
Branson admits Virgin space mission was going the wrong direction - ollysmit
http://www.thememo.com/2017/03/03/branson-quietly-admits-20-year-space-mission-was-going-the-wrong-way/
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bmcusick
There's no indication that they've figured out that Virgin's real problem is
their architecture. They're still trying to use _wings_ to get to space.

The Germans and NASA back in the 50s understood that "mass is mass", and wings
compete with fuel for weight. They're dead mass you have to accelerate. The
lift they provide isn't worth it.

The Russians put Sputnik and Gegarin in orbit with a rocket.

NASA went to the Moon with a rocket.

ICBMs are rockets.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are making rockets.

Branson's problem is that he founded a company started by Burt Rutan (a
brilliant airplane designer), and never hired the right rocket designers, and
he doesn't have the technical expertise himself to realize what he's doing
wrong.

For an example of a rocket company that understands this, but is trying to
square the circle anyway, read about Skylon.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_\(spacecraft\))

They at least understand the mass trade-offs being made and are trying to
develop new technology that helps skirt around them.

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rz2k
Would you say that achieving orbit is a problem of achieving velocity more
than lifting to a certain altitude, and that wings are a delicate tool for
decelerating when coming back to earth?

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bmcusick
Yes, absolutely. That's why the Apollo capsules and the Dragon spacecraft
don't have them. The loads and heat involved are enormous. Even the Space
Shuttle had pretty stubby wings, and the special tiles those wings needed to
protect themselves were a constant source of high-cost maintenance (and ended
up destroying one of the Shuttles and killing all its crew when they failed).

The wings on SpaceShipOne were pretty light and flimsy because they didn't
need to be any stronger considering how slow SpaceShipOne's top speed was. It
topped out at Mach 3, and you need to reach Mach 25 to achieve orbit. Wings
strong enough to handle Mach 25 would be too heavy to ever reach Mach 25;
Catch 22!

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saalweachter
I must say - both physically compelled by the pun and because that it is a pun
makes it no less true - that SpaceX has been a rousing success for the "launch
and iterate" mantra so often pushed on HN. Having a product, that works, that
people can pay you for, as soon as possible makes a huge difference, even if
what you push out first is no where near what you want your finished product
to be. The contrast to Virgin Galactic is startling.

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Gravityloss
SpaceX looks like a software company that has had success with their product
so far but is in the process of a major refactoring to a new technology base.

Basically if they want to fly reusable rockets with high reliability and low
refurbishment time and cost, they have to redesign and rebuild quite a lot.
And they need new philosophies and processes.

You can for example look at their current Merlin gas generator technology
engines. The chosen cycle results in high temperatures for the turbine,
something which works against reliability and reusability. They have the
staged combustion Raptor engine coming up, but they are too big to be used as
landing engines, so they have to do that in another way.

Gas generator as a first engine (and pressure fed upper stage) makes a lot of
sense though.

On the other hand, Virgin Galactic chose an unconventional and hard to scale
technology: hybrid rockets, which has proved even more problematic.

As a fairly technical person, you look at these companies and organizations
(NASA) and feel how they just simply can't make technically informed decisions
higher up. SpaceX has improved a lot historically though.

Do you know if there are companies with technical leadership?

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Retric
Projects are never going to pick the perfect solution out of the gate. But,
tested compromises also have value.

I would suggest SpaceX freeze a design every 5-7 years that's good enough to
scale while cheaper than it's completion and then have a more experimental
path. If option A costs 20 million more, but has a 98+% success rate and
option B saves 20 million then the market can chose which to focus on.

The real 'problem' spaceX is facing is humans simply don't send all that much
stuff into space, so they are never get enough data get the experimental path
stable.

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Neliquat
A sensible shift, but comes a bit late. The success india, spacex, ula, are
having will lead to kepler syndrome before he gets operational if I had to bet
on it. Still, I support every dollar spent on space tech. I only hope the tech
developed for dead end projects is released if unused.

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Waterluvian
I like "Kepler Syndrome".

The runaway proliferation of humans on nearby habitable planets.

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vkou
So, Earth?

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dredmorbius
Well, that certainly _is_ the majority of cases we're aware of.

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squeral
Too early for space tourism.

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maus42
Musk announced couple of days ago a plan to send tourists on a sightseeing
trip around Moon. And not as some hypothetical plan, but in a sense that the
said tourists have bought the tickets.

Now, with their track record it looks like it's probably going to take 2x more
time than the announced schedule says, but on the other hand, 2x is quite much
sooner than 'never'.

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jlebrech
yes, diagonal not vertical how it should be.

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runnr_az
down?

