as it is.
To keep things simple, have the problems been worked with the
Still not even close to orbital speed (Score:3, Insightful)
They're still not even close to the first cosmic velocity.
Yes, you'll technically be in space but the problem is that your orbit will intersect the Earth. So it's nothing more than an expensive joyride. You can just as well jump up - for a split second you'll be in an orbit (which intersects the Earth as well).
Economy of scale? For what? Their current design is not scalable.
Space, the final frontier (Score:3, Funny)
photos of the flight (Score:3, Informative)
Really? All this yacking and nobody bothers to link to the photos?
Killer high-resolution photos from Virgin Galactic:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4103/5068224405_048653fe6d_o.jpg [flickr.com]
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4104/5068685162_c815ecf013_o.jpg [flickr.com]
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/5068685178_2f4f70ba28_o.jpg [flickr.com]
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/5068685118_c9dbb29905_o.jpg [flickr.com]
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4109/5068196007_29f5b66dce_o.jpg [flickr.com]
(that's Rutan and Branson in the last one, both recognizable by their hair)
And while I'm here, why do I have to click twice on links in Slashdot now? First click mysteriously does nothing.
Video (Score:2, Informative)
Is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUVe3a496Y [youtube.com]
I like The Register's headline (Score:2)
Branson 'spaceship' successfully falls off mothership [theregister.co.uk]
Only In America..... (Score:3, Funny)
Only in America would people pay $200,000 for a plane ride that takes off from the same place they will be landing.
the ride includes a 1-2 day orientation course (Score:2)
Re:The ride is not worth it, yet. (Score:5, Informative)
There used to be a Mig-25 flight for $4000 that provided a similar experience.
That would probably be a variation on the Vomit Comet [wikipedia.org]. Some not so minor differences:
1. You get 30 seconds or less of abrupt weightlessness.
2. If you look out the window you're not actually in space.
3. As a consequence of #2, you're not an astronaut.
Flights like that have more in common with an extreme roller coaster ride, that can also give you the feeling of being floating for brief moments of time. I think the SS2 experience is going to be a lot more real than that. Worth the money? Now that's a different question...
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Now that's a different question.../quote ...the answer to which depends almost entirely on how much money you have,
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Well, i thought the article meant it is "free as beer" :)
Re:The ride is not worth it, yet. (Score:5, Informative)
The difficulty (and cost) of rocket launch rises in proportion to the delta-V. And not linearly in proportion to it -- exponentially. The figures I've seen for SS2's delta-V range from 1,400 to 2,000. X-15's was 2,020. Orbit is 7,800 m/s in energy plus about 2k in gravity losses and drag.
No, a craft like SS2 cannot scale to orbit. The Isp is too low for carrier launch to be plausible. Basically, you need to start from scratch with a more scalable design.
Of course, why start from scratch? If your goal is Newspace getting to orbit in hopes of dramatic cost reduction, why not cheer for companies like SpaceX who are already making that happen?
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The figures I've seen for SS2's delta-V range from 1,400 to 2,000.
The high end is correct. I did the calculation [nasaspaceflight.com] (the cost of getting to orbit from my post is incorrect, Rei above is correct on the delta-v required for orbit) for SS1 and got 2,250 m/s total (including the contribution from the carrier plane) which is around a quarter what you'd need to get to orbit. With a higher ISP engine (say kerosene/lox) and a higher mass fraction, you can achieve orbit.
Now, getting that factor of four more delta-v (plus the other side of the coin, a thermal protection system tha
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Sadly, I think you are right. Delta-V is the big problem in getting to orbit and I believe designs like SS2 are a distraction. Chemical fuels seem the only practical energy source for earth-to-orbit: Shielding for nuclear would be too heavy and rail-gun type designs look impractical for orbital velocities (and orbital speed in the lower atmosphere would be a serious aerodynamic problem).
Jet engines can get you to ~Mach 3-5, but its not clear you win much from the added weight. Scram-jets seem appealing, but
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Just as Elon Musk said, to put a pound of payload into orbit you use about the same fuel as to fly that payload around the globe. The difference is in the costs of the plane versus costs of the rockets.
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Flying something around the world takes about 2X its weight (though there is never a reason to fly more than 1/2 way). Orbit is about 10X, but the point is still valid
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There are reasons to fly "more than half way" - in air refuelling assets, staying close to airports and so on.
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Depends; apparently the US refers to anyone who has travelled above 50 miles altitude an astronaut [wikipedia.org].
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Its a private company so it doesn't have the waste that plague government programs, they've hired capable engineers and its all headed by a person with a clear vision of his idealized future.
Plus, Sir Richard Branson has millions of spare cash he can sink into a venture.
Football players have elevated self-worth and a large fanbase based on name only. Engineers don't. Plus, most engineers are "fun" motivated, most would jump at the chance to work with