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#31
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On Jun 9, 9:37*am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 8/06/2011 10:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote: In , says... On 8/06/2011 6:08 AM, Marvin the Martian wrote: BFD. I'm sorry, but there are private companies out there putting things into orbit RIGHT NOW. What this "Virgin Galactic" thing is, is a big sounding rocket. BFD! They can't do NOW with today's technology what NASA and North American Aviation was doing in 1959 with the X-15. This is literally half a century old technology here. Why are people so fascinated with this silly program? Because they've been deceived into thinking it's a stepping stone to real space tourism, which it isn't. What is "real space tourism" and why don't suborbital flights count? I mean it's not a stepping stone. In particular, it's not a stepping stone to space tourism that involves orbiting the planet. Sylvia.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - So wilbur and orville werent the creator of a stepping stone to jet flight? |
#33
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On 9/06/2011 11:44 PM, bob haller wrote:
On Jun 9, 9:37 am, Sylvia wrote: On 8/06/2011 10:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote: In , says... On 8/06/2011 6:08 AM, Marvin the Martian wrote: BFD. I'm sorry, but there are private companies out there putting things into orbit RIGHT NOW. What this "Virgin Galactic" thing is, is a big sounding rocket. BFD! They can't do NOW with today's technology what NASA and North American Aviation was doing in 1959 with the X-15. This is literally half a century old technology here. Why are people so fascinated with this silly program? Because they've been deceived into thinking it's a stepping stone to real space tourism, which it isn't. What is "real space tourism" and why don't suborbital flights count? I mean it's not a stepping stone. In particular, it's not a stepping stone to space tourism that involves orbiting the planet. Sylvia.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - So wilbur and orville werent the creator of a stepping stone to jet flight? You might say that. I haven't. The issue is that there are no incremental steps from Virgin Galactic to orbital flight. In particular, their reentry system just cannot be developed in that direction. It's like trying to get from a hot air balloon to a jet aircraft by incremental steps. It doesn't work. You have to throw away the balloon and start from scratch. Sylvia. |
#34
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
Jeff Findley writes:
I've got to disagree. When you're flying high enough above the earth that the vehicle is flying through vacuum then that vehicle is flying in space. Flying people in space on a relatively short suborbital trip is manned space tourism as much as a 20 minute sight seeing helicopter ride is aviation. But is a journey that takes 20 minutes or so "tourism"? From Wikipedia: The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited." I have no problems with calling suborbital rides spaceflight (albeit a short flight), but the word "tourism" feels just... wrong. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
#35
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On Jun 9, 9:37 am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 8/06/2011 10:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote: ... What is "real space tourism" and why don't suborbital flights count? I mean it's not a stepping stone. In particular, it's not a stepping stone to space tourism that involves orbiting the planet. Sylvia It can be. You have to learn how to crawl before you can walk. The US launched many suborbital sounding rockets before Explorer I was successfully placed into orbit. If we are to make a comparison of the step from suborbital flight to orbital flight I prefer to looked at staged rockets, rather than air launched vehicles such as the X-15 and SpaceShipTwo. The reason is the X-15 didn't lead directly to an orbital flight program. The other suborbital tourism ventures besides Virgin Galactic will be using vertically launched rockets rather than air launched vehicles. They expect to be making their first test flights this year or the next. I'm pretty confident they can accomplish at least unmanned suborbital flights within this time frame. The Redstone family of rockets capable of suborbital flight led to orbital versions: Redstone (rocket family). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_(rocket_family) According to this page, the first unmanned suborbital flight took place in 1953. This led to a upgraded version launching Explorer I to orbit in 1958. Bob Clark |
#36
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
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#37
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On 6/9/2011 5:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
What Spaceship Two will do is show whether or not the business model works. If it does, there will be more incentive to take the big leap to LEO capable passenger carrying spacecraft. That's the big question... my theory is that they will get passengers at the beginning, particularly if they drop the ticket price to $20,000 instead of $200,000, but pretty soon the novelty of the whole thing will wear off, particularly given the short flight duration, and the passengers will dry up. They've got a real problem because of SpaceShipTwo's small passenger capacity; total per flight and infrastructure costs of the system have to be supported by a very limited number of ticket sales, and that means the tickets are going to have to cost several thousand dollars each just to break even, much less make a profit. Pat |
#38
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On 6/9/2011 7:49 AM, Jochem Huhmann wrote:
But is a journey that takes 20 minutes or so "tourism"? From Wikipedia: The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four (24) hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited." I have no problems with calling suborbital rides spaceflight (albeit a short flight), but the word "tourism" feels just... wrong. Particularly since the spacecraft takes off and lands at the same airfield. I'm surprised they didn't look into flying it from the launch site to another city in the region, so at least you could say you went somewhere during the flight...right now all they've got is the world's most expensive amusement park ride. Pat |
#39
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
On 6/10/2011 7:29 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
Whatever we want to call it, it could lead to "tourism" if it's profitable enough to cause investors to take the big leap and invest in actual orbital "tourism" (i.e. something like Bigelow's proposed space station). I still want to see how they handle the space sickness problem on that if they build it; if you aren't sick enough from going into zero g on on the trip up to it, the vomit smell in the station itself will be exactly what it takes to bring up dinner from three days ago. ;-) Pat |
#40
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Private, uncrewed, suborbital test flights to start this year.
Pat Flannery writes:
On 6/10/2011 7:29 AM, Jeff Findley wrote: Whatever we want to call it, it could lead to "tourism" if it's profitable enough to cause investors to take the big leap and invest in actual orbital "tourism" (i.e. something like Bigelow's proposed space station). I still want to see how they handle the space sickness problem on that if they build it; if you aren't sick enough from going into zero g on on the trip up to it, the vomit smell in the station itself will be exactly what it takes to bring up dinner from three days ago. ;-) Exposing the station to a good bit of hard vacuum between visits should fix this. ;-) Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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