Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture

[mikegarrison]

23 hours ago, tater said:

They have chutes on.

Yeah, that seemed strange. Then again, I suppose if for some reason you survived a massive structural failure in the small window of opportunity that left you alive and in a regime where you could parachute from, it would be nice to have a hope of survival.

On 7/11/2021 at 10:27 PM, tater said:

I'd call any suborbital flight "fake astronaut wings" except rocket plane PILOTS. Those guys get their wings IMO. The rest are cargo.

How is orbital any different? How often do pilots "fly" their orbital spacecraft? (Shuttle being the obvious exception there, but most shuttle crew were not pilots.)

[tater]

14 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Yeah, that seemed strange. Then again, I suppose if for some reason you survived a massive structural failure in the small window of opportunity that left you alive and in a regime where you could parachute from, it would be nice to have a hope of survival.

In the previous SpaceShip 2 incident, 1 of the 2 survived—with a chute, the thing disintegrated. The chutes actually have AADs on them, so even unconscious people would have the chute deploy (high enough up they'd certainly be unconscious).

 

14 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

How is orbital any different? How often do pilots "fly" their orbital spacecraft? (Shuttle being the obvious exception there, but most shuttle crew were not pilots.)

I actually think the same for orbital. It's obviously up for grabs, but personally I think that Astronaut/Cosmonaut/etc should probably be more of a professional title. If any sort of point to point travel that involved crossing that alt boundary became a thing—could be crazy SpaceX P2P, or could be less crazy Virgin P2P—would every passenger "get their wings?" I used to get wings visiting the cockpit as a kid (in flight, lol), astronaut wings would become that meaningful if 800 people on a P2P rocket all got them.

I have no better idea of what to call them, but maybe we need a new word, and the Astronauts can be people who go to space professionally.

Edited July 13, 2021 by tater

[mikegarrison]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

In the previous SpaceShip 2 incident, 1 of the 2 survived—with a chute, the thing disintegrated. The chutes actually have AADs on them, so even unconscious people would have the chute deploy (high enough up they'd certainly be unconscious).

 

I actually think the same for orbital. It's obviously up for grabs, but personally I think that Astronaut/Cosmonaut/etc should probably be more of a professional title. If any sort of point to point travel that involved crossing that alt boundary became a thing—could be crazy SpaceX P2P, or could be less crazy Virgin P2P—would every passenger "get their wings?" I used to get wings visiting the cockpit as a kid (in flight, lol), astronaut wings would become that meaningful if 800 people on a P2P rocket all got them.

I have no better idea of what to call them, but maybe we need a new word, and the Astronauts can be people who go to space professionally.

Sailors still make a production out of crossing the equator the first time, even though most of them don't helm the ship.

[tater]

1 minute ago, mikegarrison said:

Sailors still make a production out of crossing the equator the first time, even though most of them don't helm the ship.

True. But do passengers on a liner that cross call themselves "sailors?"

I flew in a hot air balloon once, am I an "aeronaut?"

Maybe astronaut becomes the word that mean anyone who has been above XX km above the mean altitude of the Earth, then we have spacefairing humans later, and need new words for the people who do it for a living (even pilot would be sorta odd as computers do the piloting, they are a broader set of skills than just pilot I think, they are managing a lot of "non-piloting" tasks.

I don't have a particular concern about it, it just seems like there's an obvious difference between a legit NASA astronaut who probably has 2 postgraduate degrees, and some rando on a 10 minute ride.

[Kerbart]

21 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Yeah, that seemed strange. Then again, I suppose if for some reason you survived a massive structural failure in the small window of opportunity that left you alive and in a regime where you could parachute from, it would be nice to have a hope of survival.

Richard Branson, one of the richest people in the world as a passenger. While no longer CEO, I'm sure it would look silly for any of the Virgin brands to lose their founder/majority shareholder/former CEO in an accident where there could be a chance of survival with a chute. And once you go down that route, you can't say to the other crew  "you're not worthy enough, we'd rather save the weight." The lack of oxygen masks surprised me, but I guess the reasoning is that any incident with a hull breach will be nearly always lethal.

[mikegarrison]

Just now, Kerbart said:

Richard Branson, one of the richest people in the world as a passenger. While no longer CEO, I'm sure it would look silly for any of the Virgin brands to lose their founder/majority shareholder/former CEO in an accident where there could be a chance of survival with a chute. And once you go down that route, you can't say to the other crew  "you're not worthy enough, we'd rather save the weight." The lack of oxygen masks surprised me, but I guess the reasoning is that any incident with a hull breach will be nearly always lethal.

Dude's already flown across oceans in balloons and waited out a hurricane in the wine cellar on his private resort island. It's kind of amazing he's still alive, really.

[tater]

Their fatal accident was one of the pilots engaging the "feather" while the engine was running as I recall. This resulted in 1 fatality, and 1 survivor. So a catastrophic failure during powered flight is at least demonstrably survivable with a chute. Any similar failure during unpowered flight seems like it would be more survivable, though during coast you then have to survive the coast and entry without any air, which seems like a big problem (assuming the vehicle disintegrates right after engine quits). Another failure mode would be that they fail to feather, then the pilots have to keep it oriented right to regain controlled flight—this seems like it's pretty survivable if they have chutes. Train the pilots for this contingency, maybe they can still fly it, else wait til safe alt, then bail? Last might be they do the feather, and they cannot move the wings back to the glide attitude. This also seems survivable, fall to safe alt, bail.

Maybe they keep the chutes for all flights?

 

[StrandedonEarth]

… Until Felix Baumgartner tries to bail out at 85km…

Seriously, some dudes or dudettes will want to skydive out of SS2 or SS3 at one altitude or another…

[tater]

  

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/us/faa-changes-astronaut-wings-scn/index.html

Quote

Effective July 20, the FAA issued one more critical criterion: Commercial launch crew members must also demonstrate "activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety," an FAA spokesperson said, quoting the new order.

 

Quote

The FAA created the Commercial Astronaut Wings Program in 2004 after Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne became the first private spacecraft to reach space.

David Mackay and Mike Masucci, the two pilots for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo flight on July 11, had already received their astronaut wings. So had one of the mission specialists, Beth Moses, on a previous test flight. But the three other mission specialists, including Branson, were first-time fliers and were on board to either evaluate the astronaut experience or conduct suborbital scientific research. Neither activity would explicitly qualify them to receive their wings under the FAA's new order.

 

The four crew members on board Blue Origin's first crewed flight did even less during their 10-minute-long suborbital flight. The company's CEO, Bob Smith, explained during a prelaunch mission briefing that the New Shepard spacecraft "is an autonomous vehicle. There's really nothing for a crew member to go do."

A spokesperson for the FAA said the shift was made because it "aligns more directly to the FAA's role to protect public safety during commercial space operations." The FAA did not respond to an inquiry about why the change took effect on the same day as the Blue Origin flight.

When asked what the change in policy means for the most recent space tourists, an FAA spokesperson said that, in order to get astronaut wings, a nomination is required.

"There are no nominations currently before the FAA to review," the spokesperson said.

 

I crossposted this in the BO thread.

This is a little closer to what I was saying in one of the threads that I think that "astronaut" should probably at some point become more of a professional or job description, vs anyone who flies above some altitude.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, tater said:

This is a little closer to what I was saying in one of the threads that I think that "astronaut" should probably at some point become more of a professional or job description, vs anyone who flies above some altitude.

Agreed.

I would say that if you are conducting experiments during spaceflight — payload specialists, for example — then you should still qualify as an astronaut, even though that doesn’t fit the FAA’s “public safety contribution” standard. The Shuttle flew plenty of payload specialists and they should all be considered astronauts.

What about someone like Tom Cruise? He’s going to space for his job, but his job has nothing to do with science or spaceflight.

[tater]

5 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

What about someone like Tom Cruise? He’s going to space for his job, but his job has nothing to do with science or spaceflight.

Interesting. Not sure. I mean Christa McCauliffe's job was just education/outreach. Senator Garn became an important unit of measure (the ultimate level of space sickness is "1 Garn.")

Filmmakers in space will certainly be doing outreach at a level not seen in a while. <shrug>

I still tend to think that if going to space is your job, you're an astronaut. If you happen to go to space as part of your job... it gets more complicated.

We don't have a word for people who have been in an airplane, only for the different jobs related to being in aircraft.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, tater said:

We don't have a word for people who have been in an airplane, only for the different jobs related to being in aircraft.

If you don’t have a job aboard a vessel, and you paid to be aboard, then you’re payload, no matter what medium your travelling on or through 

[mikegarrison]

Lost in the discussion about astronaut wings, Virgin fired Flight Test Director and SS2 pilot Mark Stucky.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/virgin-galactic-flight-test-director-mark-stucky-leaves-company.html

Edited July 23, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

35 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Lost in the discussion about astronaut wings, Virgin fired Flight Test Director and SS2 pilot Mark Stucky.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/virgin-galactic-flight-test-director-mark-stucky-leaves-company.html

Wow.

Stucky did not leave "on my own timeline."

Wonder if he had an issue with changing the planned missions (swapping in Branson since he was supposed to fly on the next flight after this last one)?

 

[RCgothic]

It sounds like SpaceX aren't the only ones who are capable of getting into trouble with the FAA:

 

 

 

[mikegarrison]

So, according to that, Stucky was fired for talking to a reporter and saying things his bosses didn't want said.

[RCgothic]

Oops

 

 

 

[insert_name]

Virgin Orbit is now working on launching from japan

https://spacenews.com/virgin-orbit-japanese-airline-team-up-for-air-launch-system/

[insert_name]

Orbit launch today in ~20 min

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/13/virgin-orbit-above-the-clouds-mission-status-center/

[insert_name]

And confirmed deployments on all 7 payloads

[mikegarrison]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/investing/virgin-galactic-debt-stock-scn/index.html

Virgin Galactic is seeking to borrow up to half a billion dollars, and the stock market did not respond well to that news.

They have been released from the hold that the FAA put on them after they deviated from their airspace (and failed to properly report the deviation). However, it is not expected that any commercial flight operations will happen until at least October 2022.

The delays are due to:

Quote

Virgin Galactic said it would focus on an "enhancement program" to improve the performance of its rocket-powered plane VSS Unity and the mother ship from which it launches. It will also carry out physical inspections after a lab test "flagged a possible reduction in the strength margins of certain materials."

"While this new lab test data has had no impact on the vehicles, our test flight protocols have clearly defined strength margins, and further analysis will assess whether any additional work is required to keep them at or above established levels," the company said in a statement.

 

[Flavio hc16]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:54 AM, mikegarrison said:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/investing/virgin-galactic-debt-stock-scn/index.html

Virgin Galactic is seeking to borrow up to half a billion dollars, and the stock market did not respond well to that news.

same problem that all the new electric car brands that are popping up right now, everyone want the next Tesla /Spacex, people don't get how absurdly hard it is to arrive there, the next 5 years will be fun to see a lot of companies go under and people losing 100s of billions of $ cause they can't do ther due diligence. Hot time ahead

[tater]

 

 

[tater]

That is some truly ugly math.

What's the best way to become a millionaire? Start out with some billions and go into the space business.

They'd probably do really really well to fly more than once a month. Call it once a week. That's 13 flights a quarter. ~$35M. So only $45M in the hole flying once a week!

[tater]

 

so by the “delta” version 1 flight a week. Unless it holds 18 customers, still losing money.