Slashdot Mirror
20k Down Can Get You Up Into Space
TheOzz writes "Virgin Galactic announced this week that space tourism will be a reality by 2008. The company is already taking $20,000 deposits for the estimated $200,000 seats on their new spaceships. You can reserve your seat today at the Virgin Galactic web site. The Virgin Group's Branson teamed up with SpaceShipOne builder Burt Rutan to form The Spaceship Company that will build these new commercial spaceships. They are building 9-person spaceships that will carry 7 paying passengers and two crew members, according to space.com. They report that test flights should start in 2007."
Is that $20k non-refundable?
I'd like to see what happens to people who put their money down and then can't make the other $180,000, or if the space tourism idea doesn't fly in the end (pun not intended).
fp?
Burt Rutan is a great aviator, possibly the best of our time. Unfortunately, i cant see this being a large money maker. Not many people will be able to part ways with $20,000 for an hour long space flight.
Can space travel provide efficient transportation?
The company is already taking $20,000 deposits
Translation: Suckers wanted!
I happen to know a few people.....
$200,000 for going to space without going out of your ship is fair, but $1 million - 5 times as much - for going near the moon without going out of your ship is unfair?
Just one more thing to do when I win the lottery.
Isn't that a synonym for Slashdotters in Space?
1. Take $20k down.
2. Invest.
3. Refund original $20k in 2008
4. Profit!
Thats much cheaer then the 20 million you have to pay to go on Souz :)
But with Souz you get to stay on ISS for a few days
Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
20k down will do nothing, and you've simply put up 20k in a non interest bearing account if you can't afford the other 180k. So no, 20k down will not get you into space- that is unless they only ask for the other 180k when you get back and you just file for bankruptcy, I'm sure the state'll love your excuse.
Virgin is offering something for their target market.
Hence the "Down".
Your seat cushion can be used as a heat shield during the rapid descent.
Mods should get to this, but... that's what "20k Down" means. It's a down-payment; synonymous with "deposit."
SIG: HUP
Notice anything about their expected demographic?
I'm suprised there's no HRH and 'Bill Gates' options
FGD 135
I think the real news here isn't the fact that they're taking deposits (they've been doing this for a while), but that Branson and Rutan have started up a new business, "The Spaceship Company."
... or Fours) for Virgin Galactic, and for any other spaceline company that wants a suborbital craft. You can assume that the company is structured so as to avoid running into export roadblocks, while keeping the British financial backer in the loop.
From here:
But today's announcement reflects a finer appreciation of the financial and regulatory realities. Several months ago, Rutan complained to Congress that U.S. export restrictions [NOTE: These are ITAR restrictions, the same ones which turned this tattoo of encryption code into a munition a few years back] were making it difficult for the British Virgin Galactic project to move forward.
The new arrangement restructures the deal: The Rutan-Branson venture, called The Spaceship Company, will license SpaceShipOne's technology from Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the company set up with financial backing from software billionaire Paul Allen and intellectual property from Rutan's Scaled Composites.
The Spaceship Company will then do the actual building of SpaceShipTwos (or Threes
After 2001 debuted, someone at PanAm got smart and instead of hanging up on what they thought were cranks looking for tickets to the moon, they started taking cataloged down payments on the first PanAm flights to the moon...
One way or the other, I want to visit my one acre on the moon!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
if i want my cash back in 2years ?
but then Virgin(TM) always liked being a middleman operation (music,mobile phones,holidays)
this time they can also make loads of money for watching your money grow in their investment portfolios, its like free money
I suspect that they found out that they were "unsecured creditors" when PanAm went belly up, and got nothing.
A less likely alternative would be that somebody bought their contracts at the liquidation sale. I doubt this would happen.
I'm too chicken (and far, far too poor) to be one of the first people to go on a trip like this, but I'm very happy to see it being done. I'm 25 and have many childhood memories of how space was the future and how someday I'd get to visit the moon (maybe even live there) and all that. Somewhere along the line all of that kind of talk just ended and space faded from people's view. It has indeed been a sad thing to not have some kind of huge bigger-than-seems-possible goal to strive for as a nation or even as a species. I hope this new commercial space industry can bring some of the magic back.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
This sounds like what Pan American airlines did back in the 60s when 2001: A Space Odyssey came out featuring the Pan Am spaceplane. They too sold tickets for future spaceflights. But I guess Virgin has a better chance, perhaps, of fulfilling the promise. And it may help that most probably don't remember what happened to Pan Am either!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
what if this is exactly what we need, a commercial company to do space travel, because seems like when a commercial company is doin it, they do it better, because if they lose money they wont just get more from the government.
Funded by Dr Chirinjeev Kathuria, they see the secret to success as a modernised liquid oxygen/alcohol rocket motor based on the German V2, which proved its reliability in over 3,000 past flights (more history via that web page). The company uses the Canadian Arrow Space Centre.
you had me at #!
Will they accept a personal check the day of the launch? ;)
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
Do they actually go into space? Do they orbit? Or do they just do the spaceshipone "we've breached the top of the atmosphere, then come back down! whee!"
from the bad-credit-no-credit-come-on-down dept.
but do they habla español?
Uh-oh, I knew it was only a matter of time before they started launching virgins into space..
If I want to see earth from high above I'd use Google Earth... I don't really think its space unless you fly around the moon and the rings of saturn - and fast.. and we can't do that yet.
It may be one hell of an achievemnt when they launch the space shuttle, but I can't help thinking "what a hunk of junk" when I see it flying - the burden of too many years of scifi I guess...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is not space travel. I don't care that a bunch of geeks in a room defined "space" as 100KM, space travel means CONTROLLED space travel. This is just shooting people really high and letting them fall to earth, at which point it's normal air travel.
We could fly before the Wright Brothers, but what made their accomplishment noteworthy was that it was controlled, powered flight. This is uncontrolled powered space travel. It's a stunt.
Space travel means an orbital insertion. Controlled powered space travel.
Granted, this is a necessary step. I'm glad they're doing it. But I hate all the hype they're putting into this. I'm afraid that people, once they figure out it's a very expensive stunt that isn't really space travel, are going to poison the well for this sort of thing.
Be honest: Would you really be impressed with someone who rode this thing, other than the fact that they were able to shell out 200 grand? Would you look at them as Astronauts? I wouldn't.
Bah.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
1. NASA = 20k
...
2. NASA = 20k
3. NASA = 20k
7. NASA = 20k
Gross: 140k
The funding of the next space mission is now secure!
And you can charter one for about $5k/hour here: http://www.aircharternetwork.com/pages/faq.html
I think what most people want from a trip to space is to muck about in zero gee. If that's the case they could get much more bang for their buck with this. Just the down payment for Branson's Most Excellent Adventure would buy five of these trips.
to the world of tomorrow!
Charles Jo
Down payment on space flight = $20K
Final payment on space flight = $180K
Realizing you spent $200K to have a fellow passenger throw up on you in Space = priceless
this if I could bail-out at the apex and parachute back ... that would be awesome.
Space! Now we can go see the sights of...
Oh wait.
James Buchanan
Zombie Chief Executive/15th President of the USA
Virgin's already got my deposit. I'm going.
The naysayers can say what they want, but those of who are actually involved and actually paying for tickets are fully apprised of what the spaceship is, where it's going, and for how long.
It's been my dream ever since I knew space existed to get there, and since I can afford it, $200,000 for a few minutes there is worth it to me.
No, this isn't controlled orbital insertion, but it is still a flight into space, hence spaceflight, and flights like these are a vital first step toward getting real civilian orbital travel working, and I'll be first in line for that, too. If I have any money left, that is.
You guys can whine about ballistic space travel not being real spaceflight all you want. I know what it is, I have no doubts about its value to me, and I'm going for a ride on a rocketship!
What about down between, over under, next to above and the like? When will these options become available?
When Burt Rutan and Paul Allen have the guts to ride that fucker then I'll get in it. If it's such a fun thing why haven't they been up in it yet?
I've tried to keep on top of all the developments in private space travel, but I don't really have a good idea of how far along the various orbital projects are.
Could someone provide some more info on this?
And if you sign up your friends, you can get it for free !
Get a free flight into space !
I'll wait and get my ticket on priceline.com.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't know whether I think it'll work or not. I agree with many of the points made so far, that the deployment seems awfully fast for a project of this nature, that it's not really space travel (really, it's kind of an inverse bungie jump. We throw you up really high, then you fall back down.) all that sort of stuff. However, and here's where I think this maybe has half a chance, my dad, and myself to a lesser extent, held onto the dream of space flight for most of his life. Eventually it reached a point though where it seemed pretty clear that it wasn't going to reach a point where he would ever achieve the dream himself. I remember the look on his face when he admitted that fact out loud for the first time. I don't know what I think of the chances of this really working, but I know if it did, if I could ever afford to, I'd buy my dad a ticket. And maybe myself, too. To the current generation maybe this seems mostly like a cheap stunt or gimmick, and I guess it probably is, but I think it's more important than that. A lot more important. It's about reminding an entire generation, who are now the one's in power, that when they were children they grew up believing that the dream of spaceflight was their birthright. Without the cold war to keep it going, I think that's about the most important thing that could happen for space exploration.
If you paid $200,000 for that, you were conned!
It let me download it for free. It makes a nice desktop wallpaper though.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Why wouldn't you buy the contracts? Pan am didn't specify a final price, only a 'reservation' price.
Someone planning to start a company to 'fly you to the moon' would have a slightly beter credibility if they had a passenger list for the inital flight.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
By the end of the decade, Virgin Galactic - the most exciting development in the story of modern space history - is planning to make it possible for almost anyone to visit the final frontier at an affordable price.
...
Kick ass! I'm going to have 200,000 dollars in disposable income by 2008! Awesome!
Or does this mean hyperinflation?
Next you'll be telling me that when a fish jumps it hasn't made the transition from sea to land...
Guess I'll have to drink 7up and get lucky
When I watch the shuttle take off, what excites me is the thought of that great ride from the ground up. If the Virgin Galactic flights start the same was as the SpaceShipOne flights--a leisurely climb to 50,000--that's a shame. I've always wanted to lay on my back, strapped in, waiting for T minus 3 and ignition.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Personally I hope someone buys one of these tickets and raffles it (with permission from Virgin Galactic of course). Then for the price of $20 we can all have a chance of going into space.
a ction=getHome&sid=550t ml
7 Up is currently running a sweepstakes for a suborbital space flight. I think it runs until the end of August:
http://www.softcoin.com/p/handler?target=general&
http://collectspace.com/ubb/Forum35/HTML/000126.h
Look for unique promotional codes on specially marked ½-liter, 20oz., 2-liter bottles and inside specially-marked 12-pack wraps of 7 UP, Diet 7 UP, Cherry 7 UP, Sunkist Orange Soda, A&W Root Beer and Canada Dry Ginger Ale.
Register and enter your code for a chance to win $500 and the first free ticket to space or other space prizes from Diet 7 UP!
With each new code entered, you could win the following:
* $500 and the chance to win the First Free Ticket to Space
* A trip for 4 to Space Camp
* A star in your name
* Diet 7 UP 2 Liter Coupon
I can think of a few people I'd be happy to pay $20k to be sent to outer space - my former boss, for starters.
Or you can get a ride on a Mig 25 to 80,000 ft. where the sky is black. That only costs $21k, somewhat more economical compared to this trip where that would only cover the initial deposit.
They report that test flights should start in 2007.
Hmm.. These betaor alpha flights seem to be a little scary to me. I at least want a Service Pack 10 before I trust anything like this!
"Designs for the Virgin Galactic craft are progressing on a weekly basis at Rutan's base in Mojave, California and by early 2005 the final design for the maiden Virgin Galactic ship, the VSS (Virgin SpaceShip) Enterprise, should be signed-off. "
:D
gotta love how enterprise is now a popular spaceship name
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I just got back from the Experimental Aircraft Association convention and flyin at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Burt Rutan, Paul Allen, Richard Branson, Mike Melville, Brian Bennie and a bunch of Scaled Composite and Virgin people were there. Mike Melville flew the White Knight to the show, carrying Mr and Mrs Rutan in SpaceShip One.
I heard a press conference and no less than six 90 minute talks about Rutan's space program from SpaceShip One and SpaceShip Two principles.
Here are some more or less random factoids that were discussed in detail at Oshkosh:
1) The White Knight with attached SpaceShip One were remarkably graceful in flight, far more so than the videos I had seen would have suggested.
2) Allen said that the cost of the entire SpaceShip One program were about the same as a ride to the ISS on Soyuz, i.e. on the order of $20 million dollars.
3) Rutan and his people reveled a number of problems that I had not seen in the press prior to this week. For example, on one of the early White Knight flights one of the nose wheels struck a rough spot in the runway during the take off roll. This nose wheel shimmied to the point were the nose wheel detached from the airframe. White Knight had to make a three wheel one stump landing.
4) The first flight into space exceeded 100km of altitude by only a little more than 100 meters. There was great concern that the motor didn't have sufficient impulse to attain the X-Prize goal of 100km altitude when carrying one human pilot and two passengers or 400 pounds of ballast. They went so far as to buy solid rocket booster motors from Thiokol. In the end they were able to improve the performance of the basic engine without needing these extra boosters. Rutan was coy about exactly how this was done, but the two official X Prize flights did exceed 100Km by comfortable margins. He did mention that engineers from both the winning motor company, SpaceDev of California, and the losing company, EAC of Florida, assisted in improving the motor. They have one more complete motor that was not used.
5) The maximum temperature during reentry was on the order of 200F. The craft experienced greater heating on ascent rather than descent. This heat was control by 14 pounds of Scaled proprietary thermal protection material on the leading edges of the wing.
6) Both pilots were effusive in their praise of the "care free" feathered reentry system. They both said that flying the ascent was very demanding, but that during re-entry they had nothing to do except enjoy the ride.
7) SpaceShip Two will be "one hundred times safer than any previous manned space system" according to Rutan. His goal is to attain a safety level equivalent to the airliners of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
8) Scaled Composites will design SpaceShip Two. The SpaceShip Company will manufacture the craft, Scaled will test and certify the craft. Spacelines such as Virgin Galactic will purchase and operate SpaceShip Two and its carrier aircraft.
10) Each SpaceShip Two and carrier will be individually flight tested and certified. This is an approved alternate certification method to that used for mass produced aircraft. By testing each craft individually, they do not have to provide conformity data back to raw materials as is done with airliners.
11) Rutan anticipates 50 to 100 test flights prior to certification and paid passenger travel. Rutan will fly on some of these flights. In fact, he expects that during the test phase, prior to paid passenger flights, more people will fly into space on SpaceShip Two than have ever flown in space by all other craft.
11) SpaceShip One flew straight up, and recovered straight down. SpaceShip Two will fly 200 to 300 miles down range. Rutan anticipates that Virgin will launch SpaceShip Two over the Pacific Ocean and recovering it at Mohave. This will provide several minutes of atmospheric flight at Mach 2-3 during ascent and descent, providing a Concorde like experience.
12) Li
but how much to get you down?
If they let you, consider taping it. I'm sure there are a lot of people who couldn't afford to go but would love to watch. You could probably convince a TV news station to buy some of the footage from you.
Yes, but remember what the V-2 did? I doubt many people would like the "crash landing" the engine based on the V-2 would do....
But that's as close as most players will ever get to playing major league.
A lot of people want to go to space. They'll never qualify for even the equivalent of the minor leagues, in that regard. But they'd still like just a little taste. Why rain on the little game they are able to get together?
As for being impressed, I'm happy for them that they're taking their dreams as far as they can, instead of sitting around not doing anything and making fun of others. I say that as a friend to someone who's already had a seat reserved for months. And I'll be happy for him to tell me all about it for a long time after, because I can't even get into the dugout at the sandlot, myself.
A lot of people spend a lot more than that, and never get close to realizing theirs. ;)
So it's a good deal, all things considered
...Billy doesn't have enough oxygen ^^
I wonder how much of the fee goes on insurance, for the passengers and for the people on the ground.
threadeds blog
$200K for a ride in space, basically you shoot stright up and glide down, no weightless flight, about 1 minute of "space" and you heading back home. well it shouldent cost that much per person, there cashing in on the ride, but its just a longer laster Roller Coaster trip. well maby a little wightless free fall for a few seconds. I would rather wait till they have trips to the moon.
..how much is season pass?
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
I suppose I could afford to go too if I lived in my parents basement and could save all my money! Sorry, had to bed said. (BTW> i'm jealous)
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
but then I think of the kids you could send to college for $200,000.. or even the house you could buy for a family in need.. yes it would be wonderful to see space, but thats still a lot of fuckin money.. it drives me insane to see how people just throw there money away.. it would be absolutely brilliant to see space.. but how can anyone have it in there heart, to waste $200,000 when they know they can just as easily use it to help people?
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
...But where would you go? SETI Alpha Five? That big monolith? I shudder to think what would happen if everyone else on board said "Let's go to mars!" ...and the pilots and stewardesses had to oblige. (for that much money)
I think we need a functional space station, and outposts on other planets before we start discussing commercial travel to and from them.
I'd much rather spend $400 on a plae ticket than $200,000 on a shuttle ticket... ...considering NASA has only recently acknowledged "okay, so it's not THAT safe anymore..."
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
you keep spaceship one based on the same engine. But nobody will do that. Rutan did it to have a safe, a developmently fast engine. Now comes the fun of creating a new upper stage based on H2/O2 (IIRC ISP of more than 450) rather than butyl rubber (less than 250). Keep in mind that he did not develop the engine. Another group did. He is simply buying those.
But I totally agree with the article. It is a good one in that many ppl do not realize that Rutan has a long ways to go. But he is committed to the 2 part ship, which has always made a lot of sense to me. In addition, he is striving for the low hanging fruits, which is to place a minimal crew rather than a large cargo (or worse mixed) into space.
In fact, I am guessing that the next craft (9 ppl) will have a cargo counterpart for launching microsats via a small rocket into space. The military and probably communications companys will be interested in these.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A lot of unpleasant stuff happens when you are in zero gravity that takes time to adjust to. For a flight of only a few minutes, I think all you'll enjoy is the view of the vomit bag you will be filling.
I would gladly pay double that amount for a chance to ride in space. To experince weightlessness and to see the world from abouve is like that master card commerical to me PRICELESS Space shuttle ticket $20,000 Space outfit $1000 Space Boots $500 Looking at the world from abouve in space Priceless !! For everthing else theres you know what.
40k is huge when you're from Mojave, pop. about 4000. This is a very interesting development. Burt Rutan has said for years that he was a designer not a manufacturer, he would sell you plans but not planes -- now he will preside over a spaceship factory in Mojave. Interestingly, he won't be the first person to do that! Better luck this time...!
You can go to space alot cheaper try $995.00! http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/options.asp Oh yeah, the small catch... you have to be DEAD! ;)
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
Yeah I guess people don't fly on 767's anymore either... Wouldn't like the crash landing into a building it would do.
Dumbass. You can use a V-2 type engine to provide thrust and put it on a vehicle that isn't designed to "crash land"