Virgin Galactic To Launch Richard Branson Into Space On July 11 (axios.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Virgin Galactic announced Thursday plans to launch its billionaire founder Richard Branson into space on July 11. The date is nine days before Jeff Bezos, founder of Virgin Galactic competitor Blue Origin, is set to take off for space. Branson will journey to space in Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spacecraft along with two pilots and three other mission specialists as part of the company's fourth crewed mission. "After more than 16 years of research, engineering, and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good," Branson said in a press release Thursday. "It's one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it's another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality," he added.
dead pool (Score:2, Troll)
let's bet if each lives or dies
Let's Hope They Both Become Good Billionaires. (Score:2)
Month of the Dead Billionaires (Score:5, Funny)
I notice the Musk isn't planing on flying any of SpaceX's spaceships any time soon, and his company is the only one with any history of success.
Best of luck to Bezos and Branson!
Re:Month of the Dead Billionaires (Score:5, Interesting)
I notice the Musk isn't planing on flying any of SpaceX's spaceships any time soon, and his company is the only one with any history of success.
Best of luck to Bezos and Branson!
The explanation behind this is simple, for Bezos and Branson these are toys because they don't have a grasp of what is involved, they just hired people to make a thing. Musk seems to understand that rockets are controlled bombs and has a decent grasp of the physics involved. Love 'em or hate 'em, he's no dummy.
Re:Month of the Dead Billionaires (Score:4)
Getting stuff into space is not easy, but it's not that hard.
The linked article seems to mention "suborbital" too. That doesn't sound like space to me.
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I have always assumed that the explanation for Virgin Galactic was some sort of tax dodge, because he founded it in 2004 and it still hasn't managed to get anything into space.
Well, they spun off Virgin Orbital, which was originally part of Virgin Galactic. It has now succeeded twice in satellite launch.
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I think he's just bored. He's mega rich, doesn't get involved with most of his spun-off companies in any meaningful way anymore. When you have more money than you can ever spend what do you do with it?
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"Space" is basically higher than 100 km (the Karman line that separates what is conventionally considered atmosphere from what is no longer considered atmosphere). This altitude was reached by gun-launched projectiles (project HARP in 1996 reached 179 km).
Suborbital basically means "out of atmosphere altitude but not orbital velocity" - it's basically just a fast ballistic launch (see ICBMs).
(USA considers the limit 50 miles/80 km, so anything higher than 50 miles/80 km is space).
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Getting into space is hard if you do it the hard way, which is what Virgin Galactic is doing. Fully reusable space planes are sexy but building one requires conquering multiple unsolved problems. People have tried to do this before but the projects have always run into trouble and either been cancelled outright or morphed into some sort of unsatisfying hybrid. If getting into space is really the goal, vertical rockets will get you there sooner with a smaller development budget.
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I wouldn't assume Branson knows nothing, he has been flying stuff for decades and seems to at least grasp the concepts involved.
I doubt he is hands-on with the design but neither is Musk.
Musk is an abusive employer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Musk is an abusive employer (Score:1)
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Best of luck to Bezos and Branson!
Joking
Re:Elon Musk (Score:5, Interesting)
Elon Musk needs to show faith in spacex and do the same. I know Elon is not going to allow Branson and bezos to upstage him. This is hilarious entertainment. A bunch of ego maniacs proving absolutely nothing. Humans went into space 60 years ago. Rockets are old hat now but these guys have latched on to them as a replacement for their penises.
Elon Musk has no need to do squat. He already has a successful business that delivers people to the ISS. If he wanted to go to space (and by space I mean actual orbit and everything) he could have done it a while ago. Instead he has chosen not to.
These other two dingbats are just trying decide who gets a fancy participation trophy for the highest jumping up and down on the spot.
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Hush, we're working on the Billionaire kaboom hat trick here.
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Other than making space flight commercial. YAAFM
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Space flight from the USA has always involved contractors building vehicles, which were operated by NASA. Now vehicles are owned and operated by a corporation, which performs missions by contract. This is new.
Has he reduced the cost of launches yet? Meh, maybe. But making rockets more reusable certainly does that in the long run. And until/unless we can build a space elevator from Earth to GEO, rockets are still the best way to get most cargoes off of the planet — as well as humans.
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I'm talking about the USA, kid. Just like I said in my comment. Next time, try learning to read first.
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And until/unless we can build a space elevator from Earth to GEO,
Why does everyone obsess over a space elevator?? The materials science is such that there is currently no way to make carbon cables strong enough to be 22.3K of miles in length.
A Lofstrom loop [wikipedia.org] is much closer to achievable.
rockets are still the best way to get most cargoes off of the planet — as well as humans.
...until there's a working Lofstrom loop...
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I see some assorted problems with it that make it problematic, some of which are discussed in the WP article, but sure — if you can get that built then that's great. Whatever works. The benefit of a space elevator that's glossed over in that article though is that it'd be cheap to operate. One car goes up, one car comes down. Your loop takes a whole bunch of energy all the time.
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Your loop takes a whole bunch of energy all the time.
It would have still been cheaper than rocket launches pre-falcon9. Now, I would imagine they'd have to make an ecological argument for it. But a space elevator is not going to be cheaper than reusable rockets either.
Not making the Karman line probably (Score:5, Interesting)
If he gets to do this on time he gets to go to space before Jeff Bezos; he and Bezos are apparently racing. But whether Branson is going to go to "space" is arguable. Virgin's spaceplane only goes above the Karman line by some definitions since NASA defines it as 80 km (which the plane does go above) but not 100 km (which most of the rest of the world uses) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line [wikipedia.org].
Also given the safety record, I'd be a bit concerned. I'd be willing to go in SpaceX's Dragon or Blue Origin's New Shepard; both have very good safety records. But Virgin Galactic's entire approach with a space plane isn't just a technological dead end, it has already killed someone when one disintegrated. And the reliance on the pilot to such an extent makes it fundamentally less safe.
At another level, this isn't really that interesting and focusing on when specific billionaires go up into space or who goes up first shouldn't be our concern. What really matters is that we're reducing the cost of space travel, especially for getting satellites up. SpaceX and Rocketlab are doing that very well, and Blue may end up joining that group soon when they get New Glenn to be flying. But what Virgin Galactic is doing doesn't matter, it is a joy ride for wealthy people and never will be anything beyond that. Their sister company Virgin Orbit is doing interesting stuff, and there have been Slashdot articles about their recent success in the last few days. But other than both launching from a conventional airplane, there's really no substantial shared technology or aspects of their approach.
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I agree with everything you said, but still I feel jealous of these two. I've wanted to visit space for a long time.
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Visited the south pole yet? It's much easier and more hospitable.
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Only freeze dried.
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But what Virgin Galactic is doing doesn't matter, it is a joy ride for wealthy people and never will be anything beyond that.
Probably. But one option is to put a rocket vehicle as a payload on the space plane. It may then be able to put small payloads into a useful LEO orbit. The big advantage of the space plane approach is that it can have potentially much better turnaround time than a reuseable rocket. Perhaps then it could be used to rapidly put up useful satellites for the Pentagon, in a wartime scenario where the Chinese blow up all our LEO satellites as a prelude to an attack (say Taiwan).
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Re:Not making the Karman line probably (Score:4, Informative)
Also given the safety record, I'd be a bit concerned
Branson's a risk taker. It's how he became a self made millionaire and has been a consistent theme of his 'adventures'.
Younger readers won't remember some of his 80s world records:
https://www.grunge.com/256049/... [grunge.com]
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Virgin Galactic To Launch Richard Branson Into Spa (Score:3)
Starman? (Score:2)
Anyone know where Starman and his Tesla are in orbit? Maybe Elon timed this so Starman can take both Bezos and Branson out in a space drive-by.
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Here you go
https://theskylive.com/how-far... [theskylive.com]
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So they're launching him into space... (Score:4)
Are they going to bring him back?
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Of course. What do you think this is, KSP?
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Joke.
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Yes.
Depending on whether it goes according to plan or not, in one piece or several. But since his vessel will not have enough fuel to reach escape velocity, he'll eventually return, one way or another.
Pissing contest for second place (Score:2)
Get back to me when either of these companies can achieve orbit instead of suborbital joy rides for the ridiculously wealthy.
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Get back to me when either of these companies can achieve orbit instead of suborbital joy rides for the ridiculously wealthy.
Exactly. IMHO, not space. Supposed to go just 62 miles up or just shy of 100 KM. Space shuttle used to orbit at 300 KM. So I'd say - no space button for them.