Yay!
Between this and the glo-sheep my day hasn't been completely put off by misery and bad news. Good stuff.
Finally. Sir Richard Branson's long-delayed commercial spaceliner, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, has successfully completed its first rocket-powered test flight. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo on successful April 29, 2013 test flight Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo during its first rocket-powered test flight (click to …
Is this really true space flight? Is this true sub-orbital?
At the moment, depending on whose view it is, space can be anywhere from 50 miles high to 100 miles high.
While you may be able to see the black, the curvature of the earth and experience a semblance of weightlessness, no organisation has actually done forward with a space 'standard' height.
Could the claims a of this space flight fall foul of the advertising standards commision?
Just a thought.
I think that it is generally accepted that "space" starts at 100km. This is about the point where you can't gain enough aerodynamic lift from the atmosphere to fly, but it all depends on the weather, temperatures sun activity, etc.
However, I remember them trying to sell me a ticket, saying that I could ride their plane out of the atmosphere. I said I would be very keen; it would be cool to look down on the ISS which orbits in the atmosphere, but alas no, it doesn't go that high.
There are no real inherent risks doing this, the Russians use a Foxbat and take people up to the same height for $30,000 a ride, it's just that no one had a passenger aircraft to do it before.
If something were to go wrong, passengers failing to return, or returning by fireball the whole project would be shut down and the owners sued to death.
It is what it is, there is no magic engineering or pushing the boundaries here, they are just adapting what is already available and doing what has already been done.
The only difference is that they are fleecing idiots who believe it is such a cool thing to do.
"the Russians use a Foxbat and take people up to the same height" Are you confusing Feet and Meters?
The all time altitude record for a foxbat is 124kft or 37km Space ship 2 will go beyond the Kármán line at 100km (which is 328kft - you might recall Spaceship One's tail number was 328kf for this very reason)
100km??? I am not sure about this it seems a lot of meddling is involved just to get a plane to fly that high. why take the risk, I would have thought 64km was high enough for anyone (ie commercial jets). There are added risks of flying so high such as avoiding satellites, asteroids, etc. It's one thing to fly in the atmosphere where friction slows you down but it's completely another thing to fly in a vacuum. Has anyone played asteroids? the flying controls in a vacuum are far more difficult. Presumably the pilots are trained to avoid crashing into things but it still seems a recipe for disaster. What if they reach space, turn left suddenly and fly into the moon?
Hmmm, I think this is certainly interesting although SpaceX is more interesting. This has lots of future interest once the money starts coming in. It also gets the general public a bit more enthused about Spaceflight - SpaceX is still a minority interest to most, whereas with Virgin behind it, this stuff is always in the news.
> It's just a joy ride for people with too much money.
You're not wrong. Branson can keep his SpaceShipTwo, I think I'd prefer the Thrill-o-Matic anyhow.
There is no way Branson should allow his kids (or anyone else's kids) to go up in this thing. Rockety stuff is inherently dangerous - just ask the six people involved in the 2007 explosion (although three of those people can't answer, ever). Adults are capable of making a rational decision as to whether or not to risk fiery death (e.g. Branson has chosen Yes, Shatner has chosen No). Children are not capable of making that decision for themselves rationally and therefore they cannot give informed consent - which means they should not be allowed to go up.
At what age do Humans begin to make 'rational decisions'? When the law says they can? I see plenty of 'adults' making what I view as incredibly irrational decisions everyday and they have the benefit of age and experience. Maybe we should just elect Martin Budden as Supreme Chancellor of Rationality and you can decide what's right for everyone. Alternatively you could elect me & I'll determine what's 'right' for your children.
You conveniently ignore the fact there are 13/14 year olds who are more rational and competent to make decisions than a lot of El Reg's estemeed commenterati but there are also 20 year olds you would trust with a can opener, especially not in space or on its fringes as the decompression would be a bitch!
@Martin Budden.
With regard to the comment on the 3 people killed and 3 injured by the rocket engine test accident, I hardly think an accident on a test bed on the ground with a prototype engine which has since been tested many many times quite safely is a valid point. Especially since I think the accident was unrelated to the actual engine..
"On 26 July 2007, during the early rocket testing phase, an explosion occurred during a propellant flow test at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The test included filling the oxidizer tank with 4,500 kg (10,000 pounds) of nitrous oxide, followed by a 15-second cold flow injector test. Although the tests did not ignite the gas, three employees were killed and three injured, two critically and one seriously, by flying shrapnel.[9]"
"... Branson plans to be aboard ... along with his two children, "if my wife allows.""
No sane person would put all his little ducklings and himself on the same experimental aircraft on its first full-scale flight. Even if it doesn't end up wiping out his posterity, the mere fact of doing this will be an indelible comment that he thinks he's a Hollywood movie rather than being in the real world. The biographies would always end with "... and a fool."
First COMMERCIAL FLIGHT. Not first full scale flight. It will already have been in to Space quite a few times, so its going to be pretty thoroughly tested by the start of the commercial program.
Although I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket. Some people even split their family between aircraft when flying abroad.
First, well done Virgin Galactic for this step. I'm not a fan but still, kudos.
Second, taking kids on a flight? The first flight? Er, no, don't do that. If the other arguements put forward here don't move you on that then think of it like this.
100,000 dollars per kid? That's just wasteful. Buy them a happy meal, take 'em to a cinema and let 'em ride a pony home afterwards. It's safer, cheaper and they'll appreciate it more, and have a memory they'll treasure until the next X-Box game comes out or something.
Branson is the 4th richest guy in the UK with a net worth of over $4B. I hardly think he's worried about the waste. And what do you get your children as a gift when they are in their late 20's? I don't think a happy meal is going to cover it, and I'm pretty sure they already have enough ponies.
Problem with building a new Concord is that the design may be complete but it is rather dated. In addition, my Dad was involved in the Wind Tunnel/Ditch Tank tests and some of the stories about how the French adjusted parameters to ensure they 'passed' some of the tests, well.........
@Freetard
Right so now we need a "cool wall" for aircraft.
Concorde goes over on the right under "thermodynamically immobile"
And then we put everything else to the left. May I suggest Saunders-Roe Princess (that one might be more "oh my word!" than cool), Avro Vulcan, Supermarine Spitfire Mark V, as going up the chilly end.
"Why not just build another Concord?"
Wrong flight profile. WK2/SS2 will hit M3 (for a couple of minutes) and give you (IIRC) about 15 mins weightlessness.
All jigs and fittings destroyed decades ago
About 1/3 the size of vehicles projected to be economic to run at this speed. Concorde made money for BA and Air France because they more or less got them for free. They met the running costs which were more than covered by the seat prices. That's fine if you own both the mfg and the airline but IRL you have to also sell them at a reasonable price as well.
Note As I've learned more of Concorde I've realised what a huge body of work was done to make it happen. It really was on a par with the Apollo programme and had to tackle quiet a few problems the SR71 had but side stepped with a near unlimited black budget. Both the airframe and the engine mfg had a lot of additional plans they wanted to incorporate starting with the 17th Concorde, but as they never got above 15 most were never tried (breaking the sound barrier and M2 cruise without after burner would have knocked down the fuel bill for a start).
To all those bleating about the flights only being for rich stupid people, well this is Bert Rutan's income stream from building the things for Branson (and getting a pile of testing done along the way). So since this is, partial, rocketry an Americanism is appropriate: The Stupid, it really does burn!
If I won the lottery I wouldn't sign up, no biology to speak of and I'm not too fussed about thrill rides. But that doesn't mean I need to deride those who do want to, or fail to see the benefits of fleecing them.
This is the first of a projected fleet. As such and problems in test flight have to feed back into the production line.
It also interfaces with the US domestic aircraft regulatory bodies. It's flying out of (basically) an airport, not a rocket launching range.
The hurdles this thing has to overcome are huge and frankly most are unlikely to be technical. SS2 is the pathfinder for this whole process.
It doesn't fall under aircraft regulation.
Commercial aircraft are type approved (in brief, the regulatory body says "This aircraft is safe to fly").
RLV's are covered (currently) by the FAA's experimental permit regime and (once in service) by a launch licence regime under the Commercial Space Launch Amendement Act 2002. The FAA/US Gov are specifically saying that the vehicles are *not* certified as safe by them and all participants will have to sign a waiver to the effect that they absolve the FAA, the operator, manufacturers and subcontractors of all liability, except in the case of gross negligence.
Participants also have to be presented with, amongst other things, stats on the operating history and fatalities of *all* spacecraft.
All this negativity.
a) No-one is forcing anyone to ride the thing.
2) It's none of your business if someone puts their kids on this thing, even if it then runs into a fireball or pancakes. One thing we don't have in this world is a shortage of kids. You want to keep your kids away from it, fine, you have my full support. You want to stop your next-door neighbour from letting his kids ride it, you need to be quiet and find something useful to do.