Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture

[tater]

They took off.

Launch is maybe in an hour?

  On 6/30/2021 at 12:45 PM, RyanRising said:

Tubular Bells: Part One stream is live somewhere north of an hour before drop, currently showing some cool views of the rocket and its service equipment.
 

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[tater]

They did a test pass, now on terminal count, so launch in 15 min.

[StrandedonEarth]

Bird is away, looking good!

 

Stage sep norminal, S2 ignition and fairing sep good.

[tater]

 

[StrandedonEarth]

Branson to Bezos: GAME ON!

[tater]

Branson will be first, but then Bezos will say 50 nautical miles is not space.

[kerbiloid]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57689855

[tater]

 

[tater]

Here's their little crew intro vid.

 

[tater]

 

[Lewie]

Aw man...I’m gonna be active with the mission trip during the flight. Ah well.

I love how ‘space for all’ is a big thing...it’s not. It’s space for the uber-rich with nothing better to do. *eye roll*

[tater]

  On 7/11/2021 at 2:46 AM, Lewie said:

I love how ‘space for all’ is a big thing...it’s not. It’s space for the uber-rich with nothing better to do. *eye roll*

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Yeah, they'd need to get costs down between 1-2 orders of magnitude.

[StrandedonEarth]

  On 7/11/2021 at 2:55 AM, tater said:

Yeah, they'd need to get costs down between 1-2 orders of magnitude.

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Hopefully it'll end up like cd/dvd players, before they became obsolete. Once (if ever) the dev and factories are paid off, price should go way down (depending on required labor input, I suppose. Alien juggernaut FTW!).

[tater]

I missed this...

 

[Beccab]

Flight delayed due to weather by 1 hour 30 minutes

[RealKerbal3x]

Live now, not much is happening yet though

[Beccab]

t-34 minutes according to Tim

[tater]

https://www.flightradar24.com/VGX01/285e221f

 

>500k viewers official stream

 

[RealKerbal3x]

A little over 6 minutes to go until drop and ignition.

[StrandedonEarth]

Bird is away!

Methinks Sir Richard will want to buy  Starlink antennas for his birds...

[GuessingEveryDay]

  On 7/11/2021 at 3:28 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

Methinks Sir Richard will want to buy  Starlink antennas for his birds...

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That's what I thought too!

[Silavite]

Communication issues aside, that looked like a pretty successful flight. Major props to Virgin Galactic!

[kerbiloid]

Branson was in space.

Musk wasn't.

[linuxgurugamer]

  On 7/11/2021 at 3:47 PM, kerbiloid said:

Branson was in space.

Musk wasn't.

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Musk puts things in orbit

Branson doesn't get anything to orbit

[Caerfinon]

  On 7/11/2021 at 3:50 PM, linuxgurugamer said:

Branson doesn't get anything to orbit

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Which is only a 0.9 multiplier for collected science, not the full 1.0 of a "low in space" mission. Just sayin'