Is Virgin Galactic for Real?

"Von Fourche" wrote in message
ink.net...

Two hundred thousand dollars for six minutes of weightlessness? I bet
you can get more weightless time on the Comet Vomit for less that two
hundred thousand dollars.

Yes you can. And I can probably get even more if I skydive.

You're not paying for the weightlessness, you're paying for the entire
experience.

How many of YOUR friends can brag they've been to space?

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Now if you're asking who gets to the Moon first, Virgin Galactic (or
another private firm) or the US Government, I'd say that might be even
money.

Orbit or landing?

Either.

They've already put a price tag on a lunar flyby. [1]

A landing's a whole different matter and I'm quite sure the next one
will be paid for by taxes. Beijing's or Washington's.

[1]
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n..._moontrip.html

In article . net,
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

"Von Fourche" wrote in message
ink.net...

Two hundred thousand dollars for six minutes of weightlessness? I bet
you can get more weightless time on the Comet Vomit for less that two
hundred thousand dollars.

Yes you can. And I can probably get even more if I skydive.

Less than five seconds per jump before you're back in pretty much 1G due
to wind resistance. And only a fraction of that is anything like true
free-fall even if you jump from a balloon. From a plane you're into 60+
mph wind which gives approximately lunar gravity acceleration the
instant you're out the door.

So at $40 a jump, getting 6 minutes of zero-G will cost you as much as a
$4k flight with zerogravity.com, and take much longer and be in much
smaller chunks.

If you don't mind small chunks (heh), I show people 5 - 6 seconds of
zero-G at a time in a glider, with quality good enough to keep a pen or
apple or whatever suspended in mid-cockpit. The guys in the big jets
use the engines to compensate for drag, which a glider can't do. But a
40:1 L/D translates to a 0.025 G acceleration due to drag in level
flight. When the wings aren't generating any lift (and thus no induced
drag) in a zero-G pushover it's more like 0.01 G.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

In article . net,
"Von Fourche" wrote:


I will wager either of you US$500 that a Virgin Galactic crew reaches
space (that is, an altitude greater than 100 km) before NASA sends
anyone else to the Moon.

I will also wager either of you US$100 that NASA will never send anyone
to the Moon on vehicles owned and operated by NASA.


That was my question. Not who will reach the moon first - Galactic or
NASA. But what will happen first - Virgin Galactic sending tourists into
space or NASA getting back to the Moon.

Almost certainly Virgin Galactic into space will be first. Remember,
it's just a somewhat larger version of the same craft that made the same
trip a year ago.



I'm confused about this "Space" and "orbit" stuff. I thought Virgin
Galactic was going to send people up like real astronauts and circle the
globe or whatever.

"Space" = more than 100 kilometers up.
"orbit" = circle the globe, more or less

VG's first step is to send people on very short sub-orbital flights:
into space but almost straight up and down, not completely around the
Earth.

Mary Pegg wrote:
They've already put a price tag on a lunar flyby. [1]

A landing's a whole different matter and I'm quite sure the next one
will be paid for by taxes. Beijing's or Washington's.

[1]
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n..._moontrip.html
Note that is being offered by Space Adventures
http://www.spaceadventures.com/, not Virgin Galactic. A similar plan
was also studied by CSI
http://www.constellationservices.com...ssmsystem.html

As to the original question of whether Virgin Galactic is for real, I
don't think theres any doubt of that. Whether they will succeed is a
different question. Given that three orbital tourist flights have been
sold and carried out for a reported $20 million each, it doesn't seem
unreasonable assume that a fair number of people would pay 1/100 of
that for a suborbital flight.

Space Adventures also has plans to offer suborbital flights. If I
remember correctly, they are already taking deposits. Given their
record selling orbital flights and other "adventures" it's pretty clear
that they are 'for real' too.

"hop" wrote in message
oups.com...
Mary Pegg wrote:
They've already put a price tag on a lunar flyby. [1]

A landing's a whole different matter and I'm quite sure the next one
will be paid for by taxes. Beijing's or Washington's.

[1]
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n..._moontrip.html
Note that is being offered by Space Adventures
http://www.spaceadventures.com/, not Virgin Galactic. A similar plan
was also studied by CSI
http://www.constellationservices.com...ssmsystem.html

As to the original question of whether Virgin Galactic is for real, I
don't think theres any doubt of that. Whether they will succeed is a
different question. Given that three orbital tourist flights have been
sold and carried out for a reported $20 million each, it doesn't seem
unreasonable assume that a fair number of people would pay 1/100 of
that for a suborbital flight.

Space Adventures also has plans to offer suborbital flights. If I
remember correctly, they are already taking deposits. Given their
record selling orbital flights and other "adventures" it's pretty clear
that they are 'for real' too.



I don't think I would want to go on some "suborbital flight." Doesn't
really sound like a big deal. Now, If I can circle the globe in orbit and
all that then sure, I would love to do it.

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:09:48 GMT, "Von Fourche" wrote:

I don't think I would want to go on some "suborbital flight." Doesn't
really sound like a big deal. Now, If I can circle the globe in orbit and
all that then sure, I would love to do it.

I don't know- even suborbital would be quite a view...

Dale

Dale wrote:
On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:09:48 GMT, "Von Fourche" wrote:


I don't think I would want to go on some "suborbital flight." Doesn't
really sound like a big deal. Now, If I can circle the globe in orbit and
all that then sure, I would love to do it.


I don't know- even suborbital would be quite a view...

Sure, an orbit or two would be better, but if someone were to _offer_ me
a seat aboard a suborbital flight, I'd take it, assuming they weren't
flying orbital trips yet. (Isn't Rutan's next project an orbital flight?)


--

..

"Though I could not caution all, I yet may warn a few:
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools!"

--grateful dead.
__________________________________________________ _____________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
"Mikey'zine": dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org

mike flugennock wrote:

Sure, an orbit or two would be better, but if someone were to _offer_ me
a seat aboard a suborbital flight, I'd take it, assuming they weren't
flying orbital trips yet. (Isn't Rutan's next project an orbital flight?)

ISTR him saying that there were two main problems to solve and he'd
figured out how to deal with one of them.

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

How many of YOUR friends can brag they've been to space?



The ones that did too much LDS at Berkeley?
Seriously, if space tourism catches on it has the seeds of its own
destruction built right in. At the moment it is a very, very, rare thing
to meet someone who has been into space; but after the first thousand
space tourists or so, that won't be the case, and it will lose its cachet.

Pat