Drastic differences between establishing commercial flight and strapping idiots into rockets so they can float around for 4 minutes.

Since you are such a proponent, what at all good will come of this endeavor for even middle class citizens? Even the most vivid imagination can't think of any.

11/1/2014 5:29:24 PM

Point to point suborbital transport, which given enough time, might become cheap.
Creation of new technologies, which could be helpful.
Make it cheaper to launch satellites (which industries use to provide services to people, ie the middle class)

11/1/2014 5:33:26 PM

One of the benefits you just offered is a situation where we don't currently use humans to do the work. Great job!

Quote :

"Point to point suborbital transport, which given enough time, might become cheap. "

The physics say otherwise. But keep cheerleading away!


[Edited on November 1, 2014 at 5:47 PM. Reason : .]

11/1/2014 5:44:47 PM

So, is that your way of agreeing that two of them do? Also, price of a WK2 launch of a satellite would be less than a traditional rocket.

11/1/2014 5:47:07 PM

Am I agreeing with you that knew technologies can be created without killing people? Absolutely.

11/1/2014 5:53:22 PM

What do you mean the physics says otherwise? Do you think that point to point suborbital travel is some sort of impossibility?

11/1/2014 6:05:44 PM

Economically? Absolutely. It ain't like energy is getting cheaper.

11/1/2014 6:12:24 PM

Transoceanic commercial flights used to be prohibitively expensive, so what's your point?

11/1/2014 6:15:42 PM

I just want to say that "Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two" sounds like an adult film title.

11/1/2014 6:40:52 PM

Quote :

"Transoceanic commercial flights used to be prohibitively expensive, so what's your point?"

But physics wasn't the limit.

11/1/2014 7:33:50 PM

K

11/1/2014 7:51:22 PM

seriously.... if i had enough money i'd buy a ticket with these guys once they figure out what went wrong and go with a safer (liquid vs hybrid engine?) vehicle... i just wonder if Virgin Galactic will make it past this tragedy

11/1/2014 8:33:51 PM

They should have started passenger flights, one passenger at a time, in Dubai ten years ago with the first airplane instead of putting it in a museum. They'll never be able to build an engine strong enough to get that heavy thing where they want to go or an airframe strong enough to meet NTSB standards. Of course the first airplane was a cobbled-together deathtrap too, and they knew it. Rutan, himself, pulled the plug on it.

[Edited on November 1, 2014 at 9:15 PM. Reason : .]

11/1/2014 9:14:02 PM

Point to point suborbital gets very nearly the same mass fraction as orbital craft.
Like orbital launch, the reason it's uneconomical is not physics.
It's expensive because the rockets are not reusable, and because a company only flies a handful every year.

11/1/2014 9:25:58 PM

Physics is exactly why it isn't economical. It takes a fuckton of energy to do this. Until we can tap the Sun directly into these machines for next to nothing then this is a rich mans endeavor and egos (all around) killed yet more people in the pursuit.

11/2/2014 5:33:32 PM

So serious question, when do you consider a vehicle safe for human flight?

11/2/2014 5:41:34 PM

The question is, why does a human need to do a mission that a perfectly good computer could do?

11/2/2014 5:49:35 PM

Because, no matter you think, you will always eventually need a human to test a vehicle rated for human travel.

11/2/2014 5:53:48 PM

Current technology doesn't allow a machine this complex to be entirely operated by a computer.

11/2/2014 11:31:47 PM

the soviet union launched a space shuttle completely unmanned in 1988...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

completely different beast, but i wouldn't say it's any less complex.

but the whole point of Spaceship 2 was to bring people to space.

[Edited on November 3, 2014 at 7:56 AM. Reason : ]

11/3/2014 7:56:09 AM

http://spaceflightnow.com/2014/11/03/virgin-galactic-rocket-plane-deployed-braking-system-prematurely/

11/3/2014 8:36:39 AM

Unmanned doesn't equal operated by a computer but I understand what you are saying. Regardless, what bbehe said is true. If humans are traveling in it, you need humans to test it.

11/3/2014 9:43:04 AM

You guys with your "computers should be doing the testing" have valid points.

I would have thought a man dying would set things back more than no deaths. That doesn't seem to be the case though. They are estimating that the rocket failure last Tuesday will set Orbital Sciences back 6mo-1yr.

Last I heard Branson talk though, seems like they are still on schedule.

11/3/2014 9:43:40 AM

Two totally different products.

11/3/2014 9:48:01 AM

Funny how some people are incapable of forming well reasoned viewpoints in light of past history.

Quote :

"The physics say otherwise."

What physics? The ones using today's engineering? Sure, perhaps, but the same thing was probably said in 1900 about self powered sustained heavier than air flight.

11/3/2014 7:33:47 PM

Quote :

"Current technology doesn't allow a machine this complex to be entirely operated by a computer."

You're kidding right? It's about weight. Adding the ability to automatically control aspects of the flight would make this even economically more unpalatable than it already is. I mean the whole point of the "manual" flight controls was so that something specifically like this wouldn't happen and they still didn't get that right.

11/3/2014 8:56:15 PM

Are you not even going to address how your concerns about using the new fuel mixture were unfounded?

11/3/2014 9:27:43 PM

For fucks sake. The early speculation that turned out to be wrong doesn't have any bearing on this discussion. The point is were this a robot controlled test then we'd have 1 less aviator dead. Now go run away until you can figure out how to explain that this can't be done.

11/3/2014 9:37:13 PM

Human rated vehicles need human testing. Period. End of Discussion.

11/3/2014 10:13:25 PM

and again, I ask you, at what point do you consider a vehicle fit and tested for human travel? I can point to several design flaws on aircraft that weren't discovered for years on airframes with thousands of hours of flight time, yet I don't see people campaigning against banning airplanes for being unsafe.

11/3/2014 10:20:38 PM

HAY GUISE Y DON'T WE JUST ALL HAVE REMOTECONTROLLED ROCKEM SOCKEM ROBAOTS FIGHT OUR WARS TOO!

11/7/2014 2:59:23 PM

so is NASA going to build another one of these? it would be cool to buy a ticket and go to space. how long do they stay up? a day or two?

11/7/2014 3:27:20 PM

Seriously?

11/7/2014 3:56:49 PM

i've alway thought space was cool and it would be awesome to go there. do you think it would be too dangerous now?

11/7/2014 4:04:59 PM

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-revealed-siebold-spaceshiptwo.html

more details of the surviving pilot's experience.

11/10/2014 12:31:24 PM