Off Topic > General Discussion
Richard Branson
apollo16uvc:
The livestream was kinda shit...
Prefer the no-nosense streams of NASA and SpaceX that actually have interesting commentary and more than a few seconds of footage in "Space"
smartcooky:
--- Quote from: molesworth on July 12, 2021, 06:35:28 AM ---It was an impressive flight, and interesting technology, but I think it's fundamentally a dead end as far as spaceflight goes, and will never be more than a "tourist attraction". (Not that there's anything wrong with encouraging tourism.)
Even with the announced future developments of the idea, they're not going to be able to reach orbit or launch payloads into LEO. They might allow for an occasional science experiment in low or brief zero G, but that would need to be very well planned as it's such a brief opportunity per flight.
Overall, it's a fun idea, and as soon as I make my first million I'll think about buying a ticket ;)
--- End quote ---
Branson has about 700 people (mostly the rich and celebrities) signed up to go.
Also, I don't believe its a dead technology, at least for satellite launches. Pegasus has had about 40 successful air-lauches of satellites into orbit over the last 30 years. Initially they were using a B-52, now they use a Lockheed L-1011 (Tri-Star).
While there are disadvantages in doing it this way such as mass limitations, the big advantage is that any orbital inclination is possible without a significant payload penalty or safety limitation you face in ground lauched - you literally point the mothership aircraft in the desired direction and launch the rocket.
Here is the Pegasus launch of the CYGNSS weather and hurricane research satellite back in 2016. It ended up in a 512 x 6908 km @ 35° (target orbit was 510 x 6888 km @ 35°)
Enjoy
Zakalwe:
More power to him... shrouds don't have pockets and he's got to find a way of spending all those millions he's made of plundering the NHS.
So what about the altitude? It's all a game of rich men dick-waving after all. However, getting to space in a sub-orbital hop as a passenger doesn't make you an astronaut anymore than flying in an airline makes you a pilot.
Hopefully access to space (and Mars!) will increase and we'll move beyond such simplistic notions.
Peter B:
--- Quote from: apollo16uvc on July 12, 2021, 05:02:08 PM ---The livestream was kinda shit...
Prefer the no-nosense streams of NASA and SpaceX that actually have interesting commentary and more than a few seconds of footage in "Space"
--- End quote ---
Actually a lot of the video was pretty poor, in terms of formatting. For examples: the numbers showing things like speed and altitude were invisible against light backgrounds; showing the altitude in feet was silly - 300,000 feet is meaningless to most people, but 56 miles is a number that people understand; and using variable width characters wasn't useful either, particularly with altitude - the characters changed rapidly, meaning the numbers flickered back and forth, making them a little harder to read.
molesworth:
--- Quote from: Peter B on July 12, 2021, 11:05:03 AM ---I'm not as convinced as Molesworth that this technology is a dead end. I assume it'd be possible to sling a small unmanned rocket where the spacecraft hangs that could get into orbit. And the White Knight aircraft could be scaled up (isn't there that monster made of two 747 fuselages that's flown a couple of times?) to carry larger craft. Obviously, it's only going to happen if it's economical. It would be interesting to compare costs with SpaceX.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: smartcooky on July 13, 2021, 02:43:19 AM ---Also, I don't believe its a dead technology, at least for satellite launches. Pegasus has had about 40 successful air-lauches of satellites into orbit over the last 30 years. Initially they were using a B-52, now they use a Lockheed L-1011 (Tri-Star).
--- End quote ---
Just to clarify - I'm not saying air-launch systems are a dead end, and I agree they're a good way to launch small payloads cheaply. However, I think that Virgin's SpaceShipTwo and successors are not heading in that direction. The design is ingenious with the feathering wings and rubber/NO2 engine, but even scaled up it will, at best, be useable as a sub-orbital point-to-point transport system or just possibly a tourist ride to very low orbit.
I'd also agree about the very poor quality of the streaming, and I switched over to NASA Spaceflight who showed the release and ignition well before the Virgin stream. Hopefully they'll sort out the technical glitches for future flights, and maybe have less of the ads and pundits, although they're likely catering for a different audience to us...
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