The Astronomy Thread

Sub-orbital tourism is a dead end. Unless they start shipping payloads to the other side of the planet with sub-orbital trajectories this is just expensive "look how high i am!" flights

Big Phoenix said:

Id think theres a big market for it considering no one else is in the space tourism industry.

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A sub-orbital flight barely counts as space tourism.

BrutulTM said:

Even at $200k per seat it's hard to imagine people paying that for 4 minutes of weightless. The vomit comet is only $7500 and you get 15 maneuvers with 30 seconds of weightlessness per maneuver. Sure you can tell people you went to space but they're all going to come back with "Yeah, but not really..."

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Preach it Brother Brutal!

While weightlessness is a cool perk, that isn't the sole reason (otherwise vomit comet would be a more affordable alternative). At that price, it's basically for bragging rights to say "I technically went into space". It is also more "affordable" for a larger segment of the population. The billionaires paying Space-X for actual orbital flight are paying 10s of millions (that Japanese dude with the moon shot I wouldnt be surprised if they paid 100m or more). Orbital flight (or moon) are ultimate bragging rights for sure, but that is still out of the range of a good chunk of the possible customer base for this. At least until that Axiom partnership or whatever begins to bear fruit and they can start to drive costs down.

Got to think a bit outside of it in my opinion.
Virgin is almost like flying first class in a plane in many ways.
It wouldn't have the prep and launch issues a capsule would and can be flown out of most airports.
Why I feel this is important is that in time they will become a orbital transporter and eventually we'll have larger more capable space stations.
Think if you are on the ground but you have a Friday meeting on a space station, Virgin would be the one you book a seat on Expedia with 4 days notice and you'll be eating peanuts in a comfy seat for your 30 minute journey up to the station.
10, 20,30 maybe 50 years, but it'll happen.
Sure others COULD do it, but they'll be too busy launching cargo haulers to other planets/asteroids for mining and so on.

Oldbased said:

Got to think a bit outside of it in my opinion.
Virgin is almost like flying first class in a plane in many ways.
It wouldn't have the prep and launch issues a capsule would and can be flown out of most airports.
Why I feel this is important is that in time they will become a orbital transporter and eventually we'll have larger more capable space stations.
Think if you are on the ground but you have a Friday meeting on a space station, Virgin would be the one you book a seat on Expedia with 4 days notice and you'll be eating peanuts in a comfy seat for your 30 minute journey up to the station.
10, 20,30 maybe 50 years, but it'll happen.
Sure others COULD do it, but they'll be too busy launching cargo haulers to other planets/asteroids for mining and so on.

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I suspect that Virgin is pretty far from putting a person in orbit. Small cube sats? Maybe. A man-rated orbital space flight? I'm not seeing it.

Oldbased said:

Got to think a bit outside of it in my opinion.
Virgin is almost like flying first class in a plane in many ways.
It wouldn't have the prep and launch issues a capsule would and can be flown out of most airports.
Why I feel this is important is that in time they will become a orbital transporter and eventually we'll have larger more capable space stations.
Think if you are on the ground but you have a Friday meeting on a space station, Virgin would be the one you book a seat on Expedia with 4 days notice and you'll be eating peanuts in a comfy seat for your 30 minute journey up to the station.
10, 20,30 maybe 50 years, but it'll happen.
Sure others COULD do it, but they'll be too busy launching cargo haulers to other planets/asteroids for mining and so on.

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Escape velocity is a bitch and no wing will even get you close.

AFAIK, the only alternatives on the horizon are space elevator type things, where we use the rockets to get other modes of transport into orbit and functional.

Or advanced engines never designed yet. I did go out to 50 years.
We're on the verge of having space bases in orbit and on the moon and cycling trips to Mars and back.
Serious advancement is very possible in the next half century.

Big Phoenix said:

Not likely unless we discover new laws of physics or something.

We can already build about as good of a chemical rocket engine as you can as it doesnt really get any better than one powered by liquid hydrogen/oxygen. Even now though those rockets arent always used as often times its more practical to use other fuels for your rocket or lower stages. Nuclear rockets show great promise as they are twice as efficient as the best chemical rockets but their low thrust and radioactive exhaust concerns preclude them from being used within Earth's atmosphere. We heavily researched the tech and built a few prototypes in the 60s and 70s but the illumined ones running the space program canceled them when they went with the Space Shuttle post Apollo.

Big picture though the best thing is probably to move all manufacturing off world and onto the Moon and only launch people and things you cant build on the Moon into space. Doing that allows you to take advantage of the significantly lower launch costs and alternative launch methods like mass drivers or far easier to construct space elevators that you cant do here on Earth. Not only that but starting at Lunar orbit means you need significantly less delta v to go to other places than starting in leo.

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I get it on the chem fuel designs but I honestly believe all these space agencies around the world, all striving to solve issues NASA and Russia were basically snoozing through the past few decades for the most part, will find solutions. The idea of flat screen TVs was crazy till it wasn't. People considered bulbs by watts generally and not lumens until a 60/75/100 watt bulb was no longer 60/75/100 watts. People used to think the idea of having phones or pocket "super" computers was scifi and now 7yr olds carry them around with better functions/features than 99% of the world had available years back. Goes on and on and in my lifetime. New materials, new discoveries, new fabrications things can and will change. Wasn't that long ago Elon got laughed at on stages for saying he could land and reuse rockets.

Oldbased said:

I get it on the chem fuel designs but I honestly believe all these space agencies around the world, all striving to solve issues NASA and Russia were basically snoozing through the past few decades for the most part, will find solutions. The idea of flat screen TVs was crazy till it wasn't. People considered bulbs by watts generally and not lumens until a 60/75/100 watt bulb was no longer 60/75/100 watts. People used to think the idea of having phones or pocket "super" computers was scifi and now 7yr olds carry them around with better functions/features than 99% of the world had available years back. Goes on and on and in my lifetime. New materials, new discoveries, new fabrications things can and will change. Wasn't that long ago Elon got laughed at on stages for saying he could land and reuse rockets.

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Sure, I like science fiction, and trying to picture future technology is neat, but there are some things that are more probable than others.

Flying into space like your taking off and landing an airplane may be achievable, but it wont be an airplane (using a wing to provide lift to increase altitude), as we usually consider them, it will be a rocket with wings. This is due to the fact that there is not enough air to provide lift to wings, that can support passengers, at high altitude (right around the Kármán line, as shown by the Branson flight). At some point the spacecraft will need to point up and burn full engines to increase altitude on thrust alone (a rocket).

If you have enough thrust to achieve escape velocity and the goal is to get into space, the airplane parts are just extra weight and costs that could be used, to instead, strap another paying customer into your rocket.

Burns said:

Sure, I like science fiction, and trying to picture future technology is neat, but there are some things that are more probable than others.

Flying into space like your taking off and landing an airplane may be achievable, but it wont be an airplane (using a wing to provide lift to increase altitude), as we usually consider them, it will be a rocket with wings. This is due to the fact that there is not enough air to provide lift to wings, that can support passengers, at high altitude (right around the Kármán line, as shown by the Branson flight). At some point the spacecraft will need to point up and burn full engines to increase altitude on thrust alone (a rocket).

If you have enough thrust to achieve escape velocity and the goal is to get into space, the airplane parts are just extra weight and costs that could be used, to instead, strap another paying customer into your rocket.

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I mean, what VG has right now is probably what, 100 seconds of burn from doing it and most of that isn't needed to get to space but rather achieve velocity to match what would already be in space going at speeds to sustain itself for long periods of time. It isn't much but as stated is still so far far away. It all comes down to engine tech. Something like a stable heat reactor that people don't mind flying over them producing decent trust without a heavy fuel load.

My point is there are many many things people said in my lifetime isn't possible or couldn't be done with our current tech that not only were possible but they did it so damn well it became cheap so to speak.

It's not likely to happen but tomorrow a chemical compound could be discovered that cures every illness and disease known to man.
So on and so on.
We don't know what tomorrow brings, but with so many space agencies out there not bogged down by politics now, chances are there will be new and interesting discoveries because we know the problems and it only takes dreamers to find the solutions.
The main reason pretty much jack shit happened the past 50 years in space is because we left it up to govs to decide our fates.

I'm certain Elon told VG they could supersize all the shit and reach higher goals but that costs more. Much more and their thing is reaching the US version of space for low ticket prices and a few hundred K is cheap as far as space goes, but as they gain knowledge and data, as newer materials become stronger, lighter and more affordable, as propulsion becomes more advanced ( Even SpaceX Raptors get more and more powerful, use less fuel and become more reliable just even this year in version changes ) that stretch goal slowly becomes more and more real.

It's funny, when it is a business, space tech gets better and cheaper, whereas when it is gov business spending someone elses's money little to no improvements are made.

I'll make a nice harmless bet. We'll hit back on this very post in just 10 short years. I 100% guarantee you something amazing has happened as far as how we handle space or tech by that time. If not, I will custom build you something nice out of oak, hickory or walnut.

Burns said:

Escape velocity is a bitch and no wing will even get you close.

AFAIK, the only alternatives on the horizon are space elevator type things, where we use the rockets to get other modes of transport into orbit and functional.

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Space Elevators off Earth are NOT on the horizon.

BrutulTM said:

History hasn't been kind to people who say things are impossible on the technology front. In 1971 the idea of watching any movie you can imagine on demand from a device you carry in your pocket which can also instantly access pretty much all of human knowledge was firmly in sci-fi territory. Maybe by 2071 the aliens will have given us the tic-tac gravity drive plans (or we will have figured it out for ourselves) and going to space will be easier than driving across town.

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Technology does some amazing things, but not always.

Fusion power is stil 1234567 years away and where are all the flying cars? We still need roads. :-(