Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture

[tater]

 

Better quality video,

[CBase]

Does this all really matter ? I mean we all started in KSP with suborbital expierences. They did it with a complete new design. Why not just applaud and hope they manage to improve their stages to get higher and faster ?

 

I do so !

[Shpaget]

 

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

Musk also doesn't care about going to space, he isn't the tourist kind of billionaire

Not quite true, according to this:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/richard-branson-elon-musk-the-sunday-times-spacex-jeff-bezos-b945176.html

[cubinator]

I hope they have many more successful flights to come! It's always great to see smiling faces in space.

[Brotoro]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Obviously. Only Branson has flowm. No other self-propelled space billionaire known.

Meh. When your billionaire has the lowest bar, it would be embarrassing if he couldn't jump it first.

[GoSlash27]

Shouldn't we put air quotes around "space" when discussing the VG Voyager/ Unity? After all... It's never broken the Karman line.

Best,

-Slashy

[tater]

7 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Shouldn't we put air quotes around "space" when discussing the VG Voyager/ Unity? After all... It's never broken the Karman line.

Kármán himself actually calculated it at 83.2 km.

It was later rounded off to 100km—because it was a round number.

[GoSlash27]

Just now, tater said:

Kármán himself actually calculated it at 83.2 km.

It was later rounded off to 100km—because it was a round number.

Doesn't matter what he calculated it at. It's not the internationally accepted definition of "space".

Best,

-Slashy

[tater]

22 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Doesn't matter what he calculated it at. It's not the internationally accepted definition of "space".

The USAF and NASA disagree. There's no legal definition, the 100km def is literally what the aeronautical version of Guinness Book says. Meh.

Everyone could agree to say 1g = 10 m/s², and that wouldn't make it true (interestingly, that's almost exactly how different 100 is from 83.2).

You're using "Kármán line." It was not a number he pulled out of thin air (see what I did there?), it was calculated. It has a rationale.

Jonathan McDowell agrees, and is trying to get the IAF to change it (he tracks all the sats, and if they can make multiple orbits at a given alt, he thinks that's "space."

Edited July 12, 2021 by tater

[tater]

It's possible to orbit the Earth at below 100km. I'd certainly call any orbital flight, "spaceflight," and it's a more important/objective bar than crossing a line where we deem the atmosphere to be sufficiently thin.

That's actually a different definition (orbit) vs an altitude where lift is insufficient to allow any vehicle to support itself with lift (Kármán), but it's a much more crucial distinction, IMO.

[GoSlash27]

That's all well and good, but when somebody claims to have broken the world record for the fastest mile nobody starts explaining to me after the fact about how the original "Roman Mile" was shorter.

 Best,

-Slashy

1 minute ago, tater said:

That's actually a different definition (orbit) vs an altitude where lift is insufficient to allow any vehicle to support itself with lift (Kármán), but it's a much more crucial distinction, IMO.

Last I checked, there were no aircraft capable of supporting themselves over 136,000'. Maybe we should all call *that* "space".

[tater]

8 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

That's all well and good, but when somebody claims to have broken the world record for the fastest mile nobody starts explaining to me after the fact about how the original "Roman Mile" was shorter.

And if the Guinness Book decided 5280 ft was too hard to remember, and upped their definition to 5500 for easier math?

 

NASA disagrees. Russia is welcome to argue who gets called an astronaut, they at least make their own. Ditto China now.

 

From the goofy space tourist standpoint:

1. It doesn't matter, what's the experience like? Both are functionally the same view.

2. I honestly don't think any of them should be called "astronauts." Astronaut/cosmonaut/taikanaut (sp?) all imply a level of training and professional status that tourists don't have. If P2P transport ever became a thing, what, every antipodal ballistic flight turns some hundreds of people into "astronauts?" Um, no. I think it should be a professional title. I can put a bandaid on my kid, that doesn't give me status as a doctor.

Edited July 12, 2021 by tater

[GoSlash27]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

And if the Guinness Book decided 5280 ft was too hard to remember, and upped their definition to 5500 for easier math?

Everybody would laugh at Guinness.

9 minutes ago, tater said:

From the goofy space tourist standpoint

The experience of weightlessness while looking down at the sky is pretty much the same, varying only in price and the amount of time you get to do it. If you're rich enough to afford it, you probably want to pick another option that exceeds 100km so your rich friends won't scoff at your 'pretend astronaut wings'.

 Certainly, if you're going to claim to be the first (whatever) in "space" but you never actually went above 100 km, you have to expect that people aren't going to consider your claim valid... Or question it at the very least.

Edited July 12, 2021 by GoSlash27

[RyanRising]

40 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Everybody would laugh at Guinness.

Exactly.  As it stands, though, that's what was done with the Kármán line. There was a good reason for not using the calculated number exactly, though, because it assumes certain things about hypersonic L/D which may not be true and about atmospheric density, which is very variable at such high altitudes from day to day. 100km was easy to remember, so that's what they went with. But they could just as easily go back on that, and recent developments have shown that there is merit to calling that lower boundary "space."

Here's one paper which makes that argument, and here's evidence that the paper is being taken seriously (though this was a few years ago, it doesn't look like they've decided for or against it yet).

55 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

The experience of weightlessness while looking down at the sky is pretty much the same, varying only in price and the amount of time you get to do it. If you're rich enough to afford it, you probably want to pick another option that exceeds 100km so your rich friends won't scoff at your 'pretend astronaut wings'.

NASA would call those astronaut wings real, at least. They should have some sway, though they don't do themselves any favours measuring things in feet and gallons.

Personally, I'd still call it "space" or space*, but that's only because that question is still open. I'll happily remove those quotes and asterisk if the powers that be do decide 80km is more valid, 'cause the statements of officials on it is really all there is to go off of. The physics could support anything down to 70km or up to... whatever you want, really. I'm not going to correct anyone who says a flight to 85km is space, 'cause for all practical purposes it is.

[tater]

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

Everybody would laugh at Guinness.

So you're laughing at the space agency that literally spends about as much per year as the rest of the space agencies on earth, combined?

You can claim it's the standard, but it's the standard of an organization with the gravitas of the Guinness Book.

 

Quote

The experience of weightlessness while looking down at the sky is pretty much the same, varying only in price and the amount of time you get to do it. If you're rich enough to afford it, you probably want to pick another option that exceeds 100km so your rich friends won't scoff at your 'pretend astronaut wings'.

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

 

Quote

 Certainly, if you're going to claim to be the first (whatever) in "space" but you never actually went above 100 km, you have to expect that people aren't going to consider your claim valid... Or question it at the very least.

SpaceShipOne won the X-prize. So the whole "first" thing is long gone.

Virgin can legitimately claim to even beat the actual Kármán line, since it is calculated based on where aircraft can produce lift, and they fly very slightly higher.

If rich friends want to get in a peeing match over 10 km... whatever, it gives them something to talk about. The Virgin riders can at least claim their flight was substantially more dangerous, I suppose.

I'd not fly the Virgin thing, it scares me. That said, if I did, I'd tell anyone whining about "not 100km" that 100km is a round number for dumb people who can't deal with complexity. I mean, I'd at least have been there, they'd be some rando at a cocktail party.

All that said, they'd have been smarter to give the thing just a little more smash, and beat 100km just for marketing (cause that's all 100km is).

Edited July 12, 2021 by tater

[GoSlash27]

Just now, tater said:

All that said, they'd have been smarter to give the thing just a little more smash, and beat 100km just for marketing (cause that's all 100km is).

Here's something we agree on, although I'd add that the VG Unity and the space tourism industry built around ships like it are also just marketing. In fact, today's flight was also just marketing, made more difficult to sell because it can't exceed 100 km.

Best,

-Slashy

 

[tater]

Spaceship 2 was going 989.75 m/s at shutdown. Up until shutdown, it was accelerating.

They hit 86.1km. They only needed 13.9 km for 100 km alt... at a steady state velocity that would be ~14 seconds longer burn, which is substantial as the total is 60 seconds. Still, just a few seconds more and it might well coast above 100.

The other flight with more than 2 (this was Beth Moses' second flight as passenger) got to 89.9km. Obviously 2X the pax mass, but maybe there is some variation based on weather, and even piloting—the thing is flown manually. Seems like they might be able to solve any marketing issue with an engine bump, and perhaps a flight computer that optimizes trajectory for altitude.

5 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Here's something we agree on, although I'd add that the VG Unity and the space tourism industry built around ships like it are also just marketing. In fact, today's flight was also just marketing, made more difficult to sell because it can't exceed 100 km.

We're in a tiny subset of people on the planet that even know this is an argument.

Someone makes some "it wasn't really space!" claim, and literally any Virgin galactic customer says, "NASA and the USAF say so!"

Argument over. Someone saying "the FAI says..." ... lol. Yeah, that holds no water. FAI (who? What?) or NASA, who wins the argument at a cocktail party?

Edited July 12, 2021 by tater

[GoSlash27]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

Someone makes some "it wasn't really space!" claim, and literally any Virgin galactic customer says, "NASA and the USAF say so!"

But if they go with any other provider, that argument never happens in the first place.

It may seem a trivial matter to you and me, but that big asterisk most definitely will matter to the people with enough money to afford such things.

[tater]

Just now, GoSlash27 said:

But if they go with any other provider, that argument never happens in the first place.

It may seem a trivial matter to you and me, but that big asterisk most definitely will matter to the people with enough money to afford such things.

Nope. None of them know or care. BO will push that (they have already), and Virgin will say, "We use the same altitude NASA and the Air Force use."

The only person I know who could afford to spend that kind of money and not notice it thinks it's kooky (and he's an engineer, likes tech, etc—we were texting during the Virgin flight, both watching it). It's a pretty niche market.

[RCgothic]

As far as I'm concerned, whether it's 100km or 80km doesn't make much difference except in time of weightlessness.

Any suborbital flight is still a 1XP activity compared to an orbital flight of 2XP.

[Beccab]

Uninterrupted video of yesterday's flight

[tater]

They have chutes on.

[Ultimate Steve]

3 hours ago, tater said:

They have chutes on.

Any word if this is standard for all passengers or just for testing?

[Brotoro]

Seems like chutes would be a good idea.

[tater]

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4213/1