15 thoughts on “The Age Of Private Human Spaceflight”
“Production assistant”
What are they planning to “produce”?
YouTube videos.
Oh. I thought that was a euphemism for something else.
Well, if nothing else in this diverse world, Yozo seems to be male and Maezawa seems to like girls…
Notably absent from the list is Virgin Galactic. It’s now 16 years, 7 months and 3 days from the day Brian Binney flew the winning X PRIZE flight – and Richard Branson announced that he was going into the space tourism business, having bought the SpaceShipOne technology from Paul Allen.
That day, I remarked to Eric Lindbergh that we had at most four years to get a space tourism business going, and past that it would be unfundable. Well, I was as wrong as everyone, including Branson, was. Yesterday, I saw that VG stock has plummeted. It is theorized that the cause was Blue Origin’s announcement that it will conduct its first New Shepard space tourism flight on July 20, 2021 – and VG has still not given a firm date for its first tourist flight.
On May 25 1961, President Kennedy addressed Congress, and stated that he wanted to commit to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. Eight years, 1 month and 25 days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Compare that to 16 years, 7 months and 3 days between the start and…no date yet for a suborbital tourist flight.
I can’t talk about what I know of VG’s travails, and my knowledge is undoubtedly very incomplete. But it shows that not every private sector space effort will be superior to a government effort.
Richard Branson certainly seems committed to making VG succeed, and I fervently hope that it does. In fact, I think it becomes more important as time passes that it does. But I also hope that VG doesn’t get launch fever. I doubt they will, given their unfortunate accident in 2014. As tragic as that was, it does show that this is not a zero risk undertaking.
They chose a poor concept, both technically and from a business standpoint, and have been stuck in a sunk-cost trap ever since.
Was it just a matter of not being scalable?
It was a matter of being a bad design choice in both propulsion and entry, because Burt didn’t understand rockets.
Serious question, what did you mean by “didn’t understand rockets?”
He didn’t trust them for attitude control, which is why he came up with the shuttlecock, and Jim Benson convinced him that hybrid was a good idea.
I thought of the shuttlecock as being like an attempt at a drawbridge wing, though I doubted it’d be scalable or viable long term.
I see what you did there. Nice.
I suddenly realized there will have been at least 8 crewed orbital flights in 2021. 3 Soyuz, 3 Dragon, and 2 Shenzhou. Or 9 if Starliner CFT flies in Dec. Then there’s New Shepard going up in July. Not orbital, but maybe they can wave at the space stations whizzing by overhead. Or, if they’re lucky, they can look out the window and see Starship lifting off on the way to orbit, a bit like launching a Mercury-Redstone to watch the first Saturn V fly…
Does anybody who’s name isn’t Branson believe VG will ever even fly, let alone survive as a business? After all this time, a system intended for several flights per day, can’t manage even partial tests without months lapsing between. They aren’t close and there’s no evidence they will ever be closer.
Not sure even Branson believes it, considering how much VG stock he has sold.
“Production assistant”
What are they planning to “produce”?
YouTube videos.
Oh. I thought that was a euphemism for something else.
Well, if nothing else in this diverse world, Yozo seems to be male and Maezawa seems to like girls…
Notably absent from the list is Virgin Galactic. It’s now 16 years, 7 months and 3 days from the day Brian Binney flew the winning X PRIZE flight – and Richard Branson announced that he was going into the space tourism business, having bought the SpaceShipOne technology from Paul Allen.
That day, I remarked to Eric Lindbergh that we had at most four years to get a space tourism business going, and past that it would be unfundable. Well, I was as wrong as everyone, including Branson, was. Yesterday, I saw that VG stock has plummeted. It is theorized that the cause was Blue Origin’s announcement that it will conduct its first New Shepard space tourism flight on July 20, 2021 – and VG has still not given a firm date for its first tourist flight.
On May 25 1961, President Kennedy addressed Congress, and stated that he wanted to commit to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. Eight years, 1 month and 25 days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Compare that to 16 years, 7 months and 3 days between the start and…no date yet for a suborbital tourist flight.
I can’t talk about what I know of VG’s travails, and my knowledge is undoubtedly very incomplete. But it shows that not every private sector space effort will be superior to a government effort.
Richard Branson certainly seems committed to making VG succeed, and I fervently hope that it does. In fact, I think it becomes more important as time passes that it does. But I also hope that VG doesn’t get launch fever. I doubt they will, given their unfortunate accident in 2014. As tragic as that was, it does show that this is not a zero risk undertaking.
They chose a poor concept, both technically and from a business standpoint, and have been stuck in a sunk-cost trap ever since.
Was it just a matter of not being scalable?
It was a matter of being a bad design choice in both propulsion and entry, because Burt didn’t understand rockets.
Serious question, what did you mean by “didn’t understand rockets?”
He didn’t trust them for attitude control, which is why he came up with the shuttlecock, and Jim Benson convinced him that hybrid was a good idea.
I thought of the shuttlecock as being like an attempt at a drawbridge wing, though I doubted it’d be scalable or viable long term.
I see what you did there. Nice.
I suddenly realized there will have been at least 8 crewed orbital flights in 2021. 3 Soyuz, 3 Dragon, and 2 Shenzhou. Or 9 if Starliner CFT flies in Dec. Then there’s New Shepard going up in July. Not orbital, but maybe they can wave at the space stations whizzing by overhead. Or, if they’re lucky, they can look out the window and see Starship lifting off on the way to orbit, a bit like launching a Mercury-Redstone to watch the first Saturn V fly…
Does anybody who’s name isn’t Branson believe VG will ever even fly, let alone survive as a business? After all this time, a system intended for several flights per day, can’t manage even partial tests without months lapsing between. They aren’t close and there’s no evidence they will ever be closer.
Not sure even Branson believes it, considering how much VG stock he has sold.