Virgin Galactic

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Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Sunday 12th January 2014
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Caruso

7,422 posts

255 months

Monday 13th January 2014
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Is that the 1st time it's gone supersonic?

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
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Not sure. It's designed for speeds up to about Mach 4 I think.

London424

12,826 posts

174 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
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So they are talking about the commercial flights starting this year...and this was only the 3rd time it's flown under rocket power.

Are they really going to take on passengers with such little testing?

Seems a bit risky doesn't it?

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
quotequote all
Life is risky.

It's up to the individuals to decide whether they want to take that risk - as long as the risks are properly explained to them.

The Shuttle was deemed operational after only four flights - and Virgin Galactic is a far simpler and less complex machine than the Shuttle.

Alapeno

1,391 posts

146 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
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Surely a huge risk for a private company to go up with little testing over a government body. What if Justin Bieber dies on it!?

Edited to add: I would assume as there's a corporate risk to Mr. Branson they'll be testing more in depth than the shuttle.


markiii

3,565 posts

193 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
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Alapeno said:
Edited to add: I would assume as there's a corporate risk to Mr. Branson they'll be testing more in depth than the shuttle.
not seeing a downside

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Tuesday 14th January 2014
quotequote all
Alapeno said:
Surely a huge risk for a private company to go up with little testing over a government body. What if Justin Bieber dies on it!?
Is that an expression of fear or hope?

Alapeno

1,391 posts

146 months

Wednesday 15th January 2014
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Definitely not a downside! I just meant that the whole Virgin brand would suffer if something happened, so a financial incentive as well as moral for Virgin. Which should equal more preparation.

Alapeno

1,391 posts

146 months

Wednesday 15th January 2014
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Eric Mc said:
Is that an expression of fear or hope?
Mixed emotions really. It would be a gift for the world of music and pop culture. On the other hand it would mean that my likelihood of going into space one day disappears.

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Thursday 16th January 2014
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ash73 said:
The development seems to be going well, but I'd be interested to know why they didn't push the envelope a bit further; 5 mins weightlessness may seem a bit underwhelming for $250K, albeit with a spectacular view out the window.
To prolong the weightlessness, you need to go faster and higher.

Any faster and you would run into serious aerodynamic heating problems.

Also, higher speeds results in fairly unknown territory for control and stability issues - especially for a relatively small company like Scaled Projects to overcome.

rovermorris999

5,195 posts

188 months

Friday 17th January 2014
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Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
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Not may fare paying passengers get to fly at Mach 4.

MrCarPark

528 posts

140 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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A bit of a non-story, but interesting anyway:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/virgin-galactic-space...

CrutyRammers

13,735 posts

197 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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MrCarPark said:
A bit of a non-story, but interesting anyway:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/virgin-galactic-space...
Presumably, all he'd have to do is launch outside of US airspace to get around that.

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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A bit difficult given that the whole operation is based at Mojave Airport and has been for 40 plus years.

Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Thursday 23rd January 2014
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They'll be OK.

Hilts

4,383 posts

281 months

Saturday 25th January 2014
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Was out for a run in the desert and this flew over at 500 feet.


Eric Mc

Original Poster:

121,788 posts

264 months

Saturday 25th January 2014
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Wow - great "spot".

I'm sure Burt Rutan knows what he's doing.

Kenzle

153 posts

168 months

Sunday 26th January 2014
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Interesting article in the Times today on Virgin Galactic.

Basically the whole thing is a shambles - Branson stated many years ago that the first flight was expected to be in 2007, the whole thing keeps getting pushed farther and farther out with so little progress. The end goal of 5 mins of weightlessness with a sub-orbital flight is hardly aiming high either - Elon Musk and his SpaceX program is a wholly private venture and has already done manned orbital flights and delivered cargo to the International Space Station.

Virgin Galactic seems to be all PR and hype and not much of anything else.
I doubt it will ever take any passengers frown