Richard Branson Says He's Going to Send People Into Space by Christmas (cnn.com) 89
Would you pay $200,000 for a ride into space? I ask beause billionaire Richard Branson "really, really wants you to believe he's going to send people to space -- and soon," reports Gizmodo. "In a new interview with CNN, the Virgin Group founder now says he's "reasonably confident" his spaceflight company can beat out competitors like Blue Origin and SpaceX with crewed trips to space before Christmas."
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: "We have a brilliant group of astronauts who literally believe 100% in the project, and give it their everything," he said. The first few trips to space will be flown by test pilots without anyone else on board. Branson says he will be the first passenger. Eventually, paying tourists will also make the trip....
The design and flight control systems of SpaceShipTwo were overhauled following a 2014 test flight crash that killed a co-pilot. Branson has said the accident made him question whether to continue pursuing his riskiest business venture. But the company said it received an outpouring of support, including from customers who had reserved $200,000 to $250,000 tickets to one day ride in SpaceShipTwo. Hundreds of people are still lined up for a shot. The flight will offer tourists a few minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth's curved horizon....
Branson is known to set deadlines that aren't met. Virgin Galactic has been developing SpaceShipTwo since 2004, and Branson initially said commercial rides would begin in 2007. Eleven years later, the firm is still working on getting its 600 customers into space. "Space is difficult. Rocket science is rocket science," Branson said. "I obviously would love to prove our critics wrong, and I'm reasonably confident that before Christmas, we will do so."
"We'll see," writes Gizmodo.
An anonymous reader quotes CNN: "We have a brilliant group of astronauts who literally believe 100% in the project, and give it their everything," he said. The first few trips to space will be flown by test pilots without anyone else on board. Branson says he will be the first passenger. Eventually, paying tourists will also make the trip....
The design and flight control systems of SpaceShipTwo were overhauled following a 2014 test flight crash that killed a co-pilot. Branson has said the accident made him question whether to continue pursuing his riskiest business venture. But the company said it received an outpouring of support, including from customers who had reserved $200,000 to $250,000 tickets to one day ride in SpaceShipTwo. Hundreds of people are still lined up for a shot. The flight will offer tourists a few minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth's curved horizon....
Branson is known to set deadlines that aren't met. Virgin Galactic has been developing SpaceShipTwo since 2004, and Branson initially said commercial rides would begin in 2007. Eleven years later, the firm is still working on getting its 600 customers into space. "Space is difficult. Rocket science is rocket science," Branson said. "I obviously would love to prove our critics wrong, and I'm reasonably confident that before Christmas, we will do so."
"We'll see," writes Gizmodo.
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"Don't put an arbitrary deadline on your people and yourself."
He didn't. Before Christmas... which year?
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Another day, another nonsense (Score:3)
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Balloons don't usually give you a few minutes of weightlessness and let you survive the trip.
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Yep, SpaceShipTwo is a glorified Vomit Comet. Which is cool in itself. But it ain't no spaceship, more like a first-stage booster.
A seat on the Comet will cost $5000, and is available right now.
NASA only sent Alan Shepard into a 15 minute hop because of the huge pressure to respond to the Russians putting a man in orbit.
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No, but a balloon plus a parachute would.
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I thought of that, but suspect it's not usually done.
Re: Another day, another nonsense (Score:2)
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You'd be surprised just how high a balloon can go. 50km isn't unheard of, although rare, and manned ballons have broken 35km. Not quite space, but at those heights it starts looking like space
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To find another race (Score:2)
weightlessness (Score:2)
Re:weightlessness (Score:5, Informative)
The distinction is "going to space" vs. "going to orbit". His listed "competitors" - Blue Origin and SpaceX - aren't targeting "space", they're targeting orbit. It's an entirely different thing, and involves your craft gaining more than an order of magnitude more energy than simply crossing the Karman line. 100000m * 9,81 m/s = 0,981 MJ/kg. 1/2 * (7800m/s)^2 + 350000 * 9,81 = 33,8535 MJ/kg - that is to say, over 34 times more energy**.
Reaching orbit is a little bit of "up" and a LOT of "across". Or, as XKCD put it: how the public thinks going to orbit works [xkcd.com] vs. how it actually works [xkcd.com].
** In practice, the consumed energy distinction isn't as stark, as both vehicles have to deal with air resistance and gravity losses for the first part of the flight - but on the other hand, it's a far-more-than-linear increase in difficulty to add more delta-V, since you have to lift the fuel to lift your fuel, and lift the fuel to lift that fuel, and lift the fuel to lift that fuel...
Re:weightlessness (Score:4, Funny)
My apologies. In the future, I'll do all of my own illustrations for no reason whatsoever.
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If it occupies time that you'd otherwise use for posting utter shite then I'd take that result.
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If SpaceX wanted to get into tourism the first stage usually cuts out at ~80 km and the second stage would have enough velocity to cross the 100 km line without further thrust. So they could just design a big passenger "stage" with a few engines and fuel just for the reentry/landing burn. The second stage is 3.6m in diameter, 16m long and the normal payload fairing 5.2m in diameter, 13.9m long so in total almost 30m long. If they can expand the diameter to 5.2 meters all the way - I don't really see why not
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Seven people crammed into 10 SQUARE meters??? Just how do they flatten the people down to two-dimensions? Very heavy weights? Or run over them with the boring machine?
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"Granted you don't need many passengers but I think it's a really shallow pool of customers that could run out, once it actually becomes possible."
There are about 15 million people in US with at least one million in free assets (money to expend) or about 16 millions in the whole world with 30 millions or more. 16 million people around the world is too low a target for, say, a social network, but quite enough for a 100.000$ per-run business.
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I mean the value proposition is absurd, you either have to be a billionaire or a millionaire and space nut to waste so much money on something that'll be over so quick.
I don't think you have to be a space nut. I think the novelty will be enough to drive it for a while once you don't have to do extensive training just to take the trip. But the pool is still small due to the very high costs, so it has to be a short-term plan with enough profit built into it to do something else interesting with the money.
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Just stick a Dragon on top and there's your escape system. Limits your passenger capacity, but there's not going to be that many people flying anyway. Launching a Dragon capsule above 100 km (or hey, 200 km, why not?) won't stress the stage anything like an actual launch, you'd likely launch with a fraction of a full propellant load and remove some engines, reducing the reflight costs.
40% of the regular launch cost is in the expendable second stage and fairings. If they could find enough interest for 50 ful
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You expect SpaceX to make money with the F9 at <$1 million/launch income? I'd list all the ways that's nonsense, but I'd be here all day. For one, there's no "gentle" way to launch and land a rocket no matter the payload. You're still punching through the atmosphere, you're fighting gravity every step of the way so throttling down is almost never the answer - they do it a little bit around max-q to avoid the worst peak stress but otherwise it's pedal to the metal. Yes, you could redesign everything for
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With an under-engined F9 first stage and a stripped down Dragon capsule, and sufficient number of flights? Sure.
The first stage has the performance to push a second stage with full propellant load and a Dragon capsule on top to a couple km/s downrange velocity at ~70 km altitude, then return to its landing site. Drop the second stage and reduce engine count to account for the reduction in mass, and it'll have enough excess performance for a slower, higher altitude max-Q and a longer reentry burn that makes
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I also expect the novelty of it to wear off pretty soon, right now 561 [wikipedia.org] people have been to space. Like ever, all the way back to Yuri Gagarin. If you start adding hundreds each year it's not that special anymore, it's >$100k for a ten minute joyride including a few minutes of weightlessness.
For comparison, 4000 have scaled Everest now, and you can join a trip for $50,000 . Much better value, and bigger boasting rights, than the 10 minute joyride.
And possibly similar chance of survival.
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I mean the value proposition is absurd, you either have to be a billionaire or a millionaire and space nut
There are plenty of people around the world that would meet all of these conditions.
I think they are crazy, but they don't care what you or I think.
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The distinction is "going to space" vs. "going to orbit"
That's not the distinction. You don't need to go into orbit to experience weightlessness.
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Air resistance is basically negligible for orbital launch vehicles, especially for those with dense fuels...the Saturn V (a kerosene-burner like Falcon 9) only lost 40 m/s to aerodynamic drag. They're moving slowest when they're in the densest atmosphere, and get out of it very quickly. The only serious losses are gravity losses. And for orbital launch, those are about 2 km/s. For suborbital launch to 100 km, that's more like your total delta-v requirement, gravity loss being more like 0.6 km/s.
Thinking in
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Honeymooners (Score:2)
When Mr. Branson says "bang! zoom! straight to the moon!" you better do whatever he says... or else!
Mars VS LEO for 200K (Score:2)
The world's most expensive ... (Score:2)
Theme Park ride. This owns more to 'ride in a Ferrari with a race driver experience or attraction than Ferrari's Formula 1 racing team.
This is not really space travel, it is riding the shirt tails of the real innovators in this space.
How about... (Score:2)
...we send Richard Branson to space on his magical rocket. "Let us know how it goes Richard, take your time, take a few trips, show us it's safe and then we'll think about it. Write soon!"
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How about you read the summary and see that's almost exactly what he has planned. "Branson says he will be the first passenger."
Did he specify which Christmas? (Score:2)
Did he specify which Christmas? I mean I can promise you anything to happen "by Christmas" if I don't specify the year... And so far their track record has been disappointing. No, they are not competing with SpaceX et al, they are trying to do something much simpler (reaching orbit is a couple of magnitudes harder) and they still haven't made it.
I mean, yeah, it is great that they are trying, and I'd love to see more companies compete in this new sort of "space race", but Virgin Galactic is definitely not o
Richard Branson Says ... (Score:2)
Richard Branson Says He's Going to Send People Into Space by Christmas
And THAT's why he's a billionaire -- normal people just wouldn't think this way. Think of the opportunities! Sell many, many cheap tickets each with a non-disclosure clause. Send them into space just like he says, no problem. What a wonderful view? Floating is fun! Wheee!
Oh, now you want to come down again? That's extra. What's that? You won't pay? Fine. Oh, that green O2 bottle is $1K per bottle, each lasts 30 minutes, give or take -- Visa, Discover, or MasterCard accepted. And if you wish to
I'd really like to know what's taking so long... (Score:2)
They had a 99% working prototype. Testing exposed a user-interface flaw (pilot could prematurely disengage safety lock on the feathering mechanism in a single motion without an override step), destroying the test article and killing half the crew, which rightfully led to a review looking for other potential avoidable PEBKAC scenarios. This is not unusual in aerospace and is why "test pilot" is generally regarded as a high-risk profession. Historically the majority of high-performance aircraft development ha
Yes, by Christmas - only... (Score:2)
The only question is WHICH Christmas
Oh good (Score:2)
Because that's what you want in a space program -- rushing to hit a date.
Funny (Score:2)
It's not.... (Score:1)
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News for the 1% (Score:2)
Since the majority of folks don't have $200k just laying around to burn on such things, this is only news for the very wealthy.
I doubt there will be much of a waiting list to get a seat after the first year. Interest will drop off and / or the remaining super rich folks aren't going to risk their lives ( and fortune ) for a simple joyride.