Virgin Galactic Launches Crucial First Commercial Spaceflight (cnbc.com) 30
It is showtime for Virgin Galactic. The spaceflight company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson almost two decades ago launched its long-awaited first commercial spaceflight, called "Galactic 01," on Thursday. From a report: Taking off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the company's spacecraft is being flown by a pair of pilots and carries four passengers: A Virgin Galactic trainer, to oversee the mission from inside the cabin, and its first trio of paying customers. The three paying passengers are members of the Italian Air Force, and the flight carries 13 research payloads onboard. Virgin Galactic's start to commercial service comes after years of delays and setbacks. If "Galactic 01" is successful, the company plans to fly its second mission as soon as August and then aims to begin flying its spacecraft, VSS Unity, once a month.
Bad timing? (Score:1)
They will be alright (Score:1)
Their name doesn't end with "gate." :)
Re:Bad timing? (Score:4)
Depends on if Virgin used expired carbon fiber. https://www.yahoo.com/news/oce... [yahoo.com]
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This is a high-flying plane and nobody cares if rich people die, their loved ones inherit the money.
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Richard quietly shut down his submarine business.
For some reason...
Confused (Score:3)
Re:Confused (Score:5, Informative)
We are living in the bright future! (Score:2)
If we can just not fuck the planet up, end wars, not let AI take over from us and stop discrimination, this future is bright!
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AI will take over, end wars and discrimination, and stop harm to the planet. Unfortunately the five remaining humans will live in hell.
...and I must scream.
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Starship isn't going to be taking shit into space for a while
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Starship isn't going to be taking shit into space for a while
Actually, sh1t is a useful dead payload if it is dried out and moulded into block form. SpaceX can the use that useless crap to "load test" the spacecraft.
After all, losing some crap in a spaceship crash will be no loss to anyone...unless they happen to get hit by some of it during impact.
Business Model (Score:4, Interesting)
I am all for space tourism, but that should be a byproduct of a successful launch business. Not the main feature.
VG can launch a few people and a light payload into LEO for about 90 minutes. Weren't we doing that with dogs and chimps back in the 60s? Basically, it is the world's most expensive carnival ride.
In contrast, if you had a lot of capital and wrote up a contract with SpaceX for a bulk buy of Starship missions, you could lift enough up into a higher earth orbit, construct a habitat to use as a hotel, and shuttle people to that place 20-30 at a time. I haven't worked out the numbers and there is considerable engineering work to do but that sounds a hell of a lot more sustainable as a business model than what VG is doing.
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No, this was a "sub-orbital ride to the edge of space."
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These people aren't getting to LEO, they are merely getting past the Karmin Line, or the American version of it at 80K.
It's about 4 minutes of fun with more than an hour of getting to that point.
But think about it this way, the first flights The first commercial fight was 23 minutes and cost the passenger $400 in 1914. Granted, that's $12,000 today, but in time, the duration of commercial space flight will increase and the costs will come down to something a bit more reasonable. I don't expect them to ever
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These people aren't getting to LEO, they are merely getting past the Karmin Line, or the American version of it at 80K.
It's about 4 minutes of fun with more than an hour of getting to that point.
But think about it this way, the first flights The first commercial fight was 23 minutes and cost the passenger $400 in 1914. Granted, that's $12,000 today, but in time, the duration of commercial space flight will increase and the costs will come down to something a bit more reasonable. I don't expect them to ever drop to the price of an airline flight, but at some point, they will drop.
They'll come down a bit, but the thing that brought down the prices for commercial flight wasn't all the people wanting to fly, it was all the people wanting to get from point A -> B really quickly.
Without an actual destination these kinds of commercial space flights will always be recreational, meaning only the wealthy will ever take them and so you're looking more at the vomit comet than catching the red eye [gozerog.com].
Prices will still come down a bit, but the vomit comet can benefit a lot from commercial aviati
Re: Business Model (Score:2)
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"VG can launch a few people and a light payload into LEO for about 90 minutes."
Nope. VG can launch a few people to the mesophere for under 5 minutes (most of the flight duration is just getting up to altitude on the carrying ship). It is not capable of reaching LEO, and has not yet reached the Karman line so technically doesn't even go into space. It's not entirely clear whether it could get oer the Karman line. It's basically a modern X-15, but slower and has not hit the same altitudes (the X-15 did hit th
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In contrast, if you had a lot of capital and wrote up a contract with SpaceX for a bulk buy of Starship missions, you could lift enough up into a higher earth orbit, construct a habitat to use as a hotel, and shuttle people to that place 20-30 at a time. I haven't worked out the numbers and there is considerable engineering work to do but that sounds a hell of a lot more sustainable as a business model than what VG is doing.
What Starship missions? It hasn't had a successful one yet so that seems a bit premature.
VG is pretty lame but it works now and is much cheaper so for some experiments that just require some microgravity or for tourists to look at the blue ball, it might be just enough.
I think it's ironic... (Score:2)
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For what it's worth I do not care for the name either. But I don't care for "starship" for a craft that will only potentially cross between the stars over millions of years of unpowered, dead drift.
Historical Context (Score:3)
$450,000.00? (Score:1)
"space" flight? (Score:2)
It's hard to find in the press and media, but they just went up, then came down. Not remotely as high as the lowest orbital flight. Yeah, some definition calls it "space." My definition says momentarily high flying airplane.
Lots of extra space in that (thin) air craft. (Score:2)
So check what you signed up for with your deposit paperwork. 4-person trip, 8 person, or 12? Most people would consider that a significant change to their "conditions of carriage".