Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipTwo Master Thread (1)

[DirtyDeeds]

*stares cross-eyed at his computer screen for several minutes trying to make the effect sort of work..... is failing...*

[DaveJes1979]

*stares cross-eyed at his computer screen for several minutes trying to make the effect sort of work..... is failing...*

Dirtydeeds, remember that if you are going to do cross-eyed viewing, you need to swap the images (left camera photo displayed on right, right camera photo displayed on left).  The images on my site are for parallel-viewing (left photo on left side, right photo on right side), not cross-eyed.

[Robotbeat]

For parallel viewing, I press "ctrl -" in firefox to make the images slightly smaller until it is comfortable. After a while of getting used to it, I can increase the size again slightly before it becomes too uncomfortable. Nice images, BTW. As far as images of Space Ship 2, well, most of the fuselage is the same as each fuselage of WK2, so you mostly have pictures of it .

[Nomadd]

  Damn cool effect Dave. I had to jump back because I thought that probe was going to poke me in the eye. Now you need to make some Magic Eye versions.

[yg1968]

Interesting video:

http://www.space.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=SP_091209_virgin-galactic

There is a discussion at the end of a rumored orbital spaceship3. There is also a discussion that the Spaceship2 and WK2 were somewhat inspired by a Russian idea. They show the Russian ship and plane in the video.

P.S. The similarity to the Russian design is also discussed in these articles:

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2008/01/25/space-ship-two-eerily-familiar%e2%80%a6/

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2008/02/spaceshipthree-revealed.html

[docmordrid]

The FlightGoobal writer claims that Whithorn told him directly that SS3 work would commence after SS2 and that it will be a transoceanic point to point transportation system.  The booster looks a lot like the artwork Scaled/Virgin showed for LauncherOne (small satellite launcher) at a conference a few months ago.

FlightGlobal article....

[bad_astra]

The seat cost would have to be far lower than ss2 tickets for a fast, but simple, point-to-point trip.

[yg1968]

The FlightGoobal writer claims that Whithorn told him directly that SS3 work would commence after SS2 and that it will be a transoceanic point to point transportation system.  The booster looks a lot like the artwork Scaled/Virgin showed for LauncherOne (small satellite launcher) at a conference a few months ago.

FlightGlobal article....

If you read the comments to that Flightglobal article, you will see that this artwork was actually done by Flightglobal themselves based on a combination of the Russian design, WK2 and SS2. It doesn't come from Virgin Galactic. 

P.S. Here is the LauncherOne artwork that you are referring to:

http://firstforspace.blogspot.com/2009/11/launcher-one-satellite-system.html

[docmordrid]

Of course it was FGs artwork, but the main point was what Whitehorn said that prompted their 'creativity'.

[grakenverb]

In case anyone didn't see it, here is a link to Jeffrey Bell's opinion piece about rocket-plane safety.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Rocket_Plane_Roulette_999.html


 He makes some good points, but if the burgeoning industry had to comply to the same safety standards as commercial jetliners they would never get off the ground.  Potential lawsuits will be a huge problem, but my guess is that Richard Branson is smart enough to not risk giving his empire away in  the event of a catastrophic accident.  Will paying customers be signing away  thier rights to sue, and would such a document protect Branson?

[Spacenuts]

Just wondering, what is the maximum down range capability of the current system?

[William Barton]

In case anyone didn't see it, here is a link to Jeffrey Bell's opinion piece about rocket-plane safety.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Rocket_Plane_Roulette_999.html


 He makes some good points, but if the burgeoning industry had to comply to the same safety standards as commercial jetliners they would never get off the ground.  Potential lawsuits will be a huge problem, but my guess is that Richard Branson is smart enough to not risk giving his empire away in  the event of a catastrophic accident.  Will paying customers be signing away  thier rights to sue, and would such a document protect Branson?

I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I've talked to (and paid) lawyers regarding similar issues, because I am an independent software architect whose "product" involves large-scale monetary flow and banking system issues, among other things, and if I ever screw up badly my best course of action would be to give my bank account to charity and then shoot myself in the head. So I suspect the answer would be yes to the first, and no to the second. And if I were running a suborbital tourist business using an experimental aerospace craft, I'd have my customers sign a "pre-nup" arbitration agreement that included significant settlement sum amounts, and would carry insurance to support that.

[kkattula]

I gave up reading Jeffrey Bell's opinion pieces quite a while back. They tend to be a little too heavy on the opinion side for my tatse.

The companies planning sub-orbital flights will not be carrying paying passengers.

They will be carrying paying, informed, consenting spaceflight participants.
Think of it as an adventure sport, like climbing Mt Everest, only not quite as risky.

Will that prevent all possible law-suits? Of course not, but it might be difficult to get a jury to award damages after being shown a video of the deceased being told that "if he climbs into that vehicle, there's a good chance he might die, does he understand that?".

The "pre-nup" arbitration agreement sounds like a good idea too.

[Thande]

One would think safety concerns would kick in more for this hypothetical transoceanic follow-up...perhaps it will start out as transporting small valuable cargoes that urgently need to be on the other side of the world in a few hours, with only the pilot's life to consider? Reminds me of the old "rocket mail" ideas from the 1930s.

[Norm Hartnett]

Just wondering, what is the maximum down range capability of the current system?

The seat cost would have to be far lower than ss2 tickets for a fast, but simple, point-to-point trip.

That's a good question Spacenuts! I could see Branson kicking off VG's long distance services with an England to D.C. flight.

Hum... I don't know bad_astra but, if you absolutely, positively, have to be there in the next few hours...

[HMXHMX]

Just wondering, what is the maximum down range capability of the current system?

Whatever the range of WK2 is, carrying the empty spaceship. ;)

More seriously, without doing the analysis and just going by the delta-V capability of SS2 plus the natural limits on flight path angle for reentry, I'd say about 200 miles or so, if that.

There is no correlation between any type of long-range boost-glide point-to-point transport and SS2 technology.  TPS, propulsion, go-around, IFR minimums – all these items and more mean any P2P system will be very much different from SS2 as it is from Mercury-Redstone.

[William Barton]

I gave up reading Jeffrey Bell's opinion pieces quite a while back. They tend to be a little too heavy on the opinion side for my tatse.

The companies planning sub-orbital flights will not be carrying paying passengers.

They will be carrying paying, informed, consenting spaceflight participants.
Think of it as an adventure sport, like climbing Mt Everest, only not quite as risky.

Will that prevent all possible law-suits? Of course not, but it might be difficult to get a jury to award damages after being shown a video of the deceased being told that "if he climbs into that vehicle, there's a good chance he might die, does he understand that?".

The "pre-nup" arbitration agreement sounds like a good idea too.

Reminds of the sticker that came on my knife sharpener: "Caution: sharpened knives will be sharper than you think."

[mr. mark]

Maybe the question should be, what is the maximum distance that Spaceship 2 could fly point to point counting the suborbital space flight. Could say after reaching the high distance point of the flight (60 plus miles up above Earth) from Mohave Spaceport could spaceship 2 then glide to Spaceport America in New Mexico using the existing system?   

[Jorge]

Maybe the question should be, what is the maximum distance that Spaceship 2 could fly point to point counting the suborbital space flight. Could say after reaching the high distance point of the flight (60 plus miles up above Earth) from Mohave Spaceport could spaceship 2 then glide to Spaceport America in New Mexico using the existing system?   

No.

[mr. mark]

Ok, I won't accept a simple no. Then what would be the maximum glide distance using spaceship 2 from it's maximum flight height?