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I'm personally excited about the name of the service, "Vigin Galactic". It just sounds...right.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I saw this, as well as the Virgin Galactic and spaceport bits, personally I liked the SpaceShipTwo bit, since after the first one flew I wrote a story in which SpaceShipTwos flying out of the Mojave Desert from 2008 onwards were a part, hee hee.
But of course, until they actually exist...
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Wow!! This is awesome! And $200,000 really is not that horrible. After another thirty or forty years, maybe it will be somewhat affordable for the average person. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I'm not sure how much they're asking for the deposit, but I think it's amazing that over 38,000 people have already put down money for a ride in one of the ships.
Not only that, but they are saying that there have been at least a hundred that have paid in full. I really want to see this business succeed.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm tron betwee nthinkning tat it's great that we're making getting into space more routine and thinking that this is decadence on a just before the French Revolution level.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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This is so freakin' sweet it's almost beyond words. But not quite.
"My only concern is that the longer they leave the launch, the more likely we all are to be hit by a bus."
Awesome!!
I bet this is only the first step. Within decades somebody'll build a beanstalk and then from there, the short hop into our solar backyard. I am so incredibly excited.
Posts: 218 | Registered: Nov 2001
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quote:This must be a joke. We can't even safely send astronauts into space.
That would be becuase the primary vehicle for sending astronauts into space right now is the space shuttle. The space shuttle was badly designed in the first place and even the youngest space shuttle has been in operation for 14 years now. In other words: NASA has created a false sense of danger around space shuttle that a little common sense and good engineering should remove.
SpaceShipOne's and SpaceShipTwo's will be shitloads safer than the shuttle.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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This sub-orbital stuff, lobbing things into the sky and watching them fall back to earth doesn't turn me on much.
For $200,000 I want a trip around the world and a fiery re-entry! Better yet, send me out far enough that I can see almost an entire hemisphere. Give me some zero-G time. That's space flight.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by TimeTim: I bet this is only the first step. Within decades somebody'll build a beanstalk and then from there, the short hop into our solar backyard. I am so incredibly excited.
I wish. But the risk factor involved in a beanstalk will make it impossible for it to ever get built.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Private industry can't send people up in planes safely, at least if we're saying safe equals no accidents. Which of course it doesn't. "Safe" is always an estimation calculated with an understanding of the risks involved. I would consider space travel by government relatively safe as of now; except for funding problems, we're perfectly capable of doing routine flights to a space station, for instance.
Also, while these people will, in one sense, be going into space, they will not be achieving orbit. That's a lot easier, and the government's been able to do that safely for quite some time.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by skillery: This sub-orbital stuff, lobbing things into the sky and watching them fall back to earth doesn't turn me on much.
For $200,000 I want a trip around the world and a fiery re-entry! Better yet, send me out far enough that I can see almost an entire hemisphere. Give me some zero-G time. That's space flight.
For $200,000, I want a trip into space and a week at a spacestation before coming back. But then again, $200,000 probably means a lot more to me than it does to any of the current clientelle. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Given the number of actual fatalities we've had in the American space program compared to the number of actual launches and the newness of the technology (that factor has faded now, true)...I think it's more than a bit of hyperbole to say "We can't even send astronauts into space safely."
Mr. Squicky, the difference between this and decadence is that it's something useful. This puts us much closer to actually spreading out from this overcrowded rock.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rakeesh, Most decadence is useful taking that perspective. The consumption of exotic Asian and New World goods while all around you people are starving financed exploration and trade. That doesn't make the consumption any less decadent. So is the case here.
People with a space fetish can spend $200,000 to indulge it, which in turns funds the development of space travel. It's like the best and worst things about America rolled up into one little package.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: >> But the risk factor involved in a beanstalk will make it impossible for it to ever get built.<<
If by 'beanstalk' you mean a space elevator, I think your imagination is broken.
Really? Planners calculate risk as the likelihood of something happening multiplied by the severity should it happen. Imagine a beanstalk falling. Imagine it as a target of loony terrorists. It's far too easy.
I can imagine us coming up with a material that's strong enough. And I can also imagine massive protests against it from groups ranging from eco-fanatics ("it'll change the climate by distorting wind patterns") to religious fanatics ("it's another Tower of Babel, but worse this time") to social justice fanatics ("think of the welfare that could be handed out with the money you're wasting on an elevator to nowhere") to plain old cynics ("it's just another huge money-wasting boondoggle").
Hate to bring you down, but it's going to take a fundamental change in human nature to ever make a beanstalk possible.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Or aliens can build one for us. Hey, there's always a bright side.
As for regular manned commercial spaceflight, yes, it will be much safer than the shuttles were, but one of these things will crash. It might be a year before it happens, but it'll happen for one reason or another.
I'm afraid of what the public response will be, but hopefully they'll get over it and we can get moving into space!
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I remember hearing about this on that reality show Richard Branson did a year or so ago - I forget what it was called, but it was sort of like "The Apprentice," only with Richard Branson. At the time I wasn't sure that Virgin Galactic was an actual plan of his, but apparently it is!
It does sound pretty cool. I'll be very interested to see what happens with it.
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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>> I can also imagine massive protests against it from groups ranging from eco-fanatics ("it'll change the climate by distorting wind patterns") to religious fanatics ("it's another Tower of Babel, but worse this time") to social justice fanatics ("think of the welfare that could be handed out with the money you're wasting on an elevator to nowhere") to plain old cynics ("it's just another huge money-wasting boondoggle").<<
This post bugged me enough to go back and answer the points made.
Eco-fanatics: Increasingly less effective. See ANWAR. See continuing extermination of old growth forests world wide. See Amazon rain forests. See Kyoto. This threat is laughable.
Religious fanatics: Your 'Tower of Babel' analogy doesn't fly. We're already in space; we've already been to the moon. We have touched the face of God, as it were. In any case-- the loons that would make this type of protest might gather news reports, but will ever be power and influence hungry. Consider Rev. Phelps-- annoying, but certainly not powerful or a threat.
Social Justice fanatics: I'm suprised you brought this one up, honestly. As a whole, they're pushovers. I mean, for heaven's sake, they can't even make the space program belch, much less stop it, and EVERYONE over the age of two knows how incompetently NASA runs things.
Cynics: Ahh, see this is the one that may cause the space elevator potential problems. I hope every day that unrepentent cynics die quickly and quietly to stop choking the rest of the world with negativity.
>>Imagine a beanstalk falling. Imagine it as a target of loony terrorists. It's far too easy.
It IS far too easy to imagine failure. It supports my first point-- your imagination is broken.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Sending some unprotected cargo ships on a raid of a nearby world that you hope hasn't yet built any defenses, I suppose.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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But seriously, the next step would seem to me to be establishing a shipyard either in orbit or on the moon.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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