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Richard Branson Plans Orbital Spaceships For Virgin Galactic
Velcroman1 writes "Following the historic first rocket-powered flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, Virgin Galactic plans to build a fleet of spaceships and begin ferrying hundreds of tourists into space in 2014. And then? A whole new kind of spacecraft, Sir Richard Branson said. 'We'll be building orbital spaceships after that,' Branson told Fox News Tuesday, 'so that people who want to go for a week or two can.' Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?"
If I could get to orbit for $1,000,000, forget it. The problem is that $200K is just barely in reach, and I'd start thinking about selling my house.
So, short answer. Yes.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I thought the first customer launch would be in 2011. Between the recession and perfection where human life is involved they took longer.
I know someone who took the oreintation course in 2010. They put you in a similator so you you know how violent certain parts of the ride will be.
Would I if I had it to spend? Absolutely. Can I or most of us afford to spend the cost of a house on this? Sadly, no.
I suspect most of us will never get to do this, which sucks. Because I would dearly love to do this before I die.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
is if its Branson involved, he wont be doing anything but collecting other peoples money for doing very little work personally.
From the article "...Firing its rocket for 16 seconds and racing to a speed of Mach 1.2, fast enough to beat the speed of sound."
You don't say... Mach 1.2 is faster than sound? Interesting, you must be smart...
During a press conference surrounding the annoucement, Branson confirmed a name for the proposed space station has not been put forward, though he clarified "Nobody will mistake it for a mood, and please, call me Darth."
I guess the 1960s really are back.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If I had the money to spend, sure thing. Any geek would.
Problem is ... I don't have the money to spend. Not even if I sell my house. And I suspect most geeks don't either. The question is, to be a bit blunt, rather stupid.
I presume Virgin will find plenty of people willing to spend 200K on a week-long orbital vacation (probably not too many geeks) but less people with the actual cash in hand.
[willing to spend] != [able to spend]
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Why does he spend all that money that could lead to scientific discoveries, we should instead be spending the money to send to third world countries where the warlords there can use it to lord over the peons there even more and we inthe west can feel less guilty and proud about how wea re doing something to make the world a better place...
I realize that the ISS is for research but, don't they already accept tourists in there. What I'm saying is that if I were a multimillionaire I would rather go this route right now instead of waiting for an unproven system by who knows when.
So many people say they want to go, but I find it amusing that of the handful of space tourists since 2001, very few have written inspiring books or stories about it. A quick check of Wikipedia seems to indicate only Guy Laliberté (flew in 2009) as authoring something about his experiences.
If going to space is so great, why haven't the few who've gone written more about it?
As a flight attendant.
In 50 years, 200K might be cheap for a Galactic Virgin.
The poor scramble for food, food stamps ( SNAP program ) is being cut
The 20% of American children are in poverty
Pensions and Social Security are being cut leaving people with a life of work out in the cold
Our priorities are wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hky7wN2QGko
Alternatively...they could offer "Natalie Portman" service, naked and petrified.
Oh yeah, with hot grits...of course
In zero G.
For two weeks.
Sorry, gotta go and lie down on my lawn now.
I won't spend more than 5 digits on anything but a house.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Orbital Spaceships".
Branson didn't elaborate on exactly what he meant by these. Sort of sounds like a reusable Space Shuttle type of craft though which can go into orbit and stay there for as long as its supplies last then return to Earth.
I wonder how long it will be though before he starts sending special "Orbital Spaceships" on a one-way trip into orbit where they will stay and act as "Space Stations" that normal "Orbital Spaceships" can later dock with?
In fact; perhaps he could design them in such a way so that multiple special orbital spaceships can be interconnected one at a time to form a larger space station? That way each piece of the space station can carry itself up into orbit in one go without requiring another ship to carry the equivalent parts up in several trips.
But regardless; even using the piecemeal method it seems like Branson could start ferrying Space Station parts into orbit as soon as those new "Orbital Spaceships" are launching. Simply send up some of those sections and parts up with each and every tourist trip, with as many of those tourist trips as he is planning to have it shouldn't take very long to accumulate as much material up in orbit to build whatever he wants (perhaps an Orbital Virgin Galactic Hotel?).
Heck; he wouldn't even need to bother with spacewalks and spacesuits, just drop a couple of tele-robotics builders in orbit with the material stash and his guys could start building from the comfort of their office chairs down at Headquarters on Earth, possibly wearing Oculus Rift VR headsets. The future is being built!
In a world of climate change and rising temperatures I can't help but wonder: What is the carbon/energy footprint of a single ticket? To speak nothing of the total impact if this "business"? It look to me like Virgin Galactic and its customers are likely to be the absolute worst polluters on the planet ...
Would they be so eager to go into space for fun if they had to pay the actual environmental cost as well? Allowing it for science is one thing ... doing it solely for entertainment is another!
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Doesn't he claim to be green? Rocket travel is just about the most environment unfriendly thing you can do.
Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?
If the cost were that low, and I had the money somehow, I'd love to spend it on a few weeks in orbit. However, recognizing how much harder it is to get into orbit than to just go straight up, I have strong doubts that costs won't be a factor of 10 or 100 higher. Also, since it's already taken more than twice as long as originally projected for this thing to be ready, I wouldn't expect anything orbital before 2020 or so.
They probably take Air Miles.
Yeah, but it's Virgin. The fuel surcharges will cost more than $200,000 to orbit and back if you use miles.
You wrote:
"Unless you want to kill off 90% of the worlds population..."
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
Any good ideas in this direction? It would solve so many problems, unemployment, high real-estate prices, traffic, hunger, poverty, ease of netfame/tv appearances, distribution of resources, global warming, and hopefully, get rid of all the stupid people.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Fortunately I'm able to afford it, and yes, I'm very ready to go. If the human body were actually able to handle an extremely long time in zero-G, or they used rotation or something to create some gravity, and solved a few other issues like radiation shielding, I'd go for years, even the rest of my life. We NEED to start doing this, we need to make LEO, the moon, and further out part of our world. A common part, where it's not only the few of us that can afford it, but virtually ANY person that desires to live and work in space can find a home there. Our future is in the stars, it's always been so. Given the rate at which we're destroying this stone we call home, we'd bloody well better learn to call space home.
Yes, absolutely, I want to go, but not just for a brief hop to peek at the blackness of the sky and the curvature of the earth. I've already seen that, in a MiG. What I want is to go up for at least a week or two, and then longer, a lot longer, when we've gotten it figured out. I've no doubt that we can do it.
Are they going to honor my reservation with Pan Am ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The idea of spending any more than an hour or two in microgravity is quite unappealing. It's simply not a friendly environment for gravity bound creatures. The simple thought of living without running water.. The thought of being confined to a ship with a bunch of smelly people.. The thought of potentially getting ill while up there (bad enough with gravity but without?).. The thought of being bombarded by radiation.. Much information about the living conditions on the ISS is published freely online, and over the years I've read these stories. Honestly, it has no appeal to me. I once spent two days hiking Mt Shasta. I got to the summit to be blown away by the view. Thirty minutes later, I was ready to descent because there was a big fat tbone and cigar waiting for me in my camp. Chances are, I would get bored of the view after a few hours anyway.
Where's my sock? There it is...
Thank god there's not the equivalent of Jerusalem syndrome for space travelers!
Strike that, that would be funny as hell!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chuck Testa!
Humor aside, once upon a time I would have given anything to make orbit. That was back when I had nothing. Now, I think that if I had $200,000 I'm pretty sure that would buy every vacation I'd like to take from now until the day I die. So, a period in orbit measured in minutes/days, or seeing the world from the air/ground for a period measured in days/weeks... No choice.
Don't know if it's still the plan, but a few years ago Virgin were predicting the cost of sub-orbital flights would drop to $50,000 within five years of operation. While that's still expensive, it's much closer to a typical 'extreme' vacation like a few days in Antarctica.
I have to really wonder who will build this vision. While Scaled Composites is an innovative company, it's leader isn't exactly a spring chicken. Rutan is almost 70 and while I know he has bright people working with him, without Burt this thing will go nowhere.
It's also been almost 9 years since they won the X-Prize so IMO, if they're not flying the public by 2014 (end of) this will be a venture that Branson and Rutan won't be seeing anytime soon.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Moron. Just think about it for a minute, take a long term view...
Without the commercialization of space we are all doomed to live and die on earth, with the commercialization of space the stars are within our long term reach.
I as a child I read Arthur C Clarke's 'the next 50 years in space' and if I remember correctly, by now we should have colonies on both the Moon and Mars. Then I remember reading about project Orion, which would give us the ability to lift entire orbitals into space. But of course budget cuts and 'it's not green' saw an end to my childhood dreams.
Then I look at 'greenies' like you, and I despair. You want to keep the kindergarten neat and tidy, and can't see any further than that.
Nice. Calling people "moron" but posting as AC? Won't stand by your words, eh? What a brave person you are!
If you're not just trolling, but actually think I look no further than my childrens kindergarten, then I pity you. You must have a very narrow perception of other people.
I have no objecting to commercializing space. I have objections to doing it in ways which will doom the planet - or at least significantly hamper future generations ability to live a proper life. We simple do not have the right to destroy the planet - period.
You speak of long term views, yet you are hopelessly shortsighted. You propose commercializing space with current engine technology at a cost which is obviously way too high.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
What is the obsession with space tourism? Get a decent monitor and zoom out on Google Earth while riding a roller-coaster. Same experience. Why not guided tours of the ocean depths instead? There actually is "alien" life down there.
While most can't or shouldn't afford this, there will still be at least 70 million people who can easily afford this if they chose (the top 1% of wealthy humans). It's a HUGE market.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I'm sure they will. If you've go the scratch for the ticket purchase, your reservation will be golden.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Go to a space hotel with centripetal "gravity" and 5 star food? Yeah I'm up for that.
But what I want in the short term is a fast transcontinental flight.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
For some reason I got an uneasy feeling watching the image of SS2 running on its rubber rocket engine.
Now I know what it reminded me of. That image comes with an interesting back story, it seems the Concorde did not only go down in flames because of debris on the runway.
--frank[at]unternet.org
There are some rumors that NASA already has experimented with orbital sex. Results are: 1) Sex is almost impossible without gravity. 2) It caused traumas that lead to possible infertility, and NASA stopped experimenting in this area. So, forget it.
I think this is amazing. We spoke briefly at "Rock the Kasba" and I want to start or work on a project. This would be my biggest adventure yet Sir !