At least not yet. Doug is right: It’s Bezos versus Branson (and XCOR).
Yes, it's Bezos versus Branson (and XCOR). The tortoise has pulled into the lead in the suborbital game. https://t.co/XNqDcl4jDx
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) December 23, 2015
The quote from the Virgin Galactic employee is brutal.
It’s hard to enjoy VG vs. Blue or XCOR vs. Blue when the other two aren’t even close to 100 km. Don’t we have wait until Lynx MK II before XCOR makes it to space? I’ll keep egging on the space billionaires who fly hardware, even if it isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.
Yeah, I hope they all succeed.
Well, it was Bezos versus Musk (and Boeing and Sierra Nevada) before NASA downselected from four companies to two.
Yikes, hopefully that VG employee was just having a bad day and vented. If it’s indicative of company-wide morale, I think they’ve got a serious problem.
They’ve had a serious problem for many years.
I should have specified morale problem.
I agree with the premise that the BO landing was a major step towards suborbital space tourism. My reasoning is a bit different though, regarding BO vs. VG.
Virgin basically got there (Karmen line) first, with Spaceship one a decade ago. But, that wasn’t their commercial product. What BO flew and landed apparently is their commercial product.
BO was definitely the first past the Karmen line with a space-tourism spacecraft. However, it remains to be seen if VG can ever cross that line, let alone do it soon. (the engine issues and structural changes may well leave SS2 unable to reach that altitude).
It would not surprise me at all if BO starts carrying paying passengers before VG, and BO may well be the only one doing so into space.
Virgin basically got there (Karmen line) first, with Spaceship one a decade ago.
That wasn’t Virgin.
Neither Virgin nor Xcor has a path forward to anything useful.
The skills and technology they are developing will not scale to useful orbital vehicles.
Blue origins vehicle concepts and skills will at least scale to an orbital vehicle.
And in the twitter war Elon could win by telling Bezos that if they really want to orbit the “New Shepard” , its within the payload capabilities of a Falcon Heavy!
And in the twitter war Elon could win by telling Bezos that if they really want to orbit the “New Shepard” , its within the payload capabilities of a Falcon Heavy!
🙂 Nice one, Paul. Check and mate, I love it!
+1000 for that one Paul B.