Perhaps, but I did hear they were considering suborbital passenger service as a future direction.
Commercial spaceship plant finished in Mojave Desert
- Thread starter adereL
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Perhaps, but I did hear they were considering suborbital passenger service as a future direction.
... and I imagine the old "no sonic booms in my backyard" complaint will be resurrected to try to kill off such a prospect.
Perhaps not but if they make a successful business out of it, someone will want to take people to the orbiting space hotels that a number of people/companies are proposing.
Should NASA not have bothered to launch Carpenter or Glenn because they weren't going to the moon?
Surely the fact that entrepreneurs are prepared to put money into commercial space flight (however limited it currently is) must be a huge step in the right direction.
Very, very few people have been that far into space, a tourist flight to the ISS costs tens of millions of dollars - a trip to the edge of space with Virgin Galactic will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Still a rich person's thing, but now open to a much wider range of people.
I don't want 'em in my backyard.
You do know the Mercury program was designed as an integral step towards the Apollo program?
I am not saying that commercial space is a boondoggle. I'm saying that Virgin Galactic is setting it's sights too low, literally. I would much rather praise a company that actually is trying to reach orbit and beyond.
Branson is all flash and teeth - it's been his modus operandi since like forever.
Of course I know that! I was trying to imply that you can't go the full distance in one step.
Even if Virgin Galactic aren't going to orbit just now (or maybe even ever) if they make a success of a passenger space flight business, it will make it easier for the next person to get funding for a more sophisticated and ambitious (and expensive) operation.
You seem to have the impression I am trying to promote Virgin Galactic - I'm not as such - I strongly believe that the possibility of space flight for other than professional astronauts is a very exciting step for human space flight (even if it is a limited "thrill ride"). That's what I believe should be promoted as a good thing, not rejected because it is too limited.
It isn't the company that is doing it that is important (unless e.g. you hate say, the CEO of the company as some people appear to) - it's that it is being done that is important. I am, of course excited by SpaceX's achievments/proposals, as I am by the other space flight projects proposed by other companies/organisations.
It seems to me that space flight needs to be more than just something governments do to compete or co-operate.
isnt this how IPX on Babylon 5 got started lol ....xD [ie InterPlanetary eXpeditions for those who dont know]
That would be my idea of the perfect job - xenoarchaeology - digging for alien artefacts. I envy Max Eilerson.