A space station for the elite to live a-la Elysium. I bet my kids will see it happen. Meanwhile, the earth bound will be living in squalor.
Posted on 08/05/2017 8:49:22 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Virgin Galactic performed the latest glide flight of its second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane Aug. 4, calling it a "dry run" for upcoming powered test flights.
SpaceShipTwo, carried aloft by its WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, separated from the plane about an hour after its 11:58 a.m. Eastern takeoff from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The spaceplane landed back in Mojave ten minutes later.
The glide flight was the sixth for this SpaceShipTwo vehicle, named VSS Unity, and the first in two months. As on two previous glide flights, pilots tested the feathering system that raises the vehicle's twin tail booms for a safe reentry, then returned the tail booms to their normal position for landing.
This flight was the first to carry most of the hybrid propulsion system that will be used for future powered test flights. The spacecraft's oxidizer tank was filled with nitrous oxide and a helium pressurant tank was also loaded. The only major component missing was the solid fuel casing, which was replaced on this flight with a ballast tank filled with water.
...
Virgin Galactic officials have said in the past that there is not a set number of glide flights planned, only a series of test milestones that the company hopes to achieve in a test flight campaign. Company president Mike Moses said in an October 2016 interview that the company anticipated needing about 10 glide flights to achieve all its goals, but added that it could be completed in fewer flights, or require additional flights, depending on how well the test campaign went.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
This is a money hole for suckering investors. This plane design is far too fragile for reentry “from space”.
The smaller prototype succeeded, but scaling it up might cause problems. I guess.
I had the chance to talk to one of the guys working on this on twitter a few months ago. He said “it is not intended to go ALL the way into space and back”. So I asked what good is it for then? He said for “high altitude high dollar joy rides”.lol
Then I told him I thought they were already taking their investors for a “joy ride” and he never came back. :)
Plus, how can they possibly find a virgin to pilot it in CaliPornea?
Plus, how can they possibly find a virgin to pilot it in CaliPornea?
:) My curiosity would be if they are receiving any tax dollars directly or indirectly for this “Joy ride’.
So, people are going to pay a lot of money to go on an aircraft that does nothing more than go up in the air and come down? The goal of course is to see the earth from as high as you can without having to put on a spacesuit.
A lot of money, a lot of risk and not much reward. I can do the same exact thing by shutting off my lights and bringing up Google Earth.
Yep, that’s what I thought too. I think it a tax “loss write off” investment for a lot of huge corporations. If I remember right Google is one of these.
You are confusing "from space" with "from orbit".
Actually, an earlier generation of that same vehicle already made two trips to the edge of space, and back, with a human pilot and ballast equivalent to two passengers in 2004. The same ship made both flights, six days apart.
The next footprints on the moon will be from the Dr Scholl’s sandals worn by a tourist who flew there in a Burt Rutan-designed spacecraft.
You are right... I stand corrected. They are different. But the question still remains, what practical use is this going to have? If it can’t make it out of our atmosphere and reenter, what good is it for the millions they have dumped into this thing and the millions they going to continue to dump into it? Just for “joy rides?”.
It’s a high profile tax shelter... :)
You’re not getting it. The Kármán line is at an altitude of 100,000 km. Above the Kármán line is space. Them’s the rules.
The first generation of SpaceShipTwo flew to 102,900 and 112,000 km — which, by definition, is SPACE. And it re-entered earth’s atmosphere, safely, carrying a human passenger.
It quite clearly is capable of re-entry, because it already has done it, twice even.
People are paying for 10 minutes of weightlessness and to see the curvature of the earth.
I get it... But if it can’t go out into orbit and return without falling apart (which this design cannot) what practical purpose does it serve?
Neat looking money hole though. :)
A space station for the elite to live a-la Elysium. I bet my kids will see it happen. Meanwhile, the earth bound will be living in squalor.
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