Slashdot Mirror
Virgin Atlantic Licensing SpaceShipOne
Tigerquoll writes "According to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, British airline magnate Richard Branson has announced a plan for the world's first commercial space flights and has signed a technology licensing deal with Mojave Aerospace Ventures - the US company behind SpaceShipOne. See scaled composites' media release and the Virgin Galactic website"
I may never get onto the world's first commercial supersonic jet, now that it's been retired, but with an initial price of £115,000 I'll certainly hope that (after another 5 years or so, when the price has come down), I'll get into space. Cool. Really cool if it flies over my house :-))
I'd always regretted not doing the quick flight to NY from London (not that I could afford it!), even with tiny seats. I'm told it was just about possible to pop over the pond, do your xmas shopping in a different continent, and pop back the next day (same day was possible but left little time for shopping...) Let's just hope that the space-flights stimulate some competition, unlike Concorde, because then the next goal would quickly become 'lunar city'...
I think that 'Virgin Galactic' is hopelessly optimistic, though, given that it's sub-orbital. I'm guessing people won't really want the 'galactic' version, and a return ticket might be a bit superfluous...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Once everyone who can reasonably afford to, has gone up in space, floated around the cabin a bit, and drunk their vodka-bubbles, what are they going to do for an encore? Take people to Mars? Once the novelty has worn off, people realize there's nowhere to go for your 10 day vacation because everything interesting is 3 generations away... Just a passing fad like radio, television, and spam.
The virgin galactic (which translates to Virgin Milky...) site gushes about the spiritual experience for rich tourists ("executive jets"..."dine with astronauts" yadda yadda) but the true opportunity for the foreseeable future will be IMHO in high speed intercontinental flight for those for whom it is really important. Let space tourism pave the way (like the rich did with the automobile) but let's not forget the ultimate goal. Then I can finally go to a conference in Australia without haveing to reserve two days for getting there!
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Simple - have passengers sign a waver. Not responsible for death, injury, etc. etc. Done and done!
If you look at the total costs of SpaceShip One until now its not really low...
And I suspect that they are counting on Virgin to come back and order increasingly more and larger spaceships.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
" If it is a success, we want to move into orbital flights and then, possibly, even get a hotel up there"
Am I a hopeless geek who needs therapy or does reading that quote from Branson bring a genuine tear of emotion to anyone else's eye?
That such a thing has taken one very real step closer to realisation in my lifetime is - quite literally - awesome.
That's quite a bit for a one-off publicity stunt,
`Could' is the important word here.
entirely aside from the 14 Million Pounds already invested.
Which 14 million?
So they haven't actually committed to 14 million. Indeed the press release doesn't say how much they have comitted to, so we can assume it is not very much -- or MAV would be crowing about it._O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Beardie can run a worthwhile passenger airline, however, while no-one can run a worthwhile train company in the UK under Railtrack and the pricing restrictions, but of those that try, Virgin is by far the best.
Why do people say things like "he can't even run a train company" as if it's something really basic that any idiot should be able to get right?
With some people, I'd have a similar response. However, with Branson, I'll remain skeptical for a bit longer...
err - can I mod myself down? I meant to be funny, not informative. Obviously, insurance will be an issue for a commercial enterprise like this.
If I had Bill Gates' fortune this is the thing I would do. Get back to the Moon, establish a small base, restart the Orion program from there, mine the outer planets for He3, go to the stars. Would $40B be enough? I don't know. It's the most responsible thing to do if we want to survive as a species. Yeah, and this Earth thing we have here is losing it's novelty after so many years. Let's get going!
Branson is a master of PR, and I wouldn't be remotely surprised if this venture gets quietly binned, once its provided its much needed channels to allow Branson time to plug his newly launched credit card
He's also a successful entrepreneur to the tune of billions, so I wouldn't write him off that quickly. He must be doing something right.
When he started an airline (Virgin Atlantic) people aired similar doubts. When British Airlines realised he was serious they threw every dirty trick in the book at him... but they got smacked down in the courts when Branson proved they were operating an effective monopoly (a situation close to slashdot readers' hearts).
Despite extensive industrial sabotage, Virgin launched the worlds prototype discount airline, which to date has been massively successful. Virgin Blue, the australian arm of the business, has captured a third of the domestic market from Qantas within a few years. All the while Virgin has dominated another form of air travel with Virgin Balloons. But I'm sure that was a ploy to sell plastic credit too.
Naive spin-master or visionary benefactor? I think Branson's record speaks for itself.
The site says that after your flight, you'll have a dinner where you'll be presented with your astronaut wings. I can see some resentment from the established astronaut/cosmonaut/taikonaut corps to this.
How much do you want to bet that the requirements for receiving your wings will be raised by 100km or so?
Chip H.
but i fear that step 4 will be sudden bankruptcy, when they quickly exhaust the very small number of adventurers rich enough to afford the still hideously expensive ticket.
This is indeed a possibility, and maybe even probable unless during the period of step 3, further development and testing is conducted to lower the cost of suborbital flights. If that occurs, then the rest of us may get suborbital for the cost of a car, while the super-rich get an orbiting hotel, and on from there.
If anyone can do it, though, it's Rutan IMHO.
Does anyone else remember Pan Am taking advanced reservations on the "Space Clipper" as part of their 'product placement' in Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's 2001 ? Someplace admidst the wreckage of my youth I have a certificate that Pan Am mailed to me certifying that I had a reservation when the "Space Clipper" flies. I wish I could find it. At least I have my Apollo 11 patch left over from a NASA visit in '70. If Virgin can actually make it happen, I say go for it ! Space travel has gotten too Governmental and has lost a ton of the adventure / romance that attracted me as a kid. If Branson can make it work, wahoo ! I just hope he registers through some country that doesn't allow lawyers in, otherwise the bastards will kill the love.
How many of the 500 people who are currently called 'astronauts' actually piloted their rockets, and how many were simply strapped to them?!!
In the period between 1959 and 1969 - money was no object. At that point, we were near the peak of the Cold War, and very few people in the American public minded spending exorbitant amounts of money on putting a person on the moon, because it meant beating the Russians.
These days, there is no Enemy that we must race to space to beat, thus there isn't an incentive to spend exorbitant amounts of money. The recent efforts (X-Prize, etc.) have mainly been in the arena of taking spaceflight and bringing the cost down.
IMO, we won't be seeing cheap Moon shots in only 10 years. But nonetheless, SpaceShipOne is an important first step to space.
Space tourism is likely not going to pay the bills, but SpaceShipOne + White Knight is not far in configuration from what would be needed as a first (actually in this case first (WK) AND second (SSO) ) stage booster for a small rocket designed to insert small payloads into low-earth orbit.
Then after we're slinging picosatellites into orbit dirt-cheap, the next step will be larger satellites. Then eventually, people. Then we'll leave low-earth.
It's going to take a LOT longer than ten years for the Moon to become cheap to fly to. (IMO it won't happen until a compact fusion reactor exists, but the way fusion is being funded, we won't be seeing one of those for many, many decades.) But suborbital flight is an important first step.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Please, we've been hearing about the space hotel since at least the 60s and probably before. There was one in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), I think it was a Hilton.
It's like those damned flying cars. Since the 40s, flying cars have been "5 years away!" You'll be able to buy one "5 years from now!" You can fly above the crowded freeways in luxury!
No one tears up for flying cars... you know why? Because despite being promised every decade for the last 65 years, it's never happened. I've never been able to buy a flying car, and the FAA hasn't even bothered to consider licensing any.
Cry about the space hotel WHEN IT EXISTS, not when some rich jerk promises it, or you'll be crying until you're dead.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it happen... but from my experience, most of these type of press releases are nothing but lies.
Comment of the year
You're forgetting that the biggest threat to us as a species may not come from ourselves. A strike by a large asteroid or comet could easily doom humankind. If we're all sitting here on Earth, that's it. If we've left the cradle, some will survive. Remember it's not a question of if this will happen, it's simply a matter of when.