Virgin Galactic, Branson's space venture

[kerbiloid]

To make things function like an airplane, they invented the airplane looking like airplane.

[SpaceFace545]

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

[tater]

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.

[mikegarrison]

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

[tater]

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.

[tater]

 

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.

[mikegarrison]

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.

[tater]

5 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

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

Yeah, I think the town was named in ~1950 though.

[RealKerbal3x]

(13.4km in sensible units)

Edited May 22, 2021 by RealKerbal3x

[RealKerbal3x]

 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

 

[tater]

Ah, the brown fields of Earth!

[Ultimate Steve]

Got to hand it to them, they have a really nice looking spaceship.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

7 hours ago, tater said:

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. 

[GuessingEveryDay]

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.

[wumpus]

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]

[tater]

Here's their vid:

 

[Brotoro]

Altitude?

[tater]

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.

[mikegarrison]

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.

[tater]

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

 

 

[tater]

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/06/07/virgin-galactics-richard-branson-aims-to-fly-to-space-before-jeff-bezos/

Branson wants to tweet "welcome to the club!" to Bezos I guess.

Then they can fight it out on 80 vs 100km.

[Meecrob]

Just like how I pretend my 152 is a real plane...my excuse is I'm not a billionaire haha.

[tater]

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 June 10, 2021 by tater

[RyanRising]

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.