60 thoughts on “Virgin Galactic’s Public Relations”

  2. What industry ?

    There was a lot of hoopla over a “suborbital passenger spaceflight industry” over the last decade, and it has mostly quieted down now.
    Neither XCOR or VG intend to fly passengers to space on the vehicles they are currently working on. And it’s anyones guess if and when these vehicles will be able to offer even zero g parabolic flights to paying customers.
    A bunch of researchers were herded together on couple conferences to sign up for suborbital research payloads, and then none of the service providers actually worked out and everyone lost interest.

    Again, what industry ?

    1. You mean the Emperor has no clothes? Not even ten years after the Ansari X-Prize declared victory? Careful, New Space advocates dislike inconvenient facts even more that climate scientists 🙂

      1. Oh? Is that like the fantasies spun around the “large payloads” that will materialize out of thin air for SLS? Or what the actual cost is of the BFR . . . let alone the rocket cost past the second launch, whenever that occurs.

        1. In reference to the SLS/BFR – just as with ANY rocket system, the only way to be economical is to have a high flight rate. The SLS would be an unqualified success if you could fly it once a week (imagine what you could lift with that capability) but once every two years makes it a no go from the start.

          Also a transportation system has to have a destination. Space is NOT a destination; the Moon/Mars/asteroid is not a destination. The ISS/orbital hotel/Moon base/mining colony is a destination. The perfect example of this is the Florida East Coast Railroad built by Henry Flagler. He built a railroad all the way down to Key West is sections. A section of the railroad was built and then used to build a hotel/resort (destination). Then the railroad was extended again to build another hotel/resort; repeat.

    2. VG is a side show run by a master showman along the lines of PT Barnum himself. It’s interesting to watch the latest trials-n-tribulations. I still don’t know why Doug let himself get dragged into the circus ring. Report on the spectacle, don’t make yourself into part of the spectacle.

      1. Thanks for answering my own question in advance: “I don’t take VG at all seriously. Should I?”

      2. Pretty much unavoidable. Doug is doing real journalism on VG; i.e., he’s afflicting the comfortable. VG has had pretty much a free hand up until now – surprisingly so – in establishing and reinforcing “the narrative” but Doug has credibly challenged that and VG’s reaction betrays a certain implicit acknowledgement of their own fragility of situation. It’s looking increasingly like a toss-up as to which Mojavians will get to first operational capability with their current vehicles, XCOR or VG. I don’t expect either of them to do it this year, but that’s because I read Doug and he’s established a track record that impresses.

      3. Doug was just doing reportage until Virgin called him a liar. Do that to me and the gloves come off – it’s my largest pet peeve.

        1. My point is to stand by the reporting without posting an “open letter” to VG. He knows people are reading what he writes. Keep the focus on the story, not on him vs. VG.

    3. ” Neither XCOR or VG intend to fly passengers to space on the vehicles they are currently working on.” That is news, has anybody told VG or XCOR this? Or are you referring to the fact that neither vehicle is going to reach the 100 kilometer mark? (BTW at 120,000 feet / 36.5 kilometers over 99% of the atmosphere is below you)

      Both companies have run into issues; VG’s has been primarily technical while XCOR’s has been funding. Both have been working their issues in their own way. Has the industry lived up to the hype? Not yet. However that doesn’t prove that it won’t.

      Remember, SpaceX was a joke until they flew to the ISS and the sound barrier could not be broken until it was.

      1. I was referring to the fact that neither of the vehicle according the companies own announcements is able to get past Karman line.
        If the bar has been lowered to parabolic flights to “edge of space” then Mig-29 flights have been on offer for a long time now, and vomit comets and Swiss S3 flights are arguably a much better bang for the buck.

        1. XCor has plainly stated from the beginning that their Lynx Mark 1 won’t reach 100 km. They’re taking an incremental approach and reasonable approach to development. Virgin Galactic made the serious error of trying to develop an advanced aircraft with an unproven engine at the same time. Aviation history is littered with aircraft failures when companies tried to do that. XCor developed their engines first and designed the Lynx around it. That’s an approach much more likely to result in success.

          1. But wasn’t the entire purpose of the Ansari X-Prize to develop a reusable sub-orbital vehicle capable of taking tourists to space?

            http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/9710/17/t_t/t_t.x.prize/index.html

            [[[“We expect to have literally a dozen teams … who are going to go on and develop their vehicle and get in the business,” foundation chairman Peter Diamandis said.]]]

            Yet the “winner”, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 10 years on the winning design, does not have a vehicle that is capable of doing so. At the same time their winning basically dried up funding for the vast majority of the teams. Makes you wonder why folks are still buying the hype that the Ansari X-Prize was a success…

      2. XCOR hasn’t had enough money to really run into technical problems.

        As things get bigger, things get tougher. I’m not a huge SpaceX fan, but, they
        did manage to slug their way through all the problems of the Falcon 1.

        Of course, it never flew into revenue service, so, maybe it was a dead end.

        1. It wasn’t a “dead end.” It taught them how to build rockets. But since you’ve never apparently learned anything, perhaps that’s a novel concept to you.

        2. A “dead end” indeed – since F1 retired, Epsilon 1 and Vega entered service, both in the same payload class. SpaceX claimed there is no market, and promptly went on to chase government contracts instead.

          1. Vega was built to keep the Italian aerospace sector (e.g. Avio) in business making solids. It has a common first stage with the French-proposed Ariane 6 design. It has a rather low launch rate. Only one non-ESA flight for Kazakhstan.

            Epsilon was built to keep Mitsubishi Heavy Industries building solids. It has a common first stage with the H-II strap-on solids (the reverse of the Vega). Only one launch to date.

            Falcon 1 was a Kero/LOX, and was more of a pathfinder for the F9. It did have a single paying customer for Malaysia.

        3. SpaceX developed and matured two engine designs and a lot of ground support and flight avionics on Falcon 1. Falcon 9 built directly off of this stuff. No, Falcon 1 was not a waste of time.

          2. There were customers for the Falcon 1e. One was a Canadian satellite that sat in storage for 4 to 5 years. It was launched last September on the first Falcon 9 v.1.1 flight. The original cost of launch was supposed to be $5 to $6 million. The final cost on the Falcon 9 was $11 million.

            ORBCOMM also wanted to launch its satellites on Falcon 1e. They also got delayed when SpaceX canceled that rocket. The first batch is going up next month.

            There are two theories on why Falcon 1e was canceled. One is the lack of a market. The second is that Musk just wasn’t interested in it anymore. Been there, done that. Why fool around with small rockets with very low margins when we’re going to Mars.

        5. It’s a lot cheaper to learn on small rockets before proceeding to build large rockets. America didn’t start with the Saturn V for a good reason.

        6. XCOR hasn’t had enough money to really run into technical problems.

          They’ve built quite a bit on a relative shoestring. What technical problems they’ve had, they seem to have solved, e.g., piston fuel and oxidizer pumps, composite cryogenic tankage. And they just closed another $14.2 million in private equity financing. I see no reason to doubt they’ll get where they want to go.

  3. One of the things I don’t understand about Spaceship 2 is the hybrid engine: why are they using it?

    From what I’ve read, the hybrid engine (either the rubber one they originally developed, or the nylon one they’re shifting to) is reusable. That, to me, seems to run counter to the intent of a reusable vehicle. It’ll add a lot of cost and complexity to change out the engine every time.

    Wouldn’t they have been better off going liquid?

    1. Yes, but none of us could convince them of that. The hybrid (sort of) worked for Burt in SpaceShipOne, and they went with what they thought they knew, even though they didn’t know.

      1. I could see them thinking (incorrectly, as it turns out) that the hybrid engine could be developed to a large enough model to do the job. What I can’t fathom is the non-reusable aspect, because surely they had to know that?

        This is one of the things that makes me a little skeptical about SNC’s Dreamchaser; it relies on hybrid engines, including for LAS. It’s LAS is therefor rather minimal in scope; it can’t boost free of a LV that’s under thrust, nor can it do a pad abort, due to insufficient thrust from the two hybrid engines. In order for Dreamchaser to have a Launch Abort option, the Atlas 5 has to terminate thrust. Under those rules, a cargo Dragon could have a LAS; use the existing regular Draco thrusters to pull free after the stage terminates thrust.

      2. As somebody I respect in the aerospace business said, “Burt Rutan designs and builds the best crappy airplanes in the business.”

      3. The thing to keep in mind about Burt and SS1/SS2 is that all the other aircraft he’s designed used existing engines. As an airframer, his place in history is assured. As a specifier of rocket propulsion systems, not so much. He didn’t know what he didn’t know, and according to a lot of people he refused to be told what he didn’t know.

        The current team may well have finally solved with the new nylon engine the operational problems this led to. Time, and testing, will tell. Assuming that does work acceptably, the issue I now see is that all the development delays seem to have put the operation under considerable financial time pressure.

        I’m still hoping that VG gets something reliable flying. The very short test program they’re starting to talk about makes me nervous, though. I’m seeing more potential than I like for that to combine with marketing-driven “informed consent” in a result very bad for the industry as a whole.

        1. Hybrid motors contain the worst of solids with the worst of liquids.
          The Oxidizer systems are always hard, the long large fuel grain means a
          very heavy chamber with funny resonant features.

          the change out is slow, and ignition is somewhat tedious.

          SS1 used self pressurizing nitrous, and a heavy fuel grain. SS2 has evolved to
          a helium pressure system, a lighter fuel grain and a lot more complex plumbing.

          I suspect given the loss of performance they will make the move to
          LOX to try and get more energy out of the combustion.

          1. Probably not worth doing. Nitrous doesn’t require cryogenic tankage. LOX does. If you want an alternate ambient-temp oxidizer, hydrogen peroxide is also non-cryogenic, but I’m not sure making that switch would be worth the effort either. If you’re going to put LOX tankage in an SS2, you might as well ditch the hybrid entirely and switch to a liquid bi-prop engine that burns methane or kerosene or alcohol along with the LOX and be done with it. VG already has the Newton engine. Of course, the additional engineering difficulties in retrofitting liquid propulsion to the extant SS2 design would metastasize like melanoma. Not a nice place VG finds itself in these days. Maybe they can squeak by on the nylon hybrid long enough to finance SS3.

        2. I think it will be hard for them to afford a rigorous engine and flight testing program with hybrids.

          Debugging a hybrid engine is IMO inherently much more expensive and complicated. With a liquid, the turnaround time between two engine test runs can be as low as basically refilling the tanks, replacing a burnt sensor and apologizing to neighbors. With a hybrid, a lot longer. That is if you managed to avoid RUD events.
          Materials cost of the test runs are vastly different, too. Same extends to flight tests.

          So if they stick with the hybrid, they will always have financial incentive and schedule pressure to skimp on testing, which could have disastrous consequences.

        3. VG made a wrong turn into a blind alley. They should have went with a liquid system, now they are stuck with a design that can’t easily be retrofitted I bet SpaceX could have designed them a nice, reliable and cheap engine if they had approached them.

          Hybrids are a dead end.

          2. From what I heard last night, VG was working on a liquid-fueled engine for SpaceShipTwo. They (or Scaled, I’m not certain which) had a team of former SpaceX guys develop a small engine that they’re planning on using on LauncherOne. They were working on a larger engine for SS2 when the team bailed. My source (propulsion guy very familiar with LauncherOne) didn’t know why that happened. Perhaps the decision was made to stick with hybrids and they pursued other opportunities.

    2. Also they were in a hurry to win the Ansari X-Prize before the insurance policy ran out, so they cut corners on R&D and used what was quick and easy rather than what was sustainable or practical for an actual commercial system. And once they won it was most likely too ego shattering given all the hype by the X-Prize Foundation to admit they used a kludge to win (making it just a stunt flight) to change their engine.

      1. If you look at the “Spirit of St Louis” Ryan mailplane, that was clearly a kludge.
        Single engine, no forward view, gasoline leaks, no autopilot, no bathroom, no food,

        However, I think everyone realized Lindbergh flew a kludge. The Ford Tri-Motor and
        DC-3 were much sounder architectures.

        I was surprised VG really thought they could scale SS1.

          1. Yes, Sir Richard Branson bought the hype of the Ansari X-Prize hook, line and sinker.

        2. No bathroom?

          You mean like every fighter ever made? And every small private plane? That’s not a kludge, it’s reality (both then and now).

          No autopilot? That hardly makes it a kludge, even today, but especially then, long before autopilots existed. (I regularly fly as pilot in command if aircraft that don’t have autopilots or bathrooms: most small planes don;t)

          But, yep, Lindbergh’s plane was a kludge in other ways. But it did the job it was supposed to do.

          I share your skepticism regarding scalability of Spaceship 1. I wish I didn’t, because I hope VG succeeds.

          1. No Bathroom. I’ve flown as right seat in lots of GA birds with no bathroom.
            However, it’s still considered pretty sporty to fly a single engine GA aircraft
            over the atlantic.

        3. Yes, which is why when actual transatlantic service started it a decade later it was with a Boeing seaplane. And when New York to Paris service finally started nearly two decades later it used large transports developed during WW II.

          Yes, it was just a convert Ryan Mail plane, a design from 1926, so really the Spirit of St. Louis contributed nothing to the technology for transatlantic flight, it was really all about the pilot not the plane.

          1. In other words, it was a stunt.

            But, it was inspiring stunt, with a story that mattered. At a time where the environment and industry supported riding that wave of inspiration to better and greater things. It was a fertile ground

            X-Prize was a stunt, too – the outcome is a bit different. SS1 will be in the history books as a footnote, more like Otto Lilienthal than Wright Brothers.

        4. “However, I think everyone realized Lindbergh flew a kludge. The Ford Tri-Motor and DC-3 were much sounder architectures. ”

          Once again, DN comments to prove he is a moron…

          The Ford Tri-Motor may have had a toilet, but perhaps DN didn’t understand the competition. The flight was from NY to Paris nonstop. DN picked two aircraft lacking the range for that trip, and picked them because they had things that make his butt comfortable. Yeah, I’m afraid DN might just be a bureaucrat.

          If anyone used the Ford Tri-Motor to get from NY to Europe, they would have crashed near the last known location of the Titanic. Fortunately, Lindbergh understand aviation a bit more to know that the critical thing needed for his mission was an aircraft with range, not a galley and a forward window to stare out at the hours and hours of ocean rolling by beneath him. Apparently DN thinks style is more important than substance, so take his advise and commentary accordingly.

          The funny thing is DN writes this in response to reader and Matula, who have a good point. The Ansari-X prize was more about accomplishing a task that wasn’t really a step forward for any “industry”, but rather a trick that had mostly been done before, except for the reusability part, which really doesn’t seem to matter, since SS-1 hasn’t been used since or replicated. On the contrary, the Orteig prize was something that required building an aircraft with a longer range than any previous. However, like Ansari, it would be years before Lindbergh’s flight was repeated with any regularity useful for commercial purposes.

          1. 100 airlines flew the Tri-motor, over 10,000 DC-3s were produced. Those
            are sounder architectures.

            Given the DC-3 would work the hump flying up to Labrador, Greenland
            and then down to Scotland, it had adequate range to cross the atlantic.

            So perhaps you would best look at how many DC-3s made the atlantic crossing before you decide what is impossible and what is unsound.

            As for comfort, yeah, I like flying with a galley, a bathroom, and a couple of FAs.

          2. So perhaps you would best look at how many DC-3s made the atlantic crossing before you decide what is impossible and what is unsound.

            Once again, DN post and proves himself a moron.

            I never claimed DC-3s couldn’t cross the Atlantic. Point of fact, I never mentioned the DC-3 in my comment other than to quote DN. I will say now that Lindbergh couldn’t possibly have used the DC-3 to cross the Atlantic until for 8 years after he did it the Spirit of St. Louis (they didn’t exist), also the Orteig Prize was nearly twice the distance of a basic DC-3s range.

            Hell, knowing DN-guy, he probably is confusing the DC-3 with the DC-4, which could fly NY to Paris nonstop. Numbers seem to be a problem for him, and 2 engines vs 4 engines is definitely a weakness for him. 🙂

        5. I have to say, you finally made a post that makes perfect sense. Please try and remember what you did here for the future ones.

          1. You utterly understood every word I said and Leland couldn’t comprehend
            a word I wrote. Interesting.

  4. The whole point of Lindberg’s flight was simply to show trans-atlantic flight was possible. Like the SS1 showed for non-governmental sub-orbit.

    VG took the wrong lesson and built a larger Spirit of Saint Louis.

    1. I didn’t think SS1 would scale, i viewed SS1 as already being on the hairy edge of what that
      architecture and technology could do, but I wasn’t getting paid to do the architecture.

      If it were me, I wouldn’t have looked at WK2, if there was a desire by the customer for an air drop,
      i’d look at getting a 747 or an A-380 and carving away at the lower fuselage to allow an air carry and
      air drop. (I’d prefer starting with a B-36, but, i’m not sure if there is one of those left, let alone enough
      to build a production fleet around.

      Then, i’d skip the bending wing, i’d look at a scaled up X-15, start with an X-15B, Nice Delta Wing Planform
      and a decent liquid engine with a pump. 100K thrust. I’d look at a small spin chute, just in case the aero is nasty or if you fail an aero surface and the bird gets unstable, something that will let you come back subsonic without a severe tumble, or coning, nutation, etc….

      Finally the liquid engine should be LOX/alcohol or Lox/methane maybe Lox/Kero. Depends how much
      you trust the shutdown and cleanup to be.

      Then Program wise i’d get the liquid engine debugged first, then run the aero design and get real comfortable with the SpaceShip, then look to see if it’s still in the envelope carry for the 747. If not, look at a 380, and
      if you can’t carry it with a 380, well the design is a stinker.

      WK2 is a monster bird, but, still, the idea would be to look at how to scale the X-15 not how to scale SS1.

      My opinion wasn’t being sought, so, I figured they knew what they were doing.

        2. Well 10 years after the program start, several hundred million spent where are they?

          Maybe VG should have gone out, asked for opinions, solicited design concepts.

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