Anyone else excited to see Virgin Galactic doing well and its delta class spaceship nearing passenger flights?
Posted by runlola@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 88 comments
Breck_the_Panther@reddit
No, this is pointless and not going to help anyone do anything useful.
benuski@reddit
I don't particularly care, no. Space tourism doesn't do anything for me, especially not with Artemis doing actual never been done shit
runlola@reddit (OP)
Are you suggesting Apollo didn’t do what Artemis II just did?
benuski@reddit
No! I'm saying Virgin Galactic is boring because Artemis and Apollo did much cooler things.
Expensive_Archer1662@reddit
The more the merrier I say
RobotMaster1@reddit
No. Everything that dude touches has a grift odor to it. Even if he’s only marginally involved anymore.
And suborbital flights for the super rich don’t move the needle for me, either - even as a giant spaceflight enthusiast.
Expensive_Archer1662@reddit
The points been made before but “them new dangled cell networks for the super rich to make calls from the car don’t move the needle for me!” If you want more affordable space tourism you have to accept it’s going to start as hideously expensive
No_Size9475@reddit
100% agree. This company ads no value to the world.
viliamklein@reddit
Now that New Shepard is gone, Virgin can provide the only sub-orbital flights for the US. NASA has a successful funding vehicle called "Flight Opportunities" for engineers and scientists to fly payloads on these vehicles, and sometimes fly with the payloads. That capability is effectively gone right now unless Virgin manages to get back to flight.
iamsotiredofthiscrap@reddit
Unity never made it past the karman line.
Calling their flights suborbital has always been a stretch
14u2c@reddit
Even if it does nothing much useful the money spent developing it still going to aerospace engineers and western manufacturing. There are a lot worse things these rich fucks could be doing with their cash (including hoarding it).
immunotransplant@reddit
Wait until your hear about this guy with a musky odor.
negativelift@reddit
The musk is fecal in origin
viliamklein@reddit
Now that New Shepard is gone, Virgin can provide the only sub-orbital flights for the US. NASA has a successful funding vehicle called "Flight Opportunities" for engineers and scientists to fly payloads on these vehicles, and sometimes fly with the payloads. That capability is effectively gone right now unless Virgin manages to get back to flight.
RobotMaster1@reddit
That’s just not true. Rocket Lab has the HASTE rocket. Granted, they don’t have the passenger capacity.
https://rocketlabcorp.com/launch/haste/
viliamklein@reddit
HASTE is not really in the same category. It's more of a sounding rocket for hypersonic testing and it doesn't offer attended payloads. It's not clear to me based on what's currently on NSPIRES whether you can use Flight Opportunities money to buy HASTE flights.
RobotMaster1@reddit
thanks for the education. it seems like HASTE is more catered to DOD contracts. so far, at least.
viliamklein@reddit
NP. After more digging, It's really unclear at the moment. The flight opportunities site mentions RKLB as a provider of flights using Photon and HASTE. But word on the street is that Photon isn't really available anymore, and the payload user guide they link to makes no mention of HASTE. IDK what's going on...
sevgonlernassau@reddit
HASTE is not intended for suborbital space research.
FortunoTredicim@reddit
100% Came here to say this. A waste of effort. money, and our environment for the rich.
Prior_Worldliness287@reddit
No they missed the boat on the excitement.
DoomAndFNAF@reddit
Nope, nope, no, they've already almost killed people
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5XEZfzoxvY
hawy-an2@reddit
Vaporware bullshit
drjellyninja@reddit
The company is a shitfight but that's not what vaporware means, they've flown customers
iamsotiredofthiscrap@reddit
Wooo. Less than 20 people have flown on a SpaceShipTwo. Most of them have been employees
drjellyninja@reddit
Still not what vaporware means
salzsalzsalzsalz@reddit
uhm. no. this is just money burning for rich people.
LateralThinkerer@reddit
Erm...the entire industry passed this stuff by a decade ago and the "source" is very odd. Are they still using the polyamide/NO RocketMotorTwo (that went out of production about ~12 years ago)? What do they consider a mission?
This reeks of puffery/funding nonsense.
runlola@reddit (OP)
The source is from their Virgin Galactic’s site. I was showing some high school students the site because they were clueless about most things related to space flight and thought everything was a crewed capsule like Orion or New Shepard. They’d never heard of Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites, or the Ansari XPrize.
LateralThinkerer@reddit
Why not get their project into space directly?
https://www.nasa.gov/kennedy/launch-services-program/cubesat-launch-initiative/
iamsotiredofthiscrap@reddit
Probably because it hasn’t been a very successful campaign. Not a single flight broke the karman line
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
aviation-ModTeam@reddit
This content was removed for breaking the r/aviation rules.
This subreddit is dedicated to aviation and the discussion of aviation, not politics and religion. For discussion of these subjects, please choose a more appropriate subreddit.
If you believe this was a mistake, please message the moderators through modmail. Thank you for participating in the r/aviation community.
BrianWantsTruth@reddit
I wish we could have another billionaire submarine moment. We’ve been good, we deserve a little treat.
With that in mind, I hope Virgin Galactic keeps going!
Azurehue22@reddit
Didn’t this already happen with two test pilots on this same project?
iamsotiredofthiscrap@reddit
No, go read the wiki article
Azurehue22@reddit
Ok! Sorry
lecanucklehead@reddit
Why ask how people feel if you're then just going to dismiss those that feel differently than you? If you think this is exciting, great, thats your right. Calling people negative nancy's for not being excited as well just makes you come off as a sore loser.
JaggedMetalOs@reddit
It was interesting 20 years ago, since then it's become clear it's a dead-end technology which was nothing more than a gimmick to win the x-prize.
joecarter93@reddit
I was just going to say hasn’t Virgin Galactic been “on the verge” of taking people to the edge of space since like the late 90’s? Like I don’t know how it’s still a thing after not having any paying customers for that long?
quesoandcats@reddit
They had paying customers on SpaceShip Two, just not very many before the accident iirc
Namenloser23@reddit
The accident was VSS enterprise, the first SS2 they built. It never flew paying customers and crashed during its test program. They then built another SS2, VSS Unity, which completed testing and did about 7 commercial flights. It was retired to "focus" on the next generation vehicle.
iamsotiredofthiscrap@reddit
They also scrapped a flight-ready ship, VSS Imagine.
Gastroid@reddit
Taking 20 years to develop a craft that allows the rich to play astronauts for a few minutes, with no real utility beyond that, isn't exactly exciting.
LowPomegranate225@reddit
They can't even like fly into low orbit and re enter at another airport?
Be a super fast ocean crossing for the ultra rich those thing? Maybe lax to Tokyo in 3 hours?
Phagemakerpro@reddit
The trouble is you’d need another launch craft at the other airport and those aren’t exactly cheap. Also, there are only a few airports in the world that could physically accommodate them because of the wingspan. There’s a reason they launch out of the desert. There’s precious little to bump into.
By contrast, this would go rather poorly at, say, Narita.
Brainchild110@reddit
And let's not forget, its a dead end design that has already been scaled up into another unsuccessful and inefficient design that can be taken no further. And the one useful thing they were doing (Launcher 1 satellite launch system) the biffed hard at the 11th hr.
The_Bard@reddit
Burt Rutan's mind is something else.
Rubber_Knee@reddit
Caling this thing a spaceship is kind of a stretch.
It's like calling a whale a land animal because it can poke it's head above water for a short while without dying.
Nelik1@reddit
Its a unique vehicle and mission profile. I think it will be cool to see it fly from a standpoint of "Wow, thats a neat thing that no other aircraft does. (Except the ones that did it before)"
That said, until the technology gets adapted for something more useful, which seems unlikely at this point, the business model strikes me as unreliable and unnecessary.
lockerno177@reddit
can it achieve orbit? or is it just small hops?
reddituserperson1122@reddit
Hops.
shaymcquaid@reddit
That’s a total load of BS. My old company was supposed to build some MAJOR components like the fuselage and empennage for the Delta. None of it ever happens. The tooling was brought in but not a single thing was ever made. That was probably 2 or 3 years ago…
Alibotify@reddit
If you missed it, there was a post on Wallstreetbets this weekend about that Virgin Galactic got potential and is cheap. Thousands bought and it went up like 20% so many made a lot of money. Stock manipulation deluxe but it’s what the suits and Trömp always has done trickled down to the common man now.
WHY-IS-INTERNET@reddit
Ask me about my SPCE position!
Alibotify@reddit
Eeeey, I just made +20% when everyone else bought on Monday efter the weekends post about it. Stock manipulation deluxe.
notlongnot@reddit
Enough to offset tax for multiple years?😏
aspartame-daddy@reddit
“It’s not a loss until you sell!”
Youasking@reddit
I enjoyed my Rocket Lab losses enough, thanks.
Vxctn@reddit
It's a dead end towards space flight. So don't super care what the rich do to waste their millions.
runlola@reddit (OP)
Ugh. Once upon a time, traveling by plane was only for the wealthy.
Vxctn@reddit
Yes, but what virgin is doing doesn't scale meaningfully. It's like when Boeing just came out with the 707 and a company offered people jetpack rides instead for $100k. Sure, it's cheaper than a loud rough ride on a jet. But it's still not worth it it
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
aviation-ModTeam@reddit
This content was removed for breaking the r/aviation rules.
This subreddit is dedicated to aviation and the discussion of aviation, not politics and religion. For discussion of these subjects, please choose a more appropriate subreddit.
If you believe this was a mistake, please message the moderators through modmail. Thank you for participating in the r/aviation community.
Bob_stanish123@reddit
Not near passenger flights, this is an iron bird test rig, not the actual ship. VG has zero hope of profitability unless someone buys the company for pennies on the dollar in BK.
Wildfathom9@reddit
One of musks alt reddit accounts gauging response.
Beautiful_Jaguar_413@reddit
The range on this is only 1-10 miles, yes?
I could see 5,000-10,000 mile range, parabolic, 4 pass rocket as a fun way to get from Los Angeles to Tokyo.
Charge $1 million a seat?
SeaMareOcean@reddit
20 years ago that’s basically what I thought the end goal was for this approach; sub-orbital ballistic flights that could span continents in 90 minutes or so. But I guess not? As far as I can tell there‘s no intention by VG, or anyone else for that matter, to take this beyond 10 minute joy rides. What an absolute waste.
dont_panic80@reddit
It's not a spaceship.
Zcarp@reddit
No.
JSpencer999@reddit
Yeah, obscenely rich people going into space for a couple of minutes. Great.
/s
Which_Material_3100@reddit
Meh
bonzog@reddit
Nope, an absolute waste of resources for some glorified billionaire joyrides.
NYPuppers@reddit
jesus i remember reading about this when AOL was my homepage. how is this thing still around?
SRM_Thornfoot@reddit
No. It is just a fancy carnival ride. A complete dead end as far as space goes.
Such_Egg9843@reddit
No
Flat-Split-7879@reddit
Doing well is quite the stretch
flightwatcher45@reddit
I've head the line for rides is essentially none too at this point. It was cool 20 years ago when it was breaking technology but now it seems outdated.
Lucky-Development-15@reddit
Nope
No_Size9475@reddit
This is such an utter waste of money and resources, all to send the stupidly rich on a 2 hour ride.
Fuck everything about this.
Marco_lini@reddit
It‘s basically just a ballistic trajectory not even reaching the karman line of 100km having a couple moments of zero G. It‘s like those ZeroG flights on an airliner with much much more risk and waste of resources.
Astrochimp46@reddit
Turns out you’re the only one 😂
xVelehkSainx@reddit
No.
bonelatch@reddit
No, fuck em for reverse splitting the 100 shares I bought down to 5. Ill never be able to recoup that loss.
moneyfink@reddit
The reverse split wasn’t the cause. It was the result of their share price dropping too low.
MichiganRedWing@reddit
Couldn't care less.
Mr_Chode_Shaver@reddit
I had to honestly double check that I wasn't on r/Pretend2010Internet
post-explainer@reddit
Please provide a source by replying to the message that was sent to you. Failure to respond to that message will result in the automatic removal of this post. Please feel free to reach out to the mod team through modmail if you have any questions or concerns.
r/Aviation is trialing new measures to prevent karma farming. Please feel free to provide feedback through modmail. Thank you for participating in the community!