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Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture


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1 hour ago, SpaceFace545 said:

So does anyone else find it silly when virgin galactic is compared to existing rocket companies? 

They have the 2 different businesses going, which complicates it. The one operating out of Spaceport America here in NM is the tourist hop thing (you could not give me a ride on that thing, I don't have a death wish).

They also have Cosmic Girl the 747 carrier aircraft for dropping orbital rockets. That's at least a smallsat launcher, and comparable.

Otherwise, yeah, you're right.

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10 hours ago, tater said:

They have the 2 different businesses going, which complicates it. The one operating out of Spaceport America here in NM is the tourist hop thing (you could not give me a ride on that thing, I don't have a death wish).

They also have Cosmic Girl the 747 carrier aircraft for dropping orbital rockets. That's at least a smallsat launcher, and comparable.

Otherwise, yeah, you're right.

Virgin Galactic v. Virgin Orbital

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6 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Virgin Galactic v. Virgin Orbital

Yeah, they're smooshed together in this thread, but are entirely separate.

Galactic has made some noise about future point to point travel using suborbital spaceplanes (Spaceship 3 writ large?).

Orbital is clearly the more "typical" from the space startup standpoint.

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  • 2 weeks later...
17 hours ago, tater said:
BTW, for those who don't know, "T or C" (what Truth or Consequences is called by literally everyone here in NM) was named after a radio game show of the same name.

It was also a TV game show after its run on radio.

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7 hours ago, tater said:

E2Af7KdWYAI_kju?format=jpg&name=large

Ah, the brown fields of Earth

I find that pattern interesting. 
It looks like on the lower end it’s an X-1?

And then a commercial airliner, then the LM and then the two SpaceShips.

I feel like it would make more sense if it had an X-15, no?
They have similar mission profiles. 

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11 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

I find that pattern interesting. 
It looks like on the lower end it’s an X-1?

And then a commercial airliner, then the LM and then the two SpaceShips.

I feel like it would make more sense if it had an X-15, no?
They have similar mission profiles. 

It's based on history of flight. The first silhouette is Icarus's wings.

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On 5/6/2021 at 11:15 PM, SpaceFace545 said:

So does anyone else find it silly when virgin galactic is compared to existing rocket companies? 

To be honest, Blue Origin still hasn't had a crewed launch into space, and hasn't launched anything into orbit.  They do have some real contracts to produce real engines with real milestones (don't expect to slide by those contracts with just powerpoint), but they've never launched anything that Virgin Galactic hasn't (or Virgin Orbital, for that matter).

[there might be some trolling about the exact height of the Kármán Line]

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29 minutes ago, Brotoro said:

Altitude?

Think it was 89.something km

They use the USAF definition of space I think.

FWIW, "100km" is entirely arbitrary. Johnathon McDowell has suggested "space" should start lower.

He says that objects can stay for weeks at 90km, and under 80km down they go, so somewhere in the range is the min alt for a (briefly) stable orbit.

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15 hours ago, tater said:

Think it was 89.something km

They use the USAF definition of space I think.

FWIW, "100km" is entirely arbitrary. Johnathon McDowell has suggested "space" should start lower.

He says that objects can stay for weeks at 90km, and under 80km down they go, so somewhere in the range is the min alt for a (briefly) stable orbit.

If the boundary of space was meant to be 90 km, humans would have 9 fingers! Suggesting that powers of 10 are "entirely arbitrary" is heretical.

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3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

If the boundary of space was meant to be 90 km, humans would have 9 fingers! Suggesting that powers of 10 are "entirely arbitrary" is heretical.

Spoiler

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting, somehow I missed that Virgin said back in March that they planned a flight in May (which happened), then 2 more flights, the second of which Richard Branson would be on.

Richard going was then not a reaction to Blue Origin, but moving his flight up one flight is.

Edited by tater
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