Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture

[Nightside]

17 minutes ago, tater said:

...seems more plausible to me (though I'd consider it only marginally so, it obviously faces some similar hurdles safety wise).

What is the potential p2p range of Spaceship 2 as is?

Unless your route is Mojave Spaceport to New Mexico Spaceport, where will it make sonic booms without bothering people and ending up like the concord?

[tater]

8 minutes ago, Nightside said:

What is the potential p2p range of Spaceship 2 as is?

Unless your route is Mojave Spaceport to New Mexico Spaceport, where will it make sonic booms without bothering people and ending up like the concord?

I don't think the sonic boom issue is all that concerning, and the vehicle spends the majority of flight (assuming suborbital) in highly attenuated atmosphere. I think the possible routes for such flights are also largely over ocean (as Concorde was).

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Interesting. Gonna tag @mikegarrison here, as this relates to the SpaceX P2P concept, but seems more plausible to me (though I'd consider it only marginally so, it obviously faces some similar hurdles safety wise).

At least we can be confident that Branson does understand how the current transportation network actually works.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

At least we can be confident that Branson does understand how the current transportation network actually works.

True, though to be fair I think that antipodal P2P is sort of a special case, I see it as less integrated into air travel, and more akin to flying to a coast to then boarding a cruise ship (not something I have ever done, but I can wrap my head around it). I suppose that a giant version of Spaceship 1 could in fact operate from a normal coastal airport, which would truly integrate it into air travel at large. Interesting stuff to think about, unlikely though it may be.

Edited July 1, 2019 by tater

[mikegarrison]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

True, though to be fair I think that antipodal P2P is sort of a special case, I see it as less integrated into air travel, and more akin to flying to a coast to then boarding a cruise ship (not something I have ever done, but I can wrap my head around it). I suppose that a giant version of Spaceship 1 could in fact operate from a normal coastal airport, which would truly integrate it into air travel at large. Interesting stuff to think about, unlikely though it may be.

I'm not sure they could use their current technology model. But yeah, the idea of horizontal takeoff/landing does fit better with the existing system.

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

 

[tater]

 

Edited July 10, 2019 by tater

[Nightside]

Just dropped it?

Didn't bother to light it up?

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Nightside said:

Just dropped it?

Didn't bother to light it up?

Drop test.

Things I expect they learned: 1) how quickly it separated from the airplane, 2) how cleanly it separated from the airplane, 3) how well the separation mechanism worked, 4) how the airplane responded.

Edited July 11, 2019 by mikegarrison

[Nightside]

22 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Drop test.

Things I expect they learned: 1) how quickly it separated from the airplane, 2) how cleanly it separated from the airplane, 3) how well the separation mechanism worked, 4) how the airplane responded.

Would you expect that it is ignited at separation or a little after?

 

[mikegarrison]

9 minutes ago, Nightside said:

Would you expect that it is ignited at separation or a little after?

 

I don't know. As a liquid-fuel rocket, they could shut it back down again if needed. So it might be safe to light up while still attached.

Watching video of X-15 launches, it looks like they started the ignition process while still attached.

[Brotoro]

I guess the cat video was an accurate representation: the object drops with an unsatisfying conclusion. 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[Brotoro]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 

I have no clue what I'm looking at there.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

5 minutes ago, Brotoro said:

I have no clue what I'm looking at there.

The roof of a building that I think is supposed to be their equivalent of basically an airport terminal but for space tourism. Like, where you board the spaceplane thing (and where it lands, I think?).

 

Anyway, it has been there for a while. It's been featured in most of the the pictures I've seen of Spaceport America so far. Sounds like it's coming along just as slow as... well, Virgin Galactic is.

Edited August 13, 2019 by ThatGuyWithALongUsername

[tater]

1 hour ago, Brotoro said:

I have no clue what I'm looking at there.

 

From the aircraft/spacecraft side:

[Cheif Operations Director]

4 hours ago, tater said:

 

From the aircraft/spacecraft side:

All I see is a PR stunt

[tater]

13 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

All I see is a PR stunt

That was Richardson in a nutshell, frankly.

White Sands Missile Range is certainly a place to shoot off sounding rockets, but it's not gonna be an orbital launch site until the day when orbital launches can literally happen from any airport.

Richard Branson should thank me for the tax dollars he conned them into spending.

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, tater said:

That was Richardson in a nutshell, frankly.

White Sands Missile Range is certainly a place to shoot off sounding rockets, but it's not gonna be an orbital launch site until the day when orbital launches can literally happen from any airport.

Richard Branson should thank me for the tax dollars he conned them into spending.

Yup

[Ultimate Steve]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

That was Richardson in a nutshell, frankly.

White Sands Missile Range is certainly a place to shoot off sounding rockets, but it's not gonna be an orbital launch site until the day when orbital launches can literally happen from any airport.

Richard Branson should thank me for the tax dollars he conned them into spending.

To be fair, there are far worse ways to spend that much money (but definitely a lot of better ways) and Spaceport America was supposed to have had a lot more business by now. This is mostly due to the tenants and not the spaceport itself.

At one point, among others, SpaceX was going to do landing testing there.

[Cheif Operations Director]

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

To be fair, there are far worse ways to spend that much money (but definitely a lot of better ways) and Spaceport America was supposed to have had a lot more business by now. This is mostly due to the tenants and not the spaceport itself.

At one point, among others, SpaceX was going to do landing testing there.

The space port is only good for wing based vehicles given its location

[Ultimate Steve]

Just now, Cheif Operations Director said:

The space port is only good for wing based vehicles given its location

There have been several suborbital sounding rockets launching from there.

And it appears that they host an annual lower-altitude rocket competition.

Also, SpaceX started building a pad there for F9RDev2 (but never used it as I said above).

Nothing Orbital is going to get out of there, but suborbital, definitely.

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

There have been several suborbital sounding rockets launching from there.

And it appears that they host an annual lower-altitude rocket competition.

Also, SpaceX started building a pad there for F9RDev2 (but never used it as I said above).

Nothing Orbital is going to get out of there, but suborbital, definitely.

Right I was referring to orbital stuff

@Ultimate Steve should have been more clear sorry