Virgin Galactic Successfully Reaches Space (bbc.com)

The latest test flight by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic successfully rocketed to space and back. From a report: The firm's SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship reached a height of 82.7km, beyond the altitude at which space is said to begin. It marked the plane's fourth test flight and followed earlier setbacks in the firm's space programme. Sir Richard is in a race with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to send the first fee-paying passengers into space. He founded the commercial spaceflight company in 2004, shortly after Mr Musk started SpaceX and Jeff Bezos established Blue Origin. In 2008, Virgin Galactic first promised sub-orbital spaceflight trips for tourists would be taking place "within 18 months". It has since regularly made similar promises to have space flights airborne in the near future.

Comments

not quite space

[dmoen]

Virgin Galactic's marketing department defines space as 80km. Most of the rest of us define it as the Karman line, which is 100km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:not quite space

[Rei]

The Kármán line isn't just an arbitrary altitude, either. It's the point at which the atmosphere relatively abruptly starts transitioning from "well mixed, with a composition like at the surface" to "increasingly dominated by light and ionized species"

Of course, Kármán defined it as the rough point at which lift ceases being relevant for an aircraft moving at orbital velocities (which is also a meaningful definition).

Re:not quite space

[spire3661]

Its a pointless distinction. Orbital or sub-orbital are the only relevant terms. Sub-orbital point-to-point transport is super-interesting. Shooting tourists on a ballistic flight to some arbitrary zenith between the ground and 'space' is not.

Re:not quite space

[Snowgen]

Virgin Galactic's marketing department defines space as 80km. Most of the rest of us define it as the Karman line, which is 100km

80KM is the altitude at which the US military, FAA, and NASA grants the United States Astronaut Badge

Re:not quite space

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Which is not the same as "altitude at which space is said to begin".

Re:not quite space

[hackertourist]

Karman did some calculations on where lift becomes irrelevant (this depends on design parameters for the wing, so a different altitude for each design), arrived at an altitude of 85 km and rounded up to 100 km.

Branson has some precedent: the USAF defined 80 km as the boundary of space, in order to be able to call their X-15 pilots astronauts.

Re:not quite space

[Solandri]

1) The X-15 flew over 100 km.

2) The reclassification of X-15 pilots as astronauts wasn't done until 2005, long after the X-15 program ended (and most of the pilots were dead). So no, it wasn't factor in the decision to classify space as beginning at 80 km.

The USAF used 80 km because that's 50 miles. And that sounded like a nice, round, easy-to-remember number to set as the boundary. Simple as that.

Re:not quite space

[quizdog]

Yeah when the X Prize folks awarded the prize for first private vehcile into space they also used the Kaman line (100 km) which is why SpaceShipOne's talk number was 328KF (328 kilofeet which is almost 100 km! ) That's when Branson got involved so it's weird he's backed it down to 80 km

Video from the flight

[Spy Handler]

nice looking views from space

https://twitter.com/virgingala...

Thanks

[SuperKendall]

Some may argue about where the line for space is.

But what really matters is, what do you *see* when you are up there? That unquestionably looks like you are in space.

Well, probably that and weightlessness. So two things, two things that make for authentic "space tourism".

Stuff like this makes it seem pretty likely I'll be able to afford a visit to space in my lifetime, something I would love...

Weasel words

[arth1]

The firm's SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship reached a height of 82.7km, beyond the altitude at which space is said to begin.

"Is said to" depends on who says it. The mesosphere extends to around 85 km.
The FAI considers anything below 100 km (the Karman line) to be aeronautics, not astronautics.

Re:New York City to Hong Kong in 2 Hours

[Kjella]

Virgin has already quietly announced plans for point to point suborbital flights, connecting cities in a fraction of the current travel time. As Virgin Galactic flight hardware is proven and deployed around the world we are opening up humanity to the biggest increase in travel speed since the advent of jet powered aircraft. Truly an exciting time to be alive!

Because....? If I had a private jet I'd get a lot faster to where I was going too. Despite all the talk of making space "affordable", compared to the airplanes they're still gold plated. A sub-orbital rocket going half way across the Earth will require about 7.9 km/s delta-v, going to orbit is 9.3-10 km/s. Putting that into the rocket equation says you can bring about twice as much payload to fuel compared to LEO. So what's the cost to orbit today? $62 million / 22800 kg = ~$2700/kg for an F9, if you take half that a 75 kg person is still looking at $100k for a ticket if we ignore seats, life support systems and so on. Of course to just reach space you just need to go 1.4 km/s straight up - but then you're coming straight down.

You can look at this graphic to see how a SpaceX first stage goes on a suborbital trajectory, it'll go 7-800 kilometers in a ballistic path. This capture maybe gives you a better sense of scale, you can see stage one returning to earth on the left right off the coast. To actually go places like Europe or Asia it'd have to make a much, much bigger and more expensive arc. And when you consider that you can get anywhere in the world in less than a day, is that one day saved worth tens of thousands of dollars? Travel by rocket is not for the common man nor the middle class, it's for the 0.01% who'd rather have an extra day on their yacht.

Am I the only one to find this very unexciting?

[Ecuador]

Am I the only one to find this quite unexciting? And I am not just talking about a 20km difference. I mean, we are essentially talking about something that an aircraft from 1959 could do (nobody called it a spacecraft), without even having to be released from a significant height - and it's been in development for over a decade. And we can't even compare it to other private "space" ventures because as we know the hard part about getting into earth orbit which is what the others are doing is not the height, but the speed (required for the orbit), which is at least a magnitude higher than this Virgin craft does, hence so much harder.
I could see how an "edge of space" ride could be interesting tech, but it would have been "inspiring" if it had been delivered in the 00's. A 60 second powered flight in 2018 somehow seems "meh" to me. The "80km space" thing is just adding some insult ;)

Re:Am I the only one to find this very unexciting?

[Ecuador]

Oh, and before I get "yeah, but at least they are trying what are YOU doing you sofa critic" I am not saying that they should not be trying, but at this point I think this particular approach this company is pursuing is giving very little ROI (investment in time and money), so they are probably not doing the right approach.

Re:Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin: only SUB-orbit

[jnaujok]

Yeah, it'd be a great headline:

SpaceX Launches Crew Vehicle to Space Station in 1 Month, Crew in 6 months, and test Mars Rocket by end of 2019. Meanwhile VG and BO in "Hot Pursuit" with 3D Computer Simulations of Vaporware Rockets

Sorry, you can say what you want, but for all intents right now VG is flying an X-15, and BO is launching a souped up Redstone rocket, while SpaceX is actually flying a vehicle somewhere around the Saturn IB equivalent. Two of those get you to "space" in a purely academic sense of the word, but the other is a real spacecraft. In the first space race, those were over a decade apart, and that's about how far ahead SpaceX appears to be right now.

If you demand we should talk about BO and VG's orbital launchers, which, as of now, are little more than plans on a drawing board -- maybe (and we can't know since Jeff "Lex Luthor" Bezos is so ultra-secretive) an incomplete collection of parts (BE-4 engines, some fuel tanks) -- then you still have to give SpaceX the edge because they're building the Starship (nee 'BFR') now, with pictures promised by Elon in the next few weeks. (so, maybe by February).

Now, does that diminish what they accomplished today by creating a "passenger-safe" re-usable craft that can take you up to near the Karman line? No, not at all. But it does not "put SpaceX and Blue Origin to Shame" like some of the headline writers seem to be saying. Strangely, they forget to mention the billions of dollars over budget and years late Orion capsule, and Boeing Starliner in the same breath. Odd that.