Virgin Galactic Gets FAA Approval, Hopes to Start Space Tourism by End of 2014

[vger]

Rock and Roll...

http://news.yahoo.com/virgin-galactic-gets-faa-approval-hopes-start-space-153559999.html

We're not quite 'there' yet, but we're making progress.

[Reddragon]

If in long term Virgin gets an orbitals space plane out of it, than it's good.

[mdatspace]

VG is behind by multiple years. 7 years, to be exact. They should have been flying before.

[Nibb31]

If in long term Virgin gets an orbitals space plane out of it, than it's good.

The White Knight/Space Ship concept is not scalable to an orbital vehicle. If they want to offer orbital flights one day, they will have to migrate to a completely different type of vehicle or sell tickets on DreamChaser, Dragon or CST-100.

[Reddragon]

The White Knight/Space Ship concept is not scalable to an orbital vehicle. If they want to offer orbital flights one day, they will have to migrate to a completely different type of vehicle or sell tickets on DreamChaser, Dragon or CST-100.

That's why I said 'if'. And the reason I said is because I see no point in these suborbital flights. This whole concept of commercial suborbital flights for rich people is pointless in my opinion if it's limited to that. I bet Virgin Galactic has plans for more but I haven't heard of it yet. But obviously they have.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Reddragon

[sgt_flyer]

Well, virgin has already ties with the dreamchaser's company, SNC.

It's SNC who is making virgin's spacecraft hybrid rocket engine (liquid / solid)

In the end, it gives SNC a low cost high altitude test platform for their hybrid engines (they plan to have twin hybrid engines on the dreamchaser)

[Nibb31]

There is no 'if'. It simply isn't possible to scale up a SS2-type vehicle to a orbital spacecraft. You would need to add RCS, a TPS, and a much bigger two-stage rocket behind it. It would have to be a massively bigger vehicle with a carrier plane bigger than what Stratolaunch is proposing.

Suborbital joyrides might be pointless, but they are the only way to make a profit right now. I don't see any other form of space tourism being profitable any time soon.

[Reddragon]

Under 'If in long term Virgin gets an orbitals space plane out of it, than it's good.' I didn't mean a scaled up SS2. I very much know an orbital plane needs RCS and a better propulsion system. I was thinking about an alternative Skylon.

[Nibb31]

I dont think even Branson has enough money to develop an SSTO spaceplane, even if it was possible. Spaceplanes are à technological dead-end at this point.

[Ayo99]

Virgin is just sub-orbital about 110km, which is cool

BUT

SpaceX Dragon V2 is going to 300km and going to dock with ISS, WHICH IS BRILLANT

[Nibb31]

A ticket with Virgin costs $200000.

A ticket on Dragon will cost $20000000.

[Kryten]

I bet Virgin Galactic has plans for more but I haven't heard of it yet.

They have a small air-launched orbital LV in the works, 'LauncherOne'. It's to use WK2 as mothership, but other than that they already seem to have abandoned any commonalities with SS2; the engines are kerolox, and developed in-house rather than by SNC.

[jwenting]

That's why I said 'if'. And the reason I said is because I see no point in these suborbital flights. This whole concept of commercial suborbital flights for rich people is pointless in my opinion if it's limited to that. I bet Virgin Galactic has plans for more but I haven't heard of it yet. But obviously they have.

The idea is to use those suborbital hops to do 2 things:

1) arouse interest in more, orbital to be exact, orbital hotels

2) raise money to fund development of the vehicles and infrastructure to go orbital.

That's always been the plan.

[Nibb31]

But the delays have been costing a lot of Money. Arousing interest is one thing, but they have been spending a lot of money in what is a suborbital dead-end. If Branson wanted to go orbital, he could have invested in a system that at least had the potential of going orbital in the future.

I think he is simply banking on ignorance by claiming to be able to send them to space when all he is doing is putting them above the Karmann line for a few seconds. I also think it's going to bite him in the butt.

[Aghanim]

Isn't Karman line is space? And I don't think that he will go orbital, especially with the system isn't scalable.

However, most space capsules doesn't have the crew capacity, but its solvable by using Orion capsules and Falcon Heavy. Now, is it more cost-effective to launch a satellite payload and crew together or to launch them separately?

Again, suborbital flights just to get zero G is pointless, when parabolic flight could achieve it much longer and much cheaper. And, the rich people probably say that curvature of Earth = space. So, they won't fail soon.

The question is: Why spend an order of magnitude more money to go orbital, while they only want to see the curvature of Earth and have freefall? We doesn't have real space hotels yet, or refuelling station for future SSTO, or some sort of space tourism spot. The infrastructure isn't there yet, and it seems that orbital tourism is pointless too. You don't want to overcrowd ISS, do you?

Edited June 3, 2014 by Aghanim

[Nibb31]

The cheapest way to get to orbit is going to be SpaceX. They claim it will cost $20 million per seat. How many rich people can afford that? Probably not enough to justify the expense of creating a space tourism industry.

[vger]

How many rich people can afford that?

An easily sufficient number.

[Aghanim]

The problem is that there is no need to go orbital. What do you want to do anyway, in orbit, in cramped space capsule?

[Nibb31]

An easily sufficient number.

Let me rephrase that: How many people can afford a $20 million ticket and are willing to spend a week floating in a tin can instead of chilling in Barbados or on a luxury yacht. It takes a certain type of geek to want to go to orbit... Your average thrill-seeking jetsetter might find some appeal in the Virgin joyride, luxury hotel and champaign included, but they would probably get fed up with staring through a Dragon porthole after the first half hour.

"An easily sufficient number" isn't good enough.

[Streetwind]

"An easily sufficient number" isn't good enough.

I'm inclined to say the quoted statement is bogus anyway, because we actually know the number of people who were so far willing to pay that amount of money during the eight years the opportunity existed:

Seven.

That is not in any way, shape or form a "sufficient number". That's an anecdote at best; you could even call it a non-event, because the amount is so low that it falls outside the confidence interval of 5 sigma you'd need if you were trying to scientifically prove that nobody in fact ever flew (in fact it's outside of 6 sigma, even). One in a billion was interested enough to do it, and on a per-year basis, it's less than one in the entirety of living human beings.

It's amusing to note, though, that one of those seven felt that it was so nice, he would fly twice

Edited June 3, 2014 by Streetwind

[vger]

I'm inclined to say the quote is bogus anyway, because we actually know the number of people who were so far willing to pay that amount of money during the eight years the opportunity existed:

Seven.

My response was to how many CAN afford it.

And bumming a ride with Russia's cosmonauts is a lot different from signing up for a flight that is INTENDED to be used by tourists. The former involves a lot more legal hurdles.

Edited June 3, 2014 by vger