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.

Comments

Booyah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this make him a member of the 600-mile high club?

Slashdotters

[thegoofy]

No, Slashdotters... he didn't take one of YOU into space... they are referring to a company in the article.

Boooooring

[Reality Master 101]

Just feel the need to point out once again that this is not space travel, as far as I'm concerned.

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.