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Sir Richard takes Virgin into Space
quizdog writes "The latest issue of
Wired has a story on Sir Richard Branson and the history of the Virgin Empire, focusing on his latest venture of partnering with Scaled Composites and Burt Rutan to bring the
X-Prize-winning SpaceShipOne hybrid rocket technology to the point where paying passengers can slip those 'surly bonds' of the atmosphere. Starting
at just $200,000 a pop - any chance of a volume discount?" We first mentioned this a while back, but Wired's coverage is nice to see as well.
Space travel is controlled space travel. That means travelling into space, establishing a controlled orbit, and then a controlled descent back to earth. That's space travel.
The Wright Brother's big advance was controlled, powered flight. Lots of people could shoot a projectile from one end of the field to the other, which is all (effectively) that was accomplished by Burt Rutan.
I don't want to be a big, wet blanket here, and I don't want to say nothing has been accomplished; it was a necessary first step. But it ain't space travel. Orbital insertions are two orders of magnitude harder.
I don't want marketing, I want real space travel, and that requires being a little harsh on all the marketing that surrounds this.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
From the article:
But look at the upside. The total price tag [for Virgin Galactic] is half the cost of a single Airbus A340-600 - and Virgin Atlantic ordered 26 of those last summer. In return, Branson gets bragging rights to one of the cooler breakthroughs of the early 21st century, with rocket-powered marketing opportunities that could fuel excitement - and sales - in his entire 200-company holding group.
People often complain about how much stuff like this supposedly costs, but it's interesting to see what a small amount it is compared to how much is typically thrown around in the airline industry. The marketing value alone is probably worth the cost of the fleet.