Virgin Galactic Successfully Flies Tourists To Space For First Time (theguardian.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company's first crew of tourists to space, successfully launched and landed on Thursday. The mission, known as Galactic 02, took off shortly after 11am ET from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals total -- the space plane's commander and former Nasa astronaut CJ Sturckow, the pilot Kelly Latimer, as well as Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor who trained the crew before to the flight. The spacecraft also carried three private passengers, including the health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers, both of whom are Antiguan. [...]
Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth's curvature, Space.com explains. Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic's carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers aboard experienced approximately 3Gs. Live footage inside the spacecraft showed the passengers unstrapping themselves from their seats and peering out down to earth through the windows as they floated throughout the spacecraft.
Despite Galactic 02 being Virgin Galactic's second commercial spaceflight mission, it is the first flight to carry private customers. In June, Galactic 01 carried three crew members from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy. According to Virgin Galactic, the company has already booked a backlog of about 800 customers. Tickets have ranged from $250,000 to $450,000. Galactic 03, the company's third commercial spaceflight, is planned for September.
Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth's curvature, Space.com explains. Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic's carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers aboard experienced approximately 3Gs. Live footage inside the spacecraft showed the passengers unstrapping themselves from their seats and peering out down to earth through the windows as they floated throughout the spacecraft.
Despite Galactic 02 being Virgin Galactic's second commercial spaceflight mission, it is the first flight to carry private customers. In June, Galactic 01 carried three crew members from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy. According to Virgin Galactic, the company has already booked a backlog of about 800 customers. Tickets have ranged from $250,000 to $450,000. Galactic 03, the company's third commercial spaceflight, is planned for September.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to experience weightlessness, which is basically what you're paying for here, there are much cheaper ways of doing that.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This is true. You could go on a parabolic plane ride.
Is there anyone who offers that to regular people? How much does it cost?
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:3)
Depends who you go through, but generally between $5,000 and $10,000, which is a LOT less than the half million you have to pay virgin galactic. Just look up zero-g flights.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends who you go through, but generally between $5,000 and $10,000, which is a LOT less than the half million you have to pay virgin galactic. Just look up zero-g flights.
That's reasonable to pay for the cabin cleanup!
Actually sounds like fun; and a helluva lot cheaper (and safer) than those Vanity rides.
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:2)
I think the reason it's so high is you're flying on a literal airliner with relatively few people, and they're doing maneuvers that put a lot of stress on the plane, which probably means some expensive alterations and a lot of additional maintenance checks.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the reason it's so high is you're flying on a literal airliner with relatively few people, and they're doing maneuvers that put a lot of stress on the plane, which probably means some expensive alterations and a lot of additional maintenance checks.
Yeah, I couldn't believe one of the private companies was saying one of their planes had done an amazing 58,000(!!!) Parabolas!
How those planes stand that I'll never understand. . .
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to experience weightlessness, which is basically what you're paying for here, there are much cheaper ways of doing that.
Oh, come on.
It's much more than "weightlessness". It's the chance to be part of what has thus far been a pretty exclusive group of people: those who have traveled to suborbital heights or beyond. That means in you've shared an experience (and a view) in a category with guys with names like Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard.
That's a big deal, no matter how you slice it.
Re: very expensive theme park ride (Score:2)
TBH if I had that kind of money I wouldn't pay that much for suborbital, especially when it's only for a few minutes. Orbit or bust IMO.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No they aren't. The resource cost is innate in the economic cost. The competition is the whole point, in order to afford the ticket you will need to have generated or saved enough resources [creating or finding value] to accumulate the ticket price.
This may not be your dream and clearly they aren't churning out multiple such flights a day yet but ultimately at a $250k/ticket this puts this within reach if it is your life's dream in the middle class. Do you know what having an obtainable life's dream inspire
Re: (Score:2)
> A lifetime of working toward it and in doing so working for the rest of us.
Yeah. But then you also have to factor in the rising allocation of wealth disparity and the extreme disproportional environmental cost ?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"But then you also have to factor in the rising allocation of wealth disparity"
The only connection I see to wealth disparity here is that wealthy people are more likely to take this ride. Getting them to spend rather than invest or horde their wealth is a good thing because most of the cost, as in any venture, is the cost of middle class labor.
"the extreme disproportional environmental cost"
It would take a massive and unlikely amount of scaling up for it to make much difference. $250k might put it in the ob
Re: (Score:2)
> The only connection I see to wealth disparity here
As the disparity in the allocation of wealth rises the rising purchasing power of those advantaged (both the current buyers and sellers of these flights) can also increase their influence on, or bias of, market evolution in a way that can influence negatively the advantages incurred by the rest of us.
> It would take a massive and unlikely amount of scaling up for it to make much difference
Two things. First, the kind of distortions I refer to above ca
Re: (Score:2)
And in a world of infinite resources available to every individual without competition, then sure no problem.
But from a large view problem solving perspective such attitudes are deterious to better budgeting on the grand scale.
Which would actually mean something in a world without private property. And wealth IS property. So unless you're planning to seize it from people that have it... what's the problem? They're spending their money.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
We have lots of carnival rides. Lots of people enjoy going on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Virgin? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"Welp... Great, guys. Now we're gonna have to change our name. Brilliant."
When their customers become numerous, I guess they'll have to be Whore Galactic?
Is this worth $250K? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
If not, don't buy one. This question will ultimately answer itself.
In my experience most of the worth in life is in anticipating experiences and learning to look back on the memory of them with rose tinted glasses while letting others who still dream of them help support those glasses. It's very rare for any experience to actually be as good as our expectations.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's not even orbital.
The screen readout shows 230K feet.
That's space for all intents and purposes. It's not useful for landing in Mongolia in an hour, but for an almost-spaceflight it's much higher than even a U2 pilot will experience.
If I had a billion dollars I'd drop "only" a quarter million to see it.
It's intrinsically safer than that little sub for about the same money.
But I don't have a billion dollars so I need to chillax until 2063 for a ride.
Re: (Score:1)
"But I don't have a billion dollars so I need to chillax until 2063 for a ride."
Yup and this is the point of this that people miss. Even if the only good that comes of this is these rides, there actually ARE people who will work and save toward this if being in space is their dream. And those people will do lots of useful work trying to obtain that dream. But in reality, there are almost certainly other things that will benefit from technology advanced in the process of obtaining this objective.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
True. But there is no way that works equally well for everyone. Space is a big one that captures the imaginations of a lot of people. especially science and engineering folks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That isn't how it works. The people ponying up the ticket price are the ones who make it all possible and decide they want to go. Fortunately, randos like you and I who aren't involved get the amount of say in the matter which we are entitled to. Which is to say none whatsoever.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is this worth $250K? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not even orbital.
The first two Mercury flights were sub-orbital. It's still spaceflight, as we define it.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not even orbital.
The first two Mercury flights were sub-orbital. It's still spaceflight, as we define it.
This has been discussed to death on /. and other forums. Is there a reason they designed the spacecraft so poorly they can't get to The Karman Line? That's what is the international standard demarcation of where outer space begins. Until that point this is just another spacecraft, and the higher it goes the different views show themselves.
The SR-71 flew higher than 80,000ft (24Km) and even that was sufficient to show the curvature of our shiny blue planet. VG went up higher. Had they gone up another 1
Re: (Score:2)
A fall from 100 miles is 1.8 kilometers / second, orbit is about 8, but energy goes as V squared, so they are at about1/20 the energy they need. But its worse that that because the rocket equation (the need to carry your
Re: (Score:2)
You could argue it's down to the ability to manoeuvre in space. Otherwise it's just ballistic, not really a flight.
The first two manned Mercury missions did need to turn around in space to make the heat shield face the right way for re-entry. And to be fair the early Soviet manned flights technically didn't count because the cosmonaut had to parachute to the ground, and at the time the rules required that the pilot land with the craft.
So basically everyone is fudging it a bit to claim they made manned space
Re: (Score:2)
Mercury flights went to about 300 miles altitude; VG went to about 50 miles. Not seeing how it's comparable.
Paying customers (Score:2)
Not just company rep.
Not Bankrupt! (Score:2)
Somehow I thought when Virgin Orbit went bankrupt and ceased operations that was Virgin Galactic, but Orbit was apparently a spin-off of Galactic and didn't find profitability.
Galactic seems to have managed that risk successfully.
Glad they're not bankrupt.
The next big thing.. (Score:3)
The next thing you'll see with this YOLO crowd is people wanting to go down to see the rusting hulk of the Titanic in uncertified submersibles. ... Oh wait.
Tax deductible? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Why not, if Hunter Biden can deduct hookers [theblaze.com] ...
GoFundMe (Score:1)
Someone should start a GoFundMe to send a few of the most prominent flat earth "researchers" on a trip up to convince them to stop wasting their time.
space? (Score:2)
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Not in this case.