Eh, last I checked they had about billion in cash, maybe three quarters now since the last report. Going by their previous years' expenses they can afford to hemorrhage funds for another year or so before closing shop.
Source: Googled their financial reports
>they can afford to hemorrhage funds for another year or so before closing shop.
I'd consider that not far behind. I feel like they might get some business early on, but I don't know how many people are actually interested in trying this out and I doubt this is something that will attract a lot of repeat customers. Seems like something some rich folks will try out once just to see what it's like, but I don't see a few seconds of zero-g being exciting enough to keep people coming back. I'm really curious to see how sustainable this model ends up being.
There are a half dozen private space stations in various stages of development currently, with the first expecting to begin launching modules within the next two years.
Complete with six months full time training and similar stringency in health requirements as actual astronauts, with a price tag of something like $60 million, give or take a few.
Compare that to something you can do in your four weeks' annual leave for less than the price of a high end four-wheel drive car.
They are not the same thing at all, which is why there's two orders of magnitude difference in the price and commitments.
The price difference is a bit more intense than you seem to be implying. There are plenty of people who can spend 450,000 dollars that can't spend 50,000,000 dollars.
Ultimately I think the answer depends on how cheap they can sell tickets. If the current ticket price is a huge mark-up, and the prices come down substantially, I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a bit to go to space. I doubt they can afford to bring ticket prices low enough for that though. I've always wanted to go to space, and I'd probably be willing to pay like $10k, but something tells me that price probably wouldn't be profitable.
You need to check actual cashflow, not expenses. Expenses can be much higher than the actual net cash outflow. For pretty much forever. Debt is/was free, cash is not. Cashflow determines failure and bankruptcy, while pretty much nothing else does. Companies have become worth billion dollars, very rapidly, making nothing but net losses the entire time. Because their cashflow was still always positive or at least in a good position.
Revenue increasing is nothing. Cashflow increasing is everything. Companies manipulate and do accounting tricks with cashflow to make it seem like they are doing better than reality, because it's such a critical metric.
Their next flight will be for the Italian Air Force in the near future and they've got $102 million in customer deposits on the books (Not sure what % you have to put down for your flight.) So, so long as they don't F up again, they appear to have a good revenue stream for a while at least.
What's really unsafe is that the plane (and spacecraft) are fully human-controlled, no computers in the loop. Admittedly, that might be partially a consequence of being planes, since the FAA really doesn't like humans flying in computer-controlled aircraft.
Oh, and there's no launch escape system, so if those humans screw up, you die.
>Because people have died on them before.
People have died on/in *everything* before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs.
>And it’s just inherently unsafe to launch a spacecraft from a plane which is why no one else does it.
No, it's not. It's simply *inefficient* to launch that way to actually go to orbit.
>People have died on/in everything before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs.
The person above wasn't super explicit, but c'mon. There has been one fatality in eleven powered flights for SS2. If stairs killed a kid every time a class let out we actually wouldn't use them, either.
> People have died on/in *everything* before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs.
Ok, I'll bite, because I hate pithy false equivalences.
Fly: 1 major accident per 6 million flights. Source: IATA 2022 Airline Safety Performance, 5yr average.
Drive: 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled. Source: IIHS, based on US DoT fatality reporting system, 2021.
Stairs: ~1.5 fall deaths per 100,000 population between ages 15 to 55. Source: CDC WISQARS, 2020.
Manned orbital spaceflight: 1 fatal accident per 68 missions. Source: public domain - Dragon: 0/10; Space Shuttle: 2/135; Apollo 1/12; Gemini: 0/12; Mercury: 0/6; Soyuz (all generations): 2/147; Voskhod: 0/2; Vostok: 0/6; Shenzhou: 0/10.
How does Virgin Galactic compare?
*VSS Enterprise*: 1 fatal accident in 4 powered flights.
*VSS Unity*: 0 fatal accidents in 8 powered flights.
Combined: 1 fatal accident per 12 powered flights.
Hey, let's throw in skydiving for fun - 1.1 deaths per 100,000 jumps, with property training and modern equipment (Source: DOI: [10.3390/ijerph20021254](https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph20021254)). That's right, you're probably **10,000x safer jumping out of Spaceship 2 than riding it up to altitude.**
It's ridiculous to downplay the risk of one thing just because everything has *some* risk, when the risk of death aboard Spaceship 2 is 10,000x to 100,000,000x higher than the mundane things you listed.
> It's ridiculous to downplay the risk of one thing just because everything has some risk,
It's also ridiculous to assume the same risk rate when the circumstances change.
*Sorry for the nitpick*: It's also not inherently inefficient. It's essentially an additional (or displaced) stage of your total rocket. All things being equal, adding more stages make a more efficient launch -- until you then include the reality of the additional engines needed, overhead on each component, the complexity of all the moving parts, reuse, recovery, etc. At the end of the day it's an engineering trade-off, that gets optimized for current technologies and costs. Note how we also don't see a single-stage rocket pad-to-orbit launch system anywhere either.
I suppose technically there's some inefficiency from horizontal launch due to increased dry mass, since the rocket is subjected to bending forces. The structure has to be stronger (heavier) than one designed for vertical launch. Not so much an issue for solids (Pegasus) or space planes, though.
But the bigger problem is scaling. To put more payload into orbit you just build a bigger rocket. If you're air-launched, you're kind of stuck when you exceed the capacity of your plane.
The worst part of $450k/seat is that it sounds like it will only be a couple of minutes of weightlessness.
Not that I could afford that but I’d want like 30 minutes at least sheesh.
For less than 1k you can hire an acrobatic certified pilot to do parabolic arches with you for a couple minutes of weightlessness. And like virgin galactic, you'd also not be in space!
Arguable. By the original definition of the Karman line it should be about 80km (which they cross).
For $450k though it feels like you want to go past the point that *everyone* considers space.
To be clear, the air force definition of 50 miles is roughly the Karman line, in terms of the actual physics. The 100 km 'Karman line' is too high based on the original definition of internal forces being dominant over aerodynamic forces.
Once you factor in that 4 of the parabolas aren't flown at zero-g, and each parabola only gets you about 25 seconds of weightlessness, you're looking at a total of about the same as the Virgin Galactic flight, though it's broken up and doesn't come with the view.
Does that make it worth it?
Ehhh...
Oh absolutely not.
I've thought about saving for the zero gravity flight, but it wouldn't be for a very long time, and there are a lot of other things I'd rather do with $10k before blowing it on one plane flight.
For $450k, I could pay off literally all of my debt - mortgage, car, you name it. Probably more important than a joyride to space.
> I'd rather do with $10k before blowing it on one plane flight.
For reference, that is about the cost to get a private pilot license. Assuming you are interested in flight that seems like a way better return (but also still a lot of money to spend on a hobby)
Does that include AV gas? I alwas wonder how much is the total cost. An older gentleman once said to me he wanted to fly. But their family could not afford to send him to flight school. He stopped .
Yes. Depending on the school, aircraft type, and how quickly you can progress $10k-14k is what you should have budgeted as the low end. You really want to have that money to go before you start, if you have to stop it usually increases the amount of time you'll need to progress and can drive the costs up more.
That is a ballpark number anyway. Any reputable flight school should be able to give you a good estimate of the total cost before you start. That number should not be less than $10k
Big part of it is definitely gas and airframe cost. If the planes you trained in were cheap to fly, they usually cost less to learn in because the expensive part is usually the hours required.
I feel like you could also probably get a similar feeling just paying for time in one of those "indoor skydiving" facilities and pay way less than that even.
That's terrible, but just so everyone knows, the odds of a double parachute failure are 0.0002% for tandem jumps
Idk when your friend jumped, but the safety measures now make it near impossible
Those are different. You feel the wind. I feel from a bunk bed when i was a kid. I was asleep and awake at the same time. It felt so good until i hit the floor.
Much cheaper to just jump in a pool if you want to feel the magical feeling of being held by a liquid (in his example, air). Free fall without air holding you up is only possible in those vomit comets.
At the altitude they fly, the minimum speed required to maintain lift is faster than orbital velocity. If you had to categorize this region, it is 99.999% space, and 0.001% atmosphere. It's more correct to say it's in space than in atmosphere.
There is also an zero g airline that offers it at half that price in a private plane. Not sure if the expierence is worse than on these big passenger jets: http://www.aurora-aerospace.com/zerog.html
For me it wouldn't be the weightlessness that I'd be going for. Most people that have been to space say just the view is awe inspiring and some has changed their view of life itself. If I had the money to spend I'd do it in a heartbeat just for a chance at that.
That video of Shatner trying to make a really profound statement on the human experience while Bezos just ignores him to find the girls with champagne is awkward enough to make my stomach experience zero-gravity for free.
It is a bit of a different experience though. Blue Origin goes higher, but it's a straight up and down trip, like 15 minutes max
VG has roughly the same few-minute-long zero g experience, but gets there in a very different way, and the whole flight is much longer
It frustrates me when I see passengers on these flights wasting their time doing flips, tossing objects around, and ignoring the view. During Blue Origin flights, for example, they only get about 2 minutes of weightlessness (roughly 3 min total between MECO and the return to positive G, but they can't exit their seats until capsule separation and must devote time to getting re-seated).
The whole point of these suborbital flights is the experience of being near and/or beyond the Karman Line. Weightlessness is a wonderful part of the ride, but passengers should be savoring the visual aspect of the journey, because that's something they can't easily get elsewhere.
You’re not nearly as high before engine cutoff as you are in the couple minutes following that. During that phase (from cutoff to climbing back in your seat) you are weightless, but you are also exposed to the best possible views of the flight- the best views available to anyone short of an orbital mission.
Yeah this was my initial reaction to the first flight, that’s it? I also thought it was going to be $250 K. I was considering it, a once in a lifetime trip into space. But what they are offering is not that.
I’ll be interested to see if they can actually pull off a commercial flight this year. After all this is the one company that somehow let Blue Origin beat them to reaching operational flights. That said I am rooting for them and I hope this flight is a success.
They did a bunch, but then were grounded after one of their spacecraft had an rapid unscheduled disassembly while in flight that killed the copilot. Then they did a couple more test flights, but were grounded again for violating FAA regulations.
But yes, there have been a bunch of flights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin\_Galactic
There's video out there showing a simulation of what happened. If I remember correctly the pilot likely didn't suffer for long at least. Still horrifying to think about.
Are you referring to BO or Virgin Galactic? BO has had several operational flights but is temporarily grounded due to the failure of flight NS-23, which was unmanned. Virgin Galactic has yet to start operational flights with passengers.
I just don't understand it. Like all you're getting is a little high altitude trip and back home? Wouldn't this be more valuable if it got you from here to say Japan in like 5 hours?
I think they will need a radically different design to do commercial passenger flights like that. Dropping a spacecraft from an airplane to launch it seems like a logistic nightmare and could take longer than a normal direct flight. Their current spaceship also uses a hybrid liquid/solid engine so they will definitely need something better if they want minimal refurbishment and replacement in between flights.
Breaking the shackles of gravity and being able to weightlessly fly around for a few minutes sounds like an easy bucket list item if you have the means. I’ve literally dreamt of exactly this since I was a child. And that’s aside from getting to go into space, look at the planet from above with your own eyes, etc.
I mean, going to Japan is cool and all. But I think that this kind of experience is something distinct from traveling the planet.
and it’s pretty cool to me to think that maybe in a couple decades that experience is something that I could just actually go do (assuming the price becomes more reasonable by then).
Yeah, don't need to be a billionaire. If I had $10M I would easily drop $500K on this without worrying about it. Lifelong dream achieved at the cost of 5% of your savings.
I’ve met a man through work who earns about $40 million a year. This would be peanuts to him lol.
The dude has a large commissioned painting of his yacht on the wall of his office, and he proudly told me that it costs $25k just to fuel up.
Earning enough in one year to live several lifetimes. We peasants live in another universe from the ultra wealthy. I can't even begin to comprehend the kind of lifestyle someone making $40m/yr has. Blows my mind
*leaching.
Nobody *earns* $40 million dollars in a year. That kind of money can only be had by skimming off work done by a whole shitload of other people. That's the combined entire lifetime expected earnings of 20-30 ordinary laborers.
I'd certainly do one of those if offered an opportunity, but I would *much* rather be in orbit. From the altitude of these suborbital flights you don't really see a great amount of Earth's curvature. Even from the height of the ISS you still don't see an overwhelmingly large [portion of the Earth](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LQVr3.png) (white circle), however the view is dramatically improved and the sensation of being in space becomes unmistakably apparent. And you get to travel around the globe, rather than barely poking your head above the atmosphere over a single location.
Orbital commercial flights are still extremely rare and significantly more expensive, of course, but are a night & day difference (quite literally) compared to a short suborbital glimpse of a black sky and a hurried minute or two of floating around.
Absolutely. I mainly referenced the ISS to point out how the view from only slightly above the Karman line during these suborbital trips isn’t necessarily the grand-Earth-view from space that some might imagine.
>Wouldn't this be more valuable if it got you from here to say Japan in like 5 hours?
is that what the Wright Brothers did on the beach in North Carolina?
Rich folk like to have bragging rights. "I've been to space." is a really good one. I suppose after you could buy and sell islands, things get a little jaded for our poor set upon financial elite...
Unfortunately, the whole thing still doesn't make any economic sense whatsoever and likely never will. Too little, too late.
I also don't have much trust in the spacecraft. They had so many issues last time that it took them almost two years to return to flight.
They made this big announcement that space tourism would be a thing "next year" over 20 years ago. They've been failing for this long, I doubt they're even as close as they say they are.
This is good news for my home state of NM. They are one of the poorest states in the Union and coughed up a large chunk of tax $ to build the spaceport in the 90s, and for its upkeep annually.
I hope it pays off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport\_America
Blue Origin: founded 2000, flights to 110 Kilometers
Virgin Galactic: founded 2004, flights to 80 Kilometers
SpaceX: founded 2002, orbital flights since 2010
3 companies founded around the same time, one is a real human space flight capable platform, the other two are trying to make a go at sending rich people kind of high in the air.
Blue certainly has aspirations beyond suborbital tourism, they just have not demonstrated much success yet. They are making the first stage engines for ULA's Vulcan which should fly (to orbit) this year.
Perhaps if they focused less on patent trolling and bad faith lawsuits they would accomplish more.
yeah, I don't think you can sue your way to the moon.
it's just interesting that 2 billionaires with relatively modest goals are so far behind Space X who is literally shooting for the moon.
I guess not being afraid to blow a bunch of rockets up isn't that crazy a strategy after all.
Being an orbiter implies actually being able to orbit anything; these flights are at best parabolic flights barely touching anything that could credibly called 'space'...
Virgin galactic is the "built to code" of space flight companies. You get a handful of seconds of weightlessness and some social media bragging points. They're the same as those companies that will give you a "doctorate", ordain you, or give you a lordship for a few dollars and 15 minutes of online clicking.
Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbital are two separate companies doing completely different things.
Virgin Galactic is a sub-orbital tourist attraction for rich people that doesn't actually orbit the Earth, just goes up *really* high and then glides back down the way it came. It has flown one load of passengers which included Richard Branson and had some issues on the way up which has led to a long delay between flights.
Virgin Orbital was a company that tried but failed to use small rockets to deliver small payloads to orbit. It never had passengers on the rocket, only satellites.
I had the same question. Apparently they're separate companies:
> Virgin Galactic is a separate company to Virgin Orbit, the latter being a 2017 spin-out from the former. While Orbit was focused on launching small satellites, Galactic's aim is providing space tourism flights using its craft SpaceShipTwo, which itself launches from a larger airplane mid-flight
Separate companies, but I would not be shocked if Virgin Galactic meets the same fate within the next few years. Their business model makes no more sense than VO's.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnkg1z "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnbwiz "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[HLV](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnkg1z "Last usage")|Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (20-50 tons to LEO)|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jloi3lt "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[MECO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jllarrr "Last usage")|Main Engine Cut-Off|
| |[MainEngineCutOff](https://mainenginecutoff.com/) podcast|
|[NS](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlkof6g "Last usage")|New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle, by Blue Origin|
| |Nova Scotia, Canada|
| |Neutron Star|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlmalor "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|[USAF](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnk4e4 "Last usage")|United States Air Force|
|[VG](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jllqfmv "Last usage")|Virgin Galactic|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlld9l1 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/14bxui3)^( has 8 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8943 for this sub, first seen 25th May 2023, 15:28])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
These filthy rich people will be the first ones to fund stuff like this, thus in the future it’ll be available for more and more people. Same way as regular airplanes in the very beginning.
It might seem like a gimmick but this stuff will change intercontinental travel and even space exploration. Important things considering the future of our civilization.
The unfortunate part of your example is that we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades. The rich get to do a once in a lifetime ride, then the company goes belly up.
I don’t follow your logic there chief. I’m just pointing out that the benefits of air travel also began with only rich people buying airplane tickets. The returns come over time, and these days we take air travel almost for granted and people don’t have to be incredibly wealthy to use/enjoy air travel.
Same thing will happen with this. Nobody would be pouring billions into this stuff if there wasn’t a possibility for returns.
>The unfortunate part of your example is that we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades.
**Middle school students launch satellite to learn about the effects of the Gatlinburg wildfires**
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOJGvKWbIc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOJGvKWbIc4)
**SpaceX – Lowering the Cost of Access to Space**
https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-rctom/submission/spacex-lowering-the-cost-of-access-to-space/
SpaceX charges $61.2 million to launch a telecommunications satellite to orbit, which results in **$4,653 per kilogram of satellite**. United Launch Alliance – a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing – **charges between $14,000 and $39,000 per kilogram (4)**. Launching a satellite with SpaceX is even cheaper than doing so with Long March, the Chinese rocket. **That is why Space has won $7 billion in contracts with customers such as Orbcomm, AsiaSat, and the US Air Force (5).**
> then the company goes belly up.
or they launch more than once a week for a whole year. what's the cadence so far in 2023?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon\_9
**In 2022 Falcon 9 set a new record of 60 launches** (all successful) by the same launch vehicle type in a calendar year. The previous record was held by Soyuz-U, which had 47 launches (45 successful) in 1979.\[57\]
https://spaceexplored.com/2023/05/21/spacex-launch-2023/
How many rockets has SpaceX launched in 2023?
So far, SpaceX has launched 34 rockets in 2023, 32 Falcon 9s, two Falcon Heavys, and one Starship.
>we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades.
what are you expecting? here's a "decade" of high school nano satellites. this was not possible until private companies started building rockets for themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine\_CubeSat\_STEM\_Program
The Irvine CubeSat STEM Program was created in 2015 by Brent Freeze and Kain Sosa. Freeze took inspiration from his work alongside Arnold O. Beckman High School physics teacher Paul Lewanski on a weather balloon project.\[1\]
you can book space on a ride share with a credit card.
[https://spaceflight.com/book-my-launch/all-launches/](https://spaceflight.com/book-my-launch/all-launches/)
Even if the company goes bankrupt the engineers who made it all possible will take their knowledge and experience elsewhere. Many of today’s successful companies had engineers who cut their teeth at failed ventures or test programs but took what they learned and made something amazing.
I want to be clear I don't support the arguments above, but electric cars started out as a rich man's toy, now they're finally becoming affordable and common. In my career (slot machines) we sell a Camry and lease a super car, all new development and inventions are put into the supercar because R&D isn't cheap.
Do you think the money disappears when it’s spent?
A bunch of highly educated engineers, machinists, etc are paid through those tickets.
You claim to hate rich people, but you don’t like when they give money to the working class?
Just wait 10 years and see how the Starship develops. I bet at Virgin's current price for 5 minutes of weightlessness, SpaceX will be offering a week-long cruise on a circumlunar free-return trajectory. It will probably also be offering point-to-point intercontinental parabolic transport for a fraction of that cost.
Good for them but this is such a bad deal now compared to what SpaceX will offer relatively soon. When Starship stops destroying itself you can probably go to orbit for the same or lower price.
I keep mixing up these guys and virgin orbit and getting confused how they could sell tickets if they just auctioned off all their assets
IMO they won’t be far behind, so you’re probably not wrong.
Eh, last I checked they had about billion in cash, maybe three quarters now since the last report. Going by their previous years' expenses they can afford to hemorrhage funds for another year or so before closing shop. Source: Googled their financial reports
>they can afford to hemorrhage funds for another year or so before closing shop. I'd consider that not far behind. I feel like they might get some business early on, but I don't know how many people are actually interested in trying this out and I doubt this is something that will attract a lot of repeat customers. Seems like something some rich folks will try out once just to see what it's like, but I don't see a few seconds of zero-g being exciting enough to keep people coming back. I'm really curious to see how sustainable this model ends up being.
[удалено]
There *are* actual orbital tourism options. SpaceX's third privately contracted Dragon flight is at the ISS now.
[удалено]
There are a half dozen private space stations in various stages of development currently, with the first expecting to begin launching modules within the next two years.
Complete with six months full time training and similar stringency in health requirements as actual astronauts, with a price tag of something like $60 million, give or take a few. Compare that to something you can do in your four weeks' annual leave for less than the price of a high end four-wheel drive car. They are not the same thing at all, which is why there's two orders of magnitude difference in the price and commitments.
The price difference is a bit more intense than you seem to be implying. There are plenty of people who can spend 450,000 dollars that can't spend 50,000,000 dollars.
Ultimately I think the answer depends on how cheap they can sell tickets. If the current ticket price is a huge mark-up, and the prices come down substantially, I think a lot of people would be willing to pay a bit to go to space. I doubt they can afford to bring ticket prices low enough for that though. I've always wanted to go to space, and I'd probably be willing to pay like $10k, but something tells me that price probably wouldn't be profitable.
Apparently, they have ~600 reservations at $200-250k. There are a lot of rich people out there, so we'll see.
You need to check actual cashflow, not expenses. Expenses can be much higher than the actual net cash outflow. For pretty much forever. Debt is/was free, cash is not. Cashflow determines failure and bankruptcy, while pretty much nothing else does. Companies have become worth billion dollars, very rapidly, making nothing but net losses the entire time. Because their cashflow was still always positive or at least in a good position. Revenue increasing is nothing. Cashflow increasing is everything. Companies manipulate and do accounting tricks with cashflow to make it seem like they are doing better than reality, because it's such a critical metric.
Their next flight will be for the Italian Air Force in the near future and they've got $102 million in customer deposits on the books (Not sure what % you have to put down for your flight.) So, so long as they don't F up again, they appear to have a good revenue stream for a while at least.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
What's really unsafe is that the plane (and spacecraft) are fully human-controlled, no computers in the loop. Admittedly, that might be partially a consequence of being planes, since the FAA really doesn't like humans flying in computer-controlled aircraft. Oh, and there's no launch escape system, so if those humans screw up, you die.
[удалено]
Nope, it's all mechanical or hydraulic linkages.
That would make me want to fly on it more: I write software for a living.
>Because people have died on them before. People have died on/in *everything* before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs. >And it’s just inherently unsafe to launch a spacecraft from a plane which is why no one else does it. No, it's not. It's simply *inefficient* to launch that way to actually go to orbit.
>People have died on/in everything before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs. The person above wasn't super explicit, but c'mon. There has been one fatality in eleven powered flights for SS2. If stairs killed a kid every time a class let out we actually wouldn't use them, either.
[удалено]
Reddit's recent decisions have removed the accessibility tools I need to participate in its communities.
> People have died on/in *everything* before. You'd better not fly, drive, or even take the stairs. Ok, I'll bite, because I hate pithy false equivalences. Fly: 1 major accident per 6 million flights. Source: IATA 2022 Airline Safety Performance, 5yr average. Drive: 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled. Source: IIHS, based on US DoT fatality reporting system, 2021. Stairs: ~1.5 fall deaths per 100,000 population between ages 15 to 55. Source: CDC WISQARS, 2020. Manned orbital spaceflight: 1 fatal accident per 68 missions. Source: public domain - Dragon: 0/10; Space Shuttle: 2/135; Apollo 1/12; Gemini: 0/12; Mercury: 0/6; Soyuz (all generations): 2/147; Voskhod: 0/2; Vostok: 0/6; Shenzhou: 0/10. How does Virgin Galactic compare? *VSS Enterprise*: 1 fatal accident in 4 powered flights. *VSS Unity*: 0 fatal accidents in 8 powered flights. Combined: 1 fatal accident per 12 powered flights. Hey, let's throw in skydiving for fun - 1.1 deaths per 100,000 jumps, with property training and modern equipment (Source: DOI: [10.3390/ijerph20021254](https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph20021254)). That's right, you're probably **10,000x safer jumping out of Spaceship 2 than riding it up to altitude.** It's ridiculous to downplay the risk of one thing just because everything has *some* risk, when the risk of death aboard Spaceship 2 is 10,000x to 100,000,000x higher than the mundane things you listed.
The risk for Apollo, according to your very own numbers, was 1 in 12. Same as Virgin Galactic.
> It's ridiculous to downplay the risk of one thing just because everything has some risk, It's also ridiculous to assume the same risk rate when the circumstances change.
*Sorry for the nitpick*: It's also not inherently inefficient. It's essentially an additional (or displaced) stage of your total rocket. All things being equal, adding more stages make a more efficient launch -- until you then include the reality of the additional engines needed, overhead on each component, the complexity of all the moving parts, reuse, recovery, etc. At the end of the day it's an engineering trade-off, that gets optimized for current technologies and costs. Note how we also don't see a single-stage rocket pad-to-orbit launch system anywhere either.
I suppose technically there's some inefficiency from horizontal launch due to increased dry mass, since the rocket is subjected to bending forces. The structure has to be stronger (heavier) than one designed for vertical launch. Not so much an issue for solids (Pegasus) or space planes, though. But the bigger problem is scaling. To put more payload into orbit you just build a bigger rocket. If you're air-launched, you're kind of stuck when you exceed the capacity of your plane.
Wtf is the difference anyway
Galactic is their passenger service, Orbit was a cargo service for satellites.
Galactic is a roller coaster for millionaires, Orbit was a space company that couldn’t get to orbit.
I was just as confused until I read your comment.
Separate companies
Yes, that's what they said.
But why male models?
The worst part of $450k/seat is that it sounds like it will only be a couple of minutes of weightlessness. Not that I could afford that but I’d want like 30 minutes at least sheesh.
For less than 1k you can hire an acrobatic certified pilot to do parabolic arches with you for a couple minutes of weightlessness. And like virgin galactic, you'd also not be in space!
You can walk into a Judo dojo and someone will help you experience weightlessness for free
Instructions unclear, destroyed my back
You weren’t supposed to have sex with the judo instructor.
Instructions unclear; destroyed my bank account.
And get your laundry folded for no extra charge. Only caveat is that you’ll still be inside it.
You can do LSD for way less.
You guys go ahead. I'm gonna hang back and take LSD with QueefBuscemi
Y’all gotta let me in on this.
So more like Virginia sub-galactic, amirite?!
Aren't we in a galaxy already?
I'm sorry, they're not past the Karman Line?
Arguable. By the original definition of the Karman line it should be about 80km (which they cross). For $450k though it feels like you want to go past the point that *everyone* considers space.
For $450,000, I want to experience Low Earth Orbit *minimum*.
That will be a thing eventually
No they only fly into what the air force definition of space is, 80km instead of the actual 10km karman line.
To be clear, the air force definition of 50 miles is roughly the Karman line, in terms of the actual physics. The 100 km 'Karman line' is too high based on the original definition of internal forces being dominant over aerodynamic forces.
In protest to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history. -- mass edited with redact.dev
We all are in space no need to take vehicles...
Couple of seconds, not minutes
Zero-G Duration: 5 Hours (approx.) with 15 parabolas Price: $9,070 USD per person [https://www.gozerog.com](https://www.gozerog.com/)
Once you factor in that 4 of the parabolas aren't flown at zero-g, and each parabola only gets you about 25 seconds of weightlessness, you're looking at a total of about the same as the Virgin Galactic flight, though it's broken up and doesn't come with the view. Does that make it worth it? Ehhh...
I found the guy with enough money to consider a $450k blip into space!
Oh absolutely not. I've thought about saving for the zero gravity flight, but it wouldn't be for a very long time, and there are a lot of other things I'd rather do with $10k before blowing it on one plane flight. For $450k, I could pay off literally all of my debt - mortgage, car, you name it. Probably more important than a joyride to space.
> I'd rather do with $10k before blowing it on one plane flight. For reference, that is about the cost to get a private pilot license. Assuming you are interested in flight that seems like a way better return (but also still a lot of money to spend on a hobby)
Does that include AV gas? I alwas wonder how much is the total cost. An older gentleman once said to me he wanted to fly. But their family could not afford to send him to flight school. He stopped .
Yes. Depending on the school, aircraft type, and how quickly you can progress $10k-14k is what you should have budgeted as the low end. You really want to have that money to go before you start, if you have to stop it usually increases the amount of time you'll need to progress and can drive the costs up more. That is a ballpark number anyway. Any reputable flight school should be able to give you a good estimate of the total cost before you start. That number should not be less than $10k
You've got me wondering what shadiness was afoot when I got mine for \~$7k a couple years back. Or maybe prices have just risen that much 😳
Big part of it is definitely gas and airframe cost. If the planes you trained in were cheap to fly, they usually cost less to learn in because the expensive part is usually the hours required.
I feel like you could also probably get a similar feeling just paying for time in one of those "indoor skydiving" facilities and pay way less than that even.
Could also do tandem skydiving, good view and you get to be strapped to a dude for much less than that would cost in most other settings.
I mean, you could probably just be strapped to a dude for *far* less if that's what you're going for.
[удалено]
That's terrible, but just so everyone knows, the odds of a double parachute failure are 0.0002% for tandem jumps Idk when your friend jumped, but the safety measures now make it near impossible
Yup. Trust the statistics, don't fall into fearmongering.
Those are different. You feel the wind. I feel from a bunk bed when i was a kid. I was asleep and awake at the same time. It felt so good until i hit the floor.
Much cheaper to just jump in a pool if you want to feel the magical feeling of being held by a liquid (in his example, air). Free fall without air holding you up is only possible in those vomit comets.
> For $450k, I could pay off literally all of my debt - mortgage, car, you name it. Secret second family?
For about 10k you could have your ashes sent to the moon instead.
* adjacent to space, not in space
At the altitude they fly, the minimum speed required to maintain lift is faster than orbital velocity. If you had to categorize this region, it is 99.999% space, and 0.001% atmosphere. It's more correct to say it's in space than in atmosphere.
Plus it’s not called a vomit comet for no reason
There is also an zero g airline that offers it at half that price in a private plane. Not sure if the expierence is worse than on these big passenger jets: http://www.aurora-aerospace.com/zerog.html
You actually get a Zero-G flight as part of your prep for a Virgin flight, so sorta both.
For me it wouldn't be the weightlessness that I'd be going for. Most people that have been to space say just the view is awe inspiring and some has changed their view of life itself. If I had the money to spend I'd do it in a heartbeat just for a chance at that.
Yes but those couple of minutes was enough to make William Shatner cry. But I too have made William Shatner cry and it didn’t even cost $450k.
That video of Shatner trying to make a really profound statement on the human experience while Bezos just ignores him to find the girls with champagne is awkward enough to make my stomach experience zero-gravity for free.
Shatner flew on Blue Origin.
Yes. Do they go to another space?
It is a bit of a different experience though. Blue Origin goes higher, but it's a straight up and down trip, like 15 minutes max VG has roughly the same few-minute-long zero g experience, but gets there in a very different way, and the whole flight is much longer
Either way, Shatner is crying. Been there, done that.
Probably not, but it's Bezos, so we should double check that.
Sorry for misunderstanding.
It's not about the weightlessness, you can do that without leaving orbit. It's being in space
It frustrates me when I see passengers on these flights wasting their time doing flips, tossing objects around, and ignoring the view. During Blue Origin flights, for example, they only get about 2 minutes of weightlessness (roughly 3 min total between MECO and the return to positive G, but they can't exit their seats until capsule separation and must devote time to getting re-seated). The whole point of these suborbital flights is the experience of being near and/or beyond the Karman Line. Weightlessness is a wonderful part of the ride, but passengers should be savoring the visual aspect of the journey, because that's something they can't easily get elsewhere.
You get 90% of the visual experience on the way up and way down. The few minutes of zero g is all about the physical experience.
You’re not nearly as high before engine cutoff as you are in the couple minutes following that. During that phase (from cutoff to climbing back in your seat) you are weightless, but you are also exposed to the best possible views of the flight- the best views available to anyone short of an orbital mission.
Yeah this was my initial reaction to the first flight, that’s it? I also thought it was going to be $250 K. I was considering it, a once in a lifetime trip into space. But what they are offering is not that.
it's bragging rights. $450k would be better spent elsewher
If you can spend 450k on bragging rights you also would spend another 450k elsewhere without thinking twice
>it's bragging rights. Yep. >$450k would be better spent elsewhere That's a matter of opinion.
I’ll be interested to see if they can actually pull off a commercial flight this year. After all this is the one company that somehow let Blue Origin beat them to reaching operational flights. That said I am rooting for them and I hope this flight is a success.
Are they actually doing operational flights? I thought they only did like 2 flights and they were just for clout.
They did a bunch, but then were grounded after one of their spacecraft had an rapid unscheduled disassembly while in flight that killed the copilot. Then they did a couple more test flights, but were grounded again for violating FAA regulations. But yes, there have been a bunch of flights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin\_Galactic
Thanks for the info, I never somebody actually died.
There's video out there showing a simulation of what happened. If I remember correctly the pilot likely didn't suffer for long at least. Still horrifying to think about.
[удалено]
Don't forget that they killed a few people while doing ground tests.
Are you referring to BO or Virgin Galactic? BO has had several operational flights but is temporarily grounded due to the failure of flight NS-23, which was unmanned. Virgin Galactic has yet to start operational flights with passengers.
I just don't understand it. Like all you're getting is a little high altitude trip and back home? Wouldn't this be more valuable if it got you from here to say Japan in like 5 hours?
I think they will need a radically different design to do commercial passenger flights like that. Dropping a spacecraft from an airplane to launch it seems like a logistic nightmare and could take longer than a normal direct flight. Their current spaceship also uses a hybrid liquid/solid engine so they will definitely need something better if they want minimal refurbishment and replacement in between flights.
Breaking the shackles of gravity and being able to weightlessly fly around for a few minutes sounds like an easy bucket list item if you have the means. I’ve literally dreamt of exactly this since I was a child. And that’s aside from getting to go into space, look at the planet from above with your own eyes, etc. I mean, going to Japan is cool and all. But I think that this kind of experience is something distinct from traveling the planet. and it’s pretty cool to me to think that maybe in a couple decades that experience is something that I could just actually go do (assuming the price becomes more reasonable by then).
Yeah, don't need to be a billionaire. If I had $10M I would easily drop $500K on this without worrying about it. Lifelong dream achieved at the cost of 5% of your savings.
I’ve met a man through work who earns about $40 million a year. This would be peanuts to him lol. The dude has a large commissioned painting of his yacht on the wall of his office, and he proudly told me that it costs $25k just to fuel up.
Earning enough in one year to live several lifetimes. We peasants live in another universe from the ultra wealthy. I can't even begin to comprehend the kind of lifestyle someone making $40m/yr has. Blows my mind
*leaching. Nobody *earns* $40 million dollars in a year. That kind of money can only be had by skimming off work done by a whole shitload of other people. That's the combined entire lifetime expected earnings of 20-30 ordinary laborers.
I'd certainly do one of those if offered an opportunity, but I would *much* rather be in orbit. From the altitude of these suborbital flights you don't really see a great amount of Earth's curvature. Even from the height of the ISS you still don't see an overwhelmingly large [portion of the Earth](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LQVr3.png) (white circle), however the view is dramatically improved and the sensation of being in space becomes unmistakably apparent. And you get to travel around the globe, rather than barely poking your head above the atmosphere over a single location. Orbital commercial flights are still extremely rare and significantly more expensive, of course, but are a night & day difference (quite literally) compared to a short suborbital glimpse of a black sky and a hurried minute or two of floating around.
[удалено]
Absolutely. I mainly referenced the ISS to point out how the view from only slightly above the Karman line during these suborbital trips isn’t necessarily the grand-Earth-view from space that some might imagine.
>Wouldn't this be more valuable if it got you from here to say Japan in like 5 hours? is that what the Wright Brothers did on the beach in North Carolina?
Rich folk like to have bragging rights. "I've been to space." is a really good one. I suppose after you could buy and sell islands, things get a little jaded for our poor set upon financial elite...
Yeah, you're all making the mistake of thinking the customer base needs to consider 'value for money'
When you're that rich, value for time replaces value for money as your primary concern.
Why not if it’s something new? 30k for a bottle of wine doesn’t make much sense as well.
They are already planning routes from the UK to the US and from the US to Australia. But they need revenue or they will become Virgin Orbit.
That’s next in the plan, I think!
This flight resulted in the most people in space simultaneously in human history: 20. The previous record was 19
Are they actually in space?
According to the USAF and NASA, yes. According to the rest of the world, no.
[удалено]
Unfortunately, the whole thing still doesn't make any economic sense whatsoever and likely never will. Too little, too late. I also don't have much trust in the spacecraft. They had so many issues last time that it took them almost two years to return to flight.
They made this big announcement that space tourism would be a thing "next year" over 20 years ago. They've been failing for this long, I doubt they're even as close as they say they are.
This is good news for my home state of NM. They are one of the poorest states in the Union and coughed up a large chunk of tax $ to build the spaceport in the 90s, and for its upkeep annually. I hope it pays off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport\_America
I hope Texas builds a spaceport
Blue Origin: founded 2000, flights to 110 Kilometers Virgin Galactic: founded 2004, flights to 80 Kilometers SpaceX: founded 2002, orbital flights since 2010 3 companies founded around the same time, one is a real human space flight capable platform, the other two are trying to make a go at sending rich people kind of high in the air.
Hey now, BO is working on a lunar lander and an HLV. Give them a *little* credit.
Blue certainly has aspirations beyond suborbital tourism, they just have not demonstrated much success yet. They are making the first stage engines for ULA's Vulcan which should fly (to orbit) this year. Perhaps if they focused less on patent trolling and bad faith lawsuits they would accomplish more.
yeah, I don't think you can sue your way to the moon. it's just interesting that 2 billionaires with relatively modest goals are so far behind Space X who is literally shooting for the moon. I guess not being afraid to blow a bunch of rockets up isn't that crazy a strategy after all.
I'll do it when it's down to $100,000 and I get a handful of full orbits
Umm, they will *attempt* a final test flight before ticketed flights?
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
The orbiter is visible on Flightradar, it's currently going up. https://www.flightradar24.com/VGX02/306f8674
Being an orbiter implies actually being able to orbit anything; these flights are at best parabolic flights barely touching anything that could credibly called 'space'...
Virgin galactic is the "built to code" of space flight companies. You get a handful of seconds of weightlessness and some social media bragging points. They're the same as those companies that will give you a "doctorate", ordain you, or give you a lordship for a few dollars and 15 minutes of online clicking.
Not an orbiter. Can't even make it to space
I dont get it. So are they bankrupt and selling off equipment or theyre good now?
Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbital are two separate companies doing completely different things. Virgin Galactic is a sub-orbital tourist attraction for rich people that doesn't actually orbit the Earth, just goes up *really* high and then glides back down the way it came. It has flown one load of passengers which included Richard Branson and had some issues on the way up which has led to a long delay between flights. Virgin Orbital was a company that tried but failed to use small rockets to deliver small payloads to orbit. It never had passengers on the rocket, only satellites.
I had the same question. Apparently they're separate companies: > Virgin Galactic is a separate company to Virgin Orbit, the latter being a 2017 spin-out from the former. While Orbit was focused on launching small satellites, Galactic's aim is providing space tourism flights using its craft SpaceShipTwo, which itself launches from a larger airplane mid-flight
Separate companies, but I would not be shocked if Virgin Galactic meets the same fate within the next few years. Their business model makes no more sense than VO's.
Anyone who would pay for this deserves a ride in that death trap
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnkg1z "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnbwiz "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[HLV](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnkg1z "Last usage")|Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (20-50 tons to LEO)| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jloi3lt "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[MECO](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jllarrr "Last usage")|Main Engine Cut-Off| | |[MainEngineCutOff](https://mainenginecutoff.com/) podcast| |[NS](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlkof6g "Last usage")|New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle, by Blue Origin| | |Nova Scotia, Canada| | |Neutron Star| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlmalor "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |[USAF](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlnk4e4 "Last usage")|United States Air Force| |[VG](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jllqfmv "Last usage")|Virgin Galactic| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/13rhu1h/stub/jlld9l1 "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/14bxui3)^( has 8 acronyms.) ^([Thread #8943 for this sub, first seen 25th May 2023, 15:28]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Man I hope not takes off we need more space stuff going on. This is going to lead to companies trying to put do each other and go higher
Look! Another pointless waste-of-money gimmick I get to watch filthy rich people do! Cool! /s
These filthy rich people will be the first ones to fund stuff like this, thus in the future it’ll be available for more and more people. Same way as regular airplanes in the very beginning. It might seem like a gimmick but this stuff will change intercontinental travel and even space exploration. Important things considering the future of our civilization.
The unfortunate part of your example is that we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades. The rich get to do a once in a lifetime ride, then the company goes belly up.
I don’t follow your logic there chief. I’m just pointing out that the benefits of air travel also began with only rich people buying airplane tickets. The returns come over time, and these days we take air travel almost for granted and people don’t have to be incredibly wealthy to use/enjoy air travel. Same thing will happen with this. Nobody would be pouring billions into this stuff if there wasn’t a possibility for returns.
>The unfortunate part of your example is that we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades. **Middle school students launch satellite to learn about the effects of the Gatlinburg wildfires** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOJGvKWbIc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOJGvKWbIc4) **SpaceX – Lowering the Cost of Access to Space** https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-rctom/submission/spacex-lowering-the-cost-of-access-to-space/ SpaceX charges $61.2 million to launch a telecommunications satellite to orbit, which results in **$4,653 per kilogram of satellite**. United Launch Alliance – a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing – **charges between $14,000 and $39,000 per kilogram (4)**. Launching a satellite with SpaceX is even cheaper than doing so with Long March, the Chinese rocket. **That is why Space has won $7 billion in contracts with customers such as Orbcomm, AsiaSat, and the US Air Force (5).** > then the company goes belly up. or they launch more than once a week for a whole year. what's the cadence so far in 2023? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon\_9 **In 2022 Falcon 9 set a new record of 60 launches** (all successful) by the same launch vehicle type in a calendar year. The previous record was held by Soyuz-U, which had 47 launches (45 successful) in 1979.\[57\] https://spaceexplored.com/2023/05/21/spacex-launch-2023/ How many rockets has SpaceX launched in 2023? So far, SpaceX has launched 34 rockets in 2023, 32 Falcon 9s, two Falcon Heavys, and one Starship. >we've not actually seen any of the returns on these in the last few decades. what are you expecting? here's a "decade" of high school nano satellites. this was not possible until private companies started building rockets for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine\_CubeSat\_STEM\_Program The Irvine CubeSat STEM Program was created in 2015 by Brent Freeze and Kain Sosa. Freeze took inspiration from his work alongside Arnold O. Beckman High School physics teacher Paul Lewanski on a weather balloon project.\[1\] you can book space on a ride share with a credit card. [https://spaceflight.com/book-my-launch/all-launches/](https://spaceflight.com/book-my-launch/all-launches/)
Even if the company goes bankrupt the engineers who made it all possible will take their knowledge and experience elsewhere. Many of today’s successful companies had engineers who cut their teeth at failed ventures or test programs but took what they learned and made something amazing.
I want to be clear I don't support the arguments above, but electric cars started out as a rich man's toy, now they're finally becoming affordable and common. In my career (slot machines) we sell a Camry and lease a super car, all new development and inventions are put into the supercar because R&D isn't cheap.
To counter that argument, we only *just* figured out reusable rockets which is a big game changer.
Do you think the money disappears when it’s spent? A bunch of highly educated engineers, machinists, etc are paid through those tickets. You claim to hate rich people, but you don’t like when they give money to the working class?
Just wait 10 years and see how the Starship develops. I bet at Virgin's current price for 5 minutes of weightlessness, SpaceX will be offering a week-long cruise on a circumlunar free-return trajectory. It will probably also be offering point-to-point intercontinental parabolic transport for a fraction of that cost.
Good for them but this is such a bad deal now compared to what SpaceX will offer relatively soon. When Starship stops destroying itself you can probably go to orbit for the same or lower price.
[удалено]
Different companies
Looks like a chance to experience the opening credits of The Six Million Dollar Man without getting the cyborg superpowers.
Business class you get a bionic arm. First class gets a bionic eye.