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Virgin Galactic Passengers May Just Miss Going into Space
DavidGilbert99 (2607235) writes "According to the customer contract those signing up for a $240,000 flight on Virgin Galactic's spaceship the company will bring you 'at least 50 miles' above sea level. The problem is that the internationally accepted boundary for outer space is 62 miles above sea level — known as the Karman Line. Virgin is trying to get around the issue by claiming it is using a definition of space used by NASA — in the 1960s."
Dude, for the amount of money paid, I would sure want the whole 62 miles, as well as being serviced orally by an angel.
Virgin is trying to get around the issue by claiming it is using a definition of space used by NASA — in the 1960s."
Well, that's gay. Before you think I'm a homophobe, I'm using a definition used in the 1960s.
You can be weightless for about $150/hr for plane and pilot. Granted it won't be in more than about 20 second incriments, but my kid and his friends love it: "Daddy make the plane do the weightless thing again" alternates with 'are we there yet".
The looks you get when filing a parabolic flight plan must be priceless.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Just because something is gimmicky today doesn't mean it won't become useful tomorrow.
Conversely, just because some gimmicky things in the past have become useful today doesn't mean that everything considered gimmicky today will become useful in the future. Two words for you on that: flying cars.
Being open-minded to technology doesn't mean you have to accept EVERY technology or technological idea as practical.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The 62-mile internationally-accepted boundary is a completely arbitrary artifact of the metric system. It happens to be a nice, even 100 kilometers. There is nothing physically distinct about hitting 100 kilometers that makes it become "space". NASA previously defined it as 50 miles because they also wanted a nice even-sounding number and they were using imperial units to express it. I agree that if I got into a rocket, blasted off, saw the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space (and felt weightlessness for an appreciable period of time), I would say I have been to space, whether it meets the internationally-accepted definition or not.