Watch: Rocket Blasts Richard Branson, Crew Into New Era Of Space Flight

[Hamartia Antidote]

6 people on Virgin Galactic flight.

Apogee freefall

Successful landing!

 

[Gomig-21]

Successful landing!

Just watched it on the news and it was pretty exciting, all things considered. $250K for a seat in the future once it starts commercially executing these flights? lol, funny as that may seem outrageous, I bet there will be a waiting list although I also heard he wants to have 2 or 3 flights a week. Can they sustain such a high load and will the demand be there for that many flights?

It'll be interesting to see as well as what Jeff Bazos' set up will look like.

 

[FuturePAF]

Suborbital

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Just watched it on the news and it was pretty exciting, all things considered. $250K for a seat in the future once it starts commercially executing these flights? lol, funny as that may seem outrageous, I bet there will be a waiting list although I also heard he wants to have 2 or 3 flights a week. Can they sustain such a high load and will the demand be there for that many flights?

It'll be interesting to see as well as what Jeff Bazos' set up will look like.

I think people will be more confident with Branson's Spaceship Two than a Bezos rocket launch/parachute landing.

 

[Beast]

Suborbital

Precisely...

No real floating in space and a real space entry will need an atmosphere re entry which most likely burn up this aircraft.

$250k paid for a fake space experience?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

$250k paid for a fake space experience?

It's not marketed as that so why are you complaining?

SpaceX will be handling the orbital (seat cost in MILLIONS) while Branson and Bezos' companies will do suborbital (seat cost in 100's of thousands).

SpaceX Dragon 2 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

SpaceX will probably send more tourists into orbit in the next 2 years than China did in the last 15.

 

[Gomig-21]

I think people will be more confident with Branson's Spaceship Two than a Bezos rocket launch/parachute landing.

Although some might actually prefer that since it would give them much more of an actual space rocket launch and retrieval experience. But definitely not for the faint at heart.

 

[INS_Vikrant]

Precisely...

No real floating in space and a real space entry will need an atmosphere re entry which most likely burn up this aircraft.

$250k paid for a fake space experience?

Suborbital

he and bezos can't compete with SpaceX and Elon Musk on technical matters and so using cheap theatrics to hog limelight for their failing space ventures

 

[Gomig-21]

Mark shuttleworth paid the ruskies 10 million for a ride on the soyuz
waiting for chinese billionair to copy this

From my understanding, the Russians have already done something similar to this in their MiG-29s flights to the edge of space, where they take someone in the backseat of a 2 seater MiG-29UM for I believe the cost was $20K? I could be wrong but they had been doing this for over a decade now. The only difference is that it's just one person who sits in a rather tight seat and doesn't really experience zero gravity or a group experience like this, here.

 

[Ghost Hobbit]

From my understanding, the Russians have already done something similar to this in their MiG-29s flights to the edge of space, where they take someone in the backseat of a 2 seater MiG-29UM for I believe the cost was $20K? I could be wrong but they had been doing this for over a decade now. The only difference is that it's just one person who sits in a rather tight seat and doesn't really experience zero gravity or a group experience like this, here.

yes. But the flights don't give the weightlessness and the views this one gives. You will have excellent experience and see the curvature of the earth but i guess this will be better in experience on that front.

 

[Gomig-21]

Successful landing!

BTW, did you notice that interesting front landing gear? When I was watching it live and it was making it's approach, I could tell something was different about it but not until it touched down on the rear wheels and slowly dropped on that front gear did I notice it's strange shape and what looks to be a small, rubber ski pad of some sorts? Why not just have a standard front landing gear with a wheel?

They never mentioned anything about that or at least I didn't hear anything but the only thing I can come up with is that the aircraft doesn't have reverse trust on that rocket motor or a drag chute or anything to slow it down and help it stop that they turned that front landing gear into a friction pad of some sorts that wouldn't necessarily fall apart, but create enough friction to slow the aircraft down?

 

[Ghost Hobbit]

BTW, did you notice that interesting front landing gear? When I was watching it live and it was making it's approach, I could tell something was different about it but not until it touched down on the rear wheels and slowly dropped on that front gear did I notice it's strange shape and what looks to be a small, rubber ski pad of some sorts? Why not just have a standard front landing gear with a wheel?

They never mentioned anything about that or at least I didn't hear anything but the only thing I can come up with is that the aircraft doesn't have reverse trust on that rocket motor or a drag chute or anything to slow it down and help it stop that they turned that front landing gear into a friction pad of some sorts that wouldn't necessarily fall apart, but create enough friction to slow the aircraft down?

Trust me whatever the reason is, was probably very good. This plane is based on spaceship one deisgned by Burt Rutan, He is a pioneer and has come up with the most innovative and efficient designs in the world.


India is HEAVILY influenced by him. If you look at every Indian aerospace projects we use composites extensively. Thats because we looked at his work and understood the significance of his composite uses and deisgn.

 

[SQ8]

@Bilal Khan (Quwa) @Raider 21

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

BTW, did you notice that interesting front landing gear? When I was watching it live and it was making it's approach, I could tell something was different about it but not until it touched down on the rear wheels and slowly dropped on that front gear did I notice it's strange shape and what looks to be a small, rubber ski pad of some sorts? Why not just have a standard front landing gear with a wheel?

They never mentioned anything about that or at least I didn't hear anything but the only thing I can come up with is that the aircraft doesn't have reverse trust on that rocket motor or a drag chute or anything to slow it down and help it stop that they turned that front landing gear into a friction pad of some sorts that wouldn't necessarily fall apart, but create enough friction to slow the aircraft down?

Yeah, I don't know what is up with that.
DreamChaser does the same thing.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

this is another one of those ideas that seem good at first glance, like helicopter taxis.

helicopter taxis went bankrupt by the 1970's.