Cheap no frills space travel: Virgin Galactic

Scruff

Fair play to Richard Branson. While he does come up with some mad cap publicity stunts I'll all for his latest endeavour: He's signed a £14million deal with the creator of SpaceShipOne to build 5 similar but larger craft that will begin to open the door of space tourism to a wider audience.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3693020.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3693518.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3676312.stm

While the cost is to be around £100k and it wont get ye to the IIS its still quite an improvement on the millions that ye would have to splash out for that.
I for one will be cancelling the Mercedes sl 500 i've pre-ordered (year 2019 model) and will instead be booking a trip to the edge of space

billy the squid

Yup and these are the people who plan to build it

http://www.xprize.org/

they are testing their ship tomorrow by the way. To win this X prize they have to do two launches within two weeks and have three people on the ship. They also have to get the ship over 100 kilometers from the earth's surface.

that didn't take long

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Snaga

You can check out the webcast at 2pm BST when the launch is due to take place from the Mojave desert.

Link should be on the main X prize website url given by Billy the Squid above. www.xprize.org

By the way the name of the company that have been commisioned by Virgin to do it are Scaled Composites - www.scaled.com. Richard Branson (Virgin owner) already has a good relationship with Scaled Composites - they are building the Virgin Global Flyer which will attempt to be the first plane to fly non stop around the world.

Pretty interesting stuff, I know Ill be watching the webcast of the first flight today

jArgHA

Is today the first flight by any of the X-Prize teams or have some of them already tried their ships? There's some pretty nifty looking craft on the xprize website, I would be concerned about accidents...

Canis Lupus

billy the squid wrote:

Yup and these are the people who plan to build it

http://www.xprize.org/

they are testing their ship tomorrow by the way. To win this X prize they have to do two launches within two weeks and have three people on the ship. They also have to get the ship over 100 kilometers from the earth's surface.

that didn't take long

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

yeah but they have spent more already on the project than they will get from the xprize

Ste.phen

yeah, but the X prize will give tkae a chunk out of their R&D budget, they'll get tons of publicity, and they stand to make a fortune on the craft itself once built.

Is it entirely infeasible for such a craft to be used for point-to-point travel on earth anyways? ignoring the space tourism thing, surely a craft going into low orbit, and coming back down at the appropriate time could travel huge distances "across" earth in a fraction of the time, no?

or am i missing something here?
(Go into space a little, let the earth spin beneath, go back down when where you want to be is beneath you?)

quarryman

webcast has just started:

http://www1.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/SpaceShipOne.html

Scruff

fantastic! no work being done this afternoon!
watched the webcast for the test filght of spaceship one. twas exceellent wathcing history in the making

quarryman

this is very good so far. if anyone knows how to record this i'd love a copy.

fragile

For anybody who can't afford these flights i.e. me, try nogravity.com for US$2,950.00 + Tax

quarryman

interesting

zero-G doggie style

Canis Lupus

Igy wrote:

yeah, but the X prize will give tkae a chunk out of their R&D budget, they'll get tons of publicity, and they stand to make a fortune on the craft itself once built.

Is it entirely infeasible for such a craft to be used for point-to-point travel on earth anyways? ignoring the space tourism thing, surely a craft going into low orbit, and coming back down at the appropriate time could travel huge distances "across" earth in a fraction of the time, no?

or am i missing something here?
(Go into space a little, let the earth spin beneath, go back down when where you want to be is beneath you?)

Interesting question but space travel is costly to begin with init??? i mean firstly and apparently best places for launches are near the equator (centrifugal spin) limiting launch/airports . Then u have the weight factor involving the amount of ppl travelling and luggage... more weight means more fuel and more fuel = more weight needing more fuel

ah to be honest i dont really know enuf about this particular rocket (or space travel in general) but while i reckon u would be right about the time it takes to travel to different places i cant see it being something very cost effective for many years

smoke.me.a.kipper

quarryman wrote:

webcast has just started:

http://www1.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/SpaceShipOne.html

oh great. there goes my productivity for the day

Scruff

That was great! but my enjoyment of the occasion was marred by the fact that one of the lads here at work managed to somehow get himself tangled in my earphone cable and rip it apart, nearly taking my ears with it as he stood up. just as spaceshipone fired its rockets.
oh well, great to watch!

stepryan

Canis Lupus wrote:

Interesting question but space travel is costly to begin with init??? i mean firstly and apparently best places for launches are near the equator (centrifugal spin) limiting launch/airports . Then u have the weight factor involving the amount of ppl travelling and luggage... more weight means more fuel and more fuel = more weight needing more fuel

ah to be honest i dont really know enuf about this particular rocket (or space travel in general) but while i reckon u would be right about the time it takes to travel to different places i cant see it being something very cost effective for many years

spaceship one would not be very quick anyway as it is carried by an airplane to 50000 feet and then it detaches. this reduces the amount of fuel needed and the size of the ship needed. also by flying up to 50000 feet it is above most of the atmosphere so it doesn't need to travel as fast. i don't think it would carry enough fuel to fly around the world as it really is only a test bed. i suppose though it could lead to a machine the future that could do the trip. launching from the equator is the most efficent in terms of fuel particularly if you are going into geostationary orbit or into space. if you are going from one point to another on the earth through low earth orbit it probably would not make a difference but not a huge one.
stephen.

Flukey

Well given Richard Branson's luck with balloons, would you want to got to space with him? Of course if Ryanair were doing this your flight to a particular planet would mean you actually been landed on one of their moons, if not another planet altogether. God knows where your luggage would end up!

Snaga

Just in case anyone doesnt know, the second flight is taking place today, Monday, again at 2pm BST.

This is the second one in two weeks and if all goes well today thats it, the X prize will have been won by Scaled Composites with Space Ship One.

If they fail to reach the correct height and the craft lands without problems they have a further window in the next week and a half to try again to get the prize.

Webcast is at www.xprize.org

Scruff

i'm actually a bit surprised that their 1st attempt was allowed. I'm completely for them doing it but i would have thought that one of the criteria for a valid attempt would be that the flight would be be controlled, in the sense that would it be acceptable for that flight to be certified for passengers given the unexpected and alarming looking rolls that were experienced just before the engine cut off??
Its all well and good getting up there but could you imagine the pilot coming over the radio saying "This is your captain speaking. Welcome to space and please dont be alarmed at all as i loose control of the craft for a few seconds. This is entirely normal. Thank you."
just a though but good luck to them, i'll be watching at 2!

Snaga

Well they are down after what looks like another successfull flight - they need to wait on confirmation of exact heights before its deemed a success. Should be in the next 30/45 minutes.

Interesting note - The X prize is only won if the astronaut is alive after 24 hours of coming back to earth - so it appears they will have to wait till tomorrow before the prize has been officially won

Canis Lupus

would be a git for him to die in some totally unrelated accident before the 24hrs were up so