
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo completes 2nd powered flight - timjahn
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/05/tech/innovation/branson-spaceshiptwo-test/index.html
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jccooper
Good for them, but man it's been a long time. SS1 won the X-Prize almost
exactly 9 years ago, and apparently took about 3 years to get there. I know a
revenue version is going to have more details to attend to, but that's still a
long time for approximately the same system.

My understanding from the "industry" is that most of the delay was in scaling
the hybrid engine up. Which I can imagine, as it's the largest operational
hybrid ever made--though a smallish motor as far as conventional liquid or
solid rocketry goes.

I wonder if they regret pioneering in this particular area. If it works
eventually (and looks like they finally got it going) it may work out okay,
but they'd probably have been flying years ago with a liquid system. As is
they may just barely beat XCOR (which has next to no money in comparison) into
revenue flight.

Personally I don't doubt that the hybrid approach was a poor idea (if for no
other reason than casting and reloading giant rubber grains seems cumbersome
in comparison to re-filling with kerosene), but we'll soon have a hybrid
rocketplane (SS2) and a liquid rocketplane (Lynx) flying side-by-side, so I
guess we'll see. Though Virgin's money and press may tilt the playing field.

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ianstallings
I think it comes down to safety. Supposedly the hybrid is a safer rocket motor
than a conventional liquid engine. I understand their concern. They already
have 600 tickets sold at $250k a piece and if on launch number 40 the rocket
goes BOOM, which liquid rockets are prone to do, it could be a disaster. I
think eventually it's a given that one of the rocket motors _will_ explode.
Hopefully when the hybrid one goes, say from a air pocket in the solid fuel,
it won't be a fatal disaster.

That all being said - space is dangerous. I hope people are prepared for all
that entails.

~~~
deletes
Agreed, They might as well close the company when a disaster happens. I
wouldn't risk my life for 3 minutes of weightlessness. A week or two in space
is another story.

~~~
ianstallings
Yeah I don't like the idea of going to space for a quick trip very much.
Rockets are incredibly powerful, and hence dangerous, machines. Never mind all
the inherent dangers of the environment. It's just not enough pay off for me.

One could always take a lift on the vomit comet if they want to feel
weightless:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft)

A trip to the ISS though? Holy cow I'd risk my life to go there. 300km orbit
for a few weeks? It's just too much to pass up.

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ChuckMcM
I am looking forward to this being available. I consider it one of the bell
weathers of the private space flight 'business.' A healthy source of revenue
for private access to space will change the market dynamics on what gets
built, a small niche revenue will not. Either way, we get a data point.

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bane
The thing that would concern me is that once the novelty wears off, and
there's no place in particular to "go" in space, a healthy revenue source
might be difficult.

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pilom
I've seen an analysis which said that the revenue source isn't going to space
and back, but going really fast between 2 points on earth. The analysis
basically said that with mail delivery you pay up to 5 times as much for the
fastest delivery tier as you do fo the second fastest and that there are about
10% as many deliveries at the fastest tier as at the second fastest. So if you
could use space ship 2 for an even faster tier and could get 10% of the
current fastest market for 5x the price, then there should be enough mail to
pay for up to 1 flight per day across the country.

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webjprgm
> 1 flight per day across the country

Don't we already have same-day delivery? So the next tier would have to be
quicker delivery than that, which would necessitate more than one flight a
day. Is it still economically viable in that case?

Does this same economy math apply to passenger transport? Or could one flight
per day of mail to the other side of the world be worth it?

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BrandonMarc
Or, this means that the same-day delivery radius is much greater ... as well
as the subsequent tiers below that, regarding express shipping.

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jlgreco
_" designed to carry up to six passengers on what will be suborbital flights
at first."_

Unless I am mistaken, I don't think there are plans on ever getting
SpaceShipTwo orbital; Mach 1.43 is an order of magnitude away from what you
need for LEO. I am guessing they mean that in the future Virgin Galactic will
orbit something else.

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neurotech1
SpaceShipThree was* planned for orbit.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipThree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipThree)

Edit: * was planned for orbit.

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moocowduckquack
from your link;

 _" As of 2008, the company has scaled back those plans and articulated a
design that would be a point-to-point vehicle traveling outside the
atmosphere."_

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deletes
Current space-hops just can't be anything more than a tourist attraction.
Looking at the design it seems the ship is unable to do atmospheric entry from
orbit and is a dead end as far as research is concerned.

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HeyLaughingBoy
At a worldwide market size of $1.4 trillion
([http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/global/global-
tourism.html](http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/global/global-tourism.html)),
"just a tourist attraction" is not a bad place to be at all.

~~~
moocowduckquack
If the Skylon manages to get built to spec and gets ~30 people into orbit for
$10 million per launch, then an eighth of the worldwide tourist budget could
launch a million people a year. Though, presumably if you were launching that
many people, the cost would actually be a fair bit less.

