from the neither-Bezos-nor-Branson-have-anthing-that-will-reach-orbit;-Musk's-rockets-have-done-so-100+-times dept.
[2021-07-11 16:18:14 UTC; UPDATE 2]
Launch, separation from carrier plane, self-powered rocket flight, re-entry, and landing were all successful. Official video stream had several drop-outs. There are sure to be on-ship recordings that will be edited and uploaded for later viewing.
Congratulations to all involved for a safe and successful flight!
[2021-07-11 11:07:52 UTC; UPDATE 1]
The launch has been delayed ~1.5 hours "Due to prior weather".
7:30am PT | 8:30am MT | 10:30am ET | 3:30pm BST
Otherwise known as: 2021-07-11 @ 1430 UTC
Launch is still to be live-streamed on YouTube.
Original story follows.
How to watch Branson's flight, which Jeff Bezos is still hopping mad about:
Virgin Galactic is continuing to make final preparations for the historic flight of its VSS Unity vehicle on Sunday morning, carrying the company's founder, Richard Branson, and three other employees. To that end, on Friday, the company announced that it will have a livestream[*], hosted by Stephen Colbert and featuring a new song by Khalid, to publicize the flight into space.
But wait, is it really space? Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says Virgin Galactic's flights above 80 km are not space.
In a pair of salty tweets on Friday, Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, took potshots at Virgin Galactic and its rocket-powered space plane. "From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name," the company tweeted. "For 96% of the world's population, space begins 100 km up at the internationally recognized Kármán line[**]."
From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name. For 96% of the world's population, space begins 100 km up at the internationally recognized Kármán line. pic.twitter.com/QRoufBIrUJ
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 9, 2021
The 96 percent implies that the rest of the world, aside from the United States, recognizes 100 km as the boundary of space. Both the US Air Force—which awarded astronaut wings to X-15 pilots who flew above 80 km—and the US Federal Aviation Administration have said that 80 km represents space.
Wikipedia entry on the Kármán line.
Live stream on YouTube starts at at 6AM PT, 9AM ET, 1 PM UTC.
Related Stories
[2021-07-20 14:41:25 UTC] UPDATE: Flight had a short hold at (IIRC) T-15:00 then proceeded to have a safe ignition, liftoff, flight, and separation. Booster landed successfully under powered descent. A few minutes later the capsule coasted to apogee (maximum altitude), began its descent, deployed parachutes, and landed nominally. All crew disembarked safely. Congratulations to all involved!]
According to Wikipedia, the capsule reached apogee of 105.671 km (65.6612 mi). On board were the oldest (Wally Funk, 82) and youngest (Oliver Daemen, 18) people to ever reach space. Also on board were Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark Bezos.
Original story follows, unchanged.
Blue Origin set for historic first human flight of its New Shepard system:
Officials with the rocket company Blue Origin said they remain on track for their first human spaceflight on Tuesday, which will carry founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers on a suborbital hop 100 km above West Texas.
Steve Lanias, the lead flight director for the mission, said during a call with reporters that engineers completed a "Flight Readiness Review" for the launch over the weekend and found the New Shepard rocket and capsule to be in perfect condition. Weather, too, looks reasonable with any early morning storms expected to pass before the anticipated liftoff time of 8 am CT (13:00 UTC).
Bezos and the other three passengers—his brother, Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and a paying customer from the Netherlands named Oliver Daemen—underwent about 14 hours of training this weekend across two days. Their flight will be entirely autonomous. After launch the capsule will separate from the rocket, and the passengers will have about three minutes of weightlessness before they must strap back into their seats for the return to Earth. Upon reentry to Earth's atmosphere the passengers will experience about 5 Gs as gravity exerts itself on the returning vehicle.
[...] For Tuesday's flight, the company will provide a webcast, which is expected to begin about 90 minutes before the anticipated liftoff time. So the webcast should go live at 6:30 am local time in Texas, or about 11:30 UTC.
The webcast is scheduled to be available on YouTube: New Shepard First Human Flight.
NB: Virgin Galactic's flight on 2021-05-11[*] reached an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) which is the altitude at which NASA issues pilot's wings. Many noted the flight failed to reach the Kármán line boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space which is defined to be 100 km (62 miles). New Shepard's flight is scheduled to reach the Kármán line.
[*] SoylentNews coverage of Virgin Galactic's flight.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:37AM (18 children)
SpaceX has already been there numerous times. If these billionaires want to something really cool for science, they should invent a new colour.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:44AM (15 children)
They don't want to do something cool for science, they want to be worshipped for their wealth, so they flaunt it with extravagantly wasteful vanity projects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:55PM (11 children)
First of all, what they are doing is not trivial, it is after all 'rocket science'; the very definition of something that is hard.
Secondly, these are valid business ventures that will take tourists dollars.
Yes, you may argue it is wasteful but if they can turn a profit, by the very definition of capitalism, it is not wasteful, it is a service people will pay for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:14PM (5 children)
Dollars are an imperfect unit of measurement.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:31PM (3 children)
Huh? You serious? Dollars are METRIC!!! 10 cents make a dime, ten dimes make a dollar, ten dollars makes a McDonald's meal. See? All metric!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:53PM (2 children)
And the conversion from USD to any other SI-unit is defined by only constant factors and other SI units?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:24PM (1 child)
I'm not sure of the conversion between dollars and liters of gas or milk. ;)
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:46PM
My local grocery chain knows that conversion. Last I checked it was about $3.80 to convert to a gallon of either gasoline or milk.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:53PM
Dick size is the ultimate unit. Of measurement. How many dicks does it take to fly into space?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:34PM (2 children)
I'm curious what definition of capitalism you're using. It's the very definition of a free market, and a free market is a typical (but not absolutely necessary) property of a capitalist system, but the actual capitalism part is to do with the separation between investment in the means of production and the actual workers doing the production.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:57PM (1 child)
Your definition of capitalism is the Marxist one. Literally, as in, created by Karl Marx.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @09:15PM
When you consider the concept of alienation - workers endlessly stamping widgets without any stake in the end product - and look around you today... hai, welcome to the capitalist world.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:13PM (1 child)
The whole point of this is to ensure that billionaires can leave the earth after having thoroughly trashed it in pursuit of wealth. As an added bonus they can decide who does and does not come along for the ride with everybody else being left behind.
It's thoroughly disgusting.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday July 12 2021, @06:15PM
You say "they" as though they all agree with each other. I'm pretty sure Musk thinks we need to get to Mars because he thinks that's easier than convincing all the other billionaires, now and in the future, to stop destroying this planet.
Is there vanity in it? Hell yeah there is. Still, when rich guys play God, sometimes there are other goals than personal wealth and prestige.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:05PM (1 child)
Would you make the same criticism of the Wright brothers?
What they are doing may be stunts now, but no more so than what they did a century ago. For a decade or more airplanes were pretty rickety as people learned and adapted.
This is hopefully the start of that. Your comment sounds like sour grapes.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 12 2021, @07:00AM
I don't know whether you heard it, but we've sent humans up there before.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 12 2021, @02:48PM
It seems they both want to fund their purported 'efforts' to achieve orbit by selling sub orbital joy rides to the super rich.
SpaceX has contracts that earn actual revenue for launch services performed.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:15PM
How about 'poop brown'?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 12 2021, @02:44PM
Disagree.
SpaceX has NOT, so far, launched any paying super rich people on sub orbital joy rides using a vehicle which is incapable of achieving orbit.
Total fail SpaceX!
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:45AM
He *could* become the first comedian to joke about Sir Branson's fiery death, to an audience of millions.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:53AM (24 children)
I'm fairly certain that for most of the worlds population they have no idea what the Karman line is, or have probably never even heard of it, or where space actually begins or not. They probably do not even care. Space is more just up there in general.
So for two billionaires to have squabbles about who is going there first or not is more akin to some kind of private dick measuring contest between Branson and Bezos.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:39PM
The Karman line will only have any significance for historical purposes. Footnotes in encyclopedia will point out that 20th century man thought space began 100 km above ocean level. Modern man will think that curious, because they know space doesn't begin until you're about a hundred light hours away from the sun. Also see the quaint unit of measurement called an Astronomical Unit, based on the distance of the earth from the sun.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:40PM (7 children)
Space - real space - begins at 100 miles.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by pe1rxq on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:03PM (6 children)
'Ounce to gram' is shrinking?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by looorg on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:27PM (5 children)
Don't confuse him like that. The metric system just isn't for everyone, even tho apparently most of the world has managed to grasp the concept.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:05PM (1 child)
Most of the world thinks pooping in ditches and catching malaria every couple of weeks is normal. It's not something we should be grasping for.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:33PM
'Murican ignorance on display. You only catch malaria once, then you live with it all the rest of your life.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:26PM (1 child)
But funny how a good deal of those 'others' still talk about gallons of petrol or miles-per-hour and 'teaspoons' and proper pints a load of other ones. It is almost as if those antiquated units are ACTUALLY USEFUL!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:57PM
Metrictards really hate it when they hear that their creepy fetish with the number 10 is actually not very useful in real life.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:19PM
It never ceases to amaze me how Americans can be simultaneously too stupid to be able to use the metric system while using a system that's too hard for the vast majority of the rest of the world to use.
It seems to me that perhaps the problem isn't Americans or our system of measure and more than Europeans are too dumb to understand just how bad the metric system is for most things that normal people do.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:21PM (4 children)
It's the same dick measuring contest that played out U.S.S.R. vs. U.S.A. starting with Sputnik and basically ending with Apollo.
The dick hasn't really proved itself until it has successfully colonized other star systems, and even then it remains to be seen if we can get out of this shithole backwater galaxy before it burns out.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:08PM
You think it's any better over there in Andromeda? Look at the bright side, we'll be merging with them soon, and just in time too, the sun will be burning out by then.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:32PM (2 children)
To boldly go where no man has gone before ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:01PM
Their continuing mission, to see out rich chumps and new patsies for investment, to boldly fleece at levels never seen before.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 12 2021, @02:52PM
To boldly go where none of the many genders have gone before.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:26PM (5 children)
Branson and Bezos feud whilst Musk laughs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:29PM (2 children)
Yes, but only because he's been smoking that funny green stuff again.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:52PM (1 child)
Perhaps it's doing him some good then - He's been delivering commercial and military payloads to orbit on a regular basis for years, while the other two still haven't even got 10% of the way there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:00PM
Branson has a working small-sat launcher [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @09:17PM
Oh cool, another shitty reality show.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:30PM
Keep in mind that they're all shitty people, Branson is at least an actual person rather than the personification of douche-baggery.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:35PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:08PM
Damn I can’t mod you +6 for that!
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Monday July 12 2021, @03:44AM
In other news, Bezos panties reported to be “in a twist”.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 12 2021, @07:02AM
Yeah, but who really cares which of the two is the bigger dick?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:11PM (16 children)
Haven't we heard this before? Get back to me if it ends in flames and then I'll watch it on Youtube
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:54PM (15 children)
For all the attempts to be attention whores, nost people won't watch either Branson or Bezos flights unless they blow up.
Suborbital fligjts? That was seen as "coming in second" even in 1961. It was exciting when Shepherd did it back then. But today, there are people living and working in orbit and it's not news.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Socrastotle on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:04PM (14 children)
Private individuals being flown into space by private companies, ones they founded nonetheless, with no government involvement whatsoever - is unprecedented. And pretty cool. Of course suborbital vs orbital is a *huge* difference which makes this somewhat less relevant, but it's still an important "first" on the way to being a spacefaring civilization. And SpaceX will be along soon enough to complete the orbital part of the equation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:01PM (9 children)
That's the key here. None of these people are going "into space". There is no stable orbit possible at this imaginary demarcation called the "Karman line". These craft cannot escape the gravity well of earth - they are merely somewhat closer to the top of the well than most conventional aircraft ever get. They can't even reach the ISS, whose orbit isn't even terribly stable.
Neither of these fools is doing anything meaningful, nor are they providing anything of value to their customers. Both are engaged in a con operation.
Which is a real shame. Either, or both, could have done something meaningful, and could even have competed against Elon Musk. They could even have cooperated with Elon Musk, and that fleet of Starlink satellites might have been completed a year or two ago.
All I see here, are two fools working hard to out fool each other.
(Score: 3, Funny) by shipofgold on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:16PM (3 children)
The problem is you are thinking in terms of today. This is an evolutionary precedent and may lead to things like travel from New York to Hong Kong which today take 15-17 hours in a Jumbo jet happen in as little as 2-3 hours.
Branson went 53 miles above sea level in something about the size of a large private jet.
While today it is just a stunt, it is every bit as big as the first flight at Kitty Hawk. It took decades after that first flight until there was commercial air travel, and it might take decades to get the common person into space, but without these types of baby steps it ain't gonna happen. Imagine if you told someone in 1904 that they could travel to Hong Kong from New York in 15 hours. Just like you they would have probably laughed. I can imagine those in 1904 saying "those boys are just wasting their time! I have this great horse and buggy which will get me there just fine!!".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:56PM (2 children)
Concorde already tried that, and it failed commercially. Too expensive. What new magic do the Billionaire Bros bring?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @08:32PM
Lol, I dunno, space travel?
Doesn't seem like a good idea, pretty sure they burn WAY more fuel to get high enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:34PM
There were a number of issues with the concord, not the least was the noise and that nobody wanted them flying overhead. I'm personally skeptical that this will become popular for other reasons. The Concord didn't have to compete with cheap and effective teleconferancing technology the way that a replacement would.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @08:20PM (4 children)
I suppose it depends on how you define space. Obviously they're getting nowhere near orbit - you need to reach about 150km to complete even one complete orbit, and reaching altitude takes less than 10% of the delta-V required to reach orbit at that altitude.
On the other hand, consider a "sanity check": does it make sense to say that an object in space can collide with something that isn't in space? I'd say obviously not - things can only collide when they're in roughly the same location. Which means that any sub-orbital object whose location could be intersected by viable orbital path must be considered to be "in space".
Where exactly that boundary line is drawn though is pretty arbitrary. What exactly constitutes a "viable orbital path"? A stable circular orbit? Then the ISS is not in space as atmospheric drag The lowest point of an elliptical orbit that can complete at least one complete orbit? That might be somewhere near the Karman line, or possibly even much lower.
Perhaps "in naturally occurring interplanetary vacuum" would be a good definition... but that's no less arbitrary. Perfect vacuum doesn't exist, so you still have to pick some arbitrary density threshold.
Personally I'd go for a "one complete circular orbit is possible" as a sane boundary - but that would put me well above any accepted definition of the edge of space.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 11 2021, @09:08PM (3 children)
Thank you. The ISS is not really "in space".
It might be more convenient to think of the boundaries of space, like the beach. The beach is a dynamic interface, and there is a broad swathe that is neither land, nor sea. The sea may claim that swathe for awhile, then surrender it back to dry land again. No real sailor is going to recognize a canoe or paddleboat in that interfaces as a seagoing vessel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:23PM (1 child)
ah but a canoe can go out to sea, might have trouble coming back, at least by choice, to where it started from.
i always thought of space as leaving the orbit, as in needing powered flight to come back into the well, rather than some trajectory that brings you back unassisted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:07PM
All orbits below geosynchronous eventually return to Earth if you are patient* enough, just as all orbits above that line eventually** escape.
*High orbits can take millennia to decay.
**Over astronomical time scales.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:57PM
I would say the ISS certainly is in space by any reasonable defintion. It's not in a stable orbit... but *nothing* is. Even with perfect two-way tidal locking in a perfect vacuum, gravitational radiation will still cause constant orbital decay. Our entire galaxy is in slow orbital decay and will eventually collapse into the central black hole - aside from whatever gets thrown free by chance or intergalactic collisions.
Any attempt to define a non-arbitrary "this is space" definition would likely rule out everything not deep in the intergalactic void... and even then it would still only be an approximation. Everything in orbit around Earth is immersed in Earth's atmosphere, the only question is of density. In fact, everything outside Earth's orbit is immersed in Earth's atmosphere, thinly diluted in the solar wind. And everything outside the solar system is immersed in the interstellar medium (or the solar wind from another star). There's no getting away from "stuff" in space. Not even deep in the interstellar void.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:17PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:28PM (1 child)
Rather than debate the nuance of who built/designed which parts of the program when, I'm going to point to the big picture. Without extensive government support, funding, and assistance neither the US nor Soviet Rockets would have ever existed. And so when the whims of government changed, as they invariably do, progress in space simply died. Because there was no genuine space program to speak of, merely government programs for such.
SpaceX changed this game because it was being driven primarily by commercial pursuits, though at the same time SpaceX as we know it would not exist if not for a fortuitous grant from NASA early on. Would Elon have been able to make it in a parallel world without government to market his idea to? Probably, but there's plenty of room for debate there.
These companies, by contrast, are created, funded, and targeted towards a 100% commercial market. And that is amazing. Because it means humanity has finally started to secure itself in the space age. We no longer need to reasonably fear the possibility of governments getting distracted by the next shiny thing and space ended up in another half century nap. Because there's no doubt that for these flights are just the beginning of these companies progress. And hopefully many more companies will come to start entering into the industry.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:58PM
So what you're saying is that, after the dick waving between USA and USSR got old, there was no reason to go to space any more. And now it's being reinvented as the ultimate in tourism... I mean, the most important step in the future of all humanity. Barf.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:10PM
I would have to see their tax records to confirm that. Government may have financed it all.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @12:50PM (5 children)
A couple of snarky tweets are "hopping mad", or is there something else to this that is not mentioned?
It is impressive what both men have built, but the racing to do something that was done 60 years ago to claim it as a "first" goes to show that even enormous amounts of money can't overcome fragile egos.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @01:03PM (4 children)
Even most nerds don't give a shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:01PM
Bbut.. this time, it's with tourists! Nobody but our industrial titans have the vision to do that. So tax cuts all round, hail the overlords.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @10:38PM
Suborbital flights require the bulk of the technology to go fully orbital. The landing and take off still need to be done, the capsule needs to be able to deal with nearly all of the pressure that a fully orbital launch would require. I'm sure that before too long they'll be capable of putting it into orbit, the problem is that there isn't really much point in doing so right now. Eventually, if we manage to put an orbiting spaceport up there for traveling to Mars, then they'll bother with that last bit.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:09PM
Suborbital is old. Being able to buy a ticket for a suborbital joyride is not.
Neither Virgin nor Blue Origin are doing anything especially interesting for space, though Blue Origin is a lot closer to being relevant if they can get their new engines working properly.
They are offering a new and exciting experience for the ultra-wealthy though, and it's really obvious from the stream that that's what they're embracing. Where significant SpaceX launches have focused on letting viewers share in the sense of technical accomplishment, this launch felt like nothing so much as a long-form advertisement. But if the trip is sufficient to inspire the change in perspective that many/most "real" astronauts, and just inexpensive enough that many/most of the ultra-wealthy feel ego-bound to do it at least once, it could still have a dramatic effect here on Earth. Yeah, I smell a lot of if coming off of this plan, but it could potentially have a far more dramatic effect on Earth than colonizing Mars would.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday July 12 2021, @11:41AM
If Branson had done suborbital reusable space tourism back in 2008, a few years after SSO, when the original timeline, it would be noteworthy.
Now we have real tourist orbital flights from SpaceX scheduled for launch this year and rapid progress on starship for fully reusable. This Bezos/Branson stuff is hilarious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @01:09PM (3 children)
Someone obviously didn't have their pre-suborbital flight Tang. 3 pacific times, no central or eastern time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday July 11 2021, @01:30PM (1 child)
7:30am PT | 8:30am MT | 10:30am ET | 3:30pm BST
Not a 3.5 hour delay either.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:14PM
takyon: Thanks for catching yet another mistake I made and for making the fixes!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:11PM
Ooops! I plead copy/paste error under influence of insufficient coffee.
Big thanks to takyon for fixing my mistake!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @02:32PM (1 child)
I hate these cheap bastards with big $ that wont do their own video streams. Footurd is a mess. Get the countdown timer right at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:06PM
The broadcast errors definitely equate to spacecraft errors.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:13PM (7 children)
I often find space is a field where companies seem very confused about their demographic. Who is tuning in to watch something like this? Not a whole lot of people, disproportionately weighted by people who are pretty hardcore space enthusiasts. And we get?
1) Groundbreaking some song I don't care about from some person or band I've never heard of.
2) Colbert giving the minutes. He was mildly amusing when he pretended to be a politard. He's become somewhat less interesting since he actually became one. Probably common among this demographic.
3) Cute chick poorly reading off a teleprompter. Well this part, I can't be too upset about. But come on, why not get somebody who can actually speak without a teleprompter, and might actually know something. Hurts seeing this while Christ Hadfield sits on the side smiling and nodding.
4) Trite, overly dramatic montages. Don't care. Get into the technical dirt and share the challenges, solutions, ups, downs, why a spaceplane vs a rocket, etc, etc.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:20PM (1 child)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KI2_cpR9Ek [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:22PM
Wonderful, thank you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:26PM
Virgin Records, still influencing.
Even though he's obscenely rich, Branson isn't all that bright or subtle... not surprising he's promoting politards that he likes.
Maybe because they're all occupied making sure their boss' ass doesn't go up in flames, ensuring both their performance bonus and some hope of continuing employment?
That's you - remember, this broadcast is trying to reach the post-MTV generations and boost the Branson brand in opinion polls thereof.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:24PM
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:15PM
Thank you, I’m now not going to watch the YouTube video. Honestly.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:23PM
I don't know - I got a very strong sense that this launch was all about advertising a new joyride with major bragging rights cred to the ultra-wealthy.
I mean, any hard-core space enthusiast already knows that they're irrelevant. Maybe eventually they'll be able to scale up to something useful, but the challenges between a mach-3 reentry and a ~mach-24 reentry from orbit is pretty dramatic. And with SpaceX paving the way to ultra-heavy, ultra-cheap orbital trips with Starship, Virgin especially doesn't even have a long-term plan to compete.
I kind of suspect both Bezos and Branson are both currently desperately trying to get some kind of return on investment before the first Starship trans-lunar passenger flight renders them totally irrelevant even for joyrides. Virgin especially - Blue Origin might still have a shot at long-term relevance if they can get their new engines (and eventually New Glenn) working. Heck, even without New Glenn, there's likely to be a multi-decade market for reliable reusable methalox engines for third-party orbital and interplanetary vehicles. Nobody is going to care about airplane-launched mini-rockets when you can book space on a Starship trip to orbit for $10/kg.
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Sunday July 11 2021, @11:40PM
Oh boy, I love responding point-for-point!
You're not the majority. They love that sort of thing.
You're not wrong.
Those are the minority.
Also not wrong.
You're not the majority, again.
Plot twist! Most of us here on SN aren't the majority either. Sucks, huh? [youtube.com]
- D
(Score: 2) by mmh on Sunday July 11 2021, @03:38PM (6 children)
"As soon as we cross the boundary to space, we'll hear a word from our founder Sir Richard Branson
Welcome to space unity 22
…
We have cameras on board recording things today and we'll be sure to capture his magical words and share them with the world when they're available."
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:09PM (5 children)
The video feed was absolute shit. Non-stop glitching. The announcer droid even asked a question, waited 20 seconds, then said something along the lines of "It takes a while for the data to travel that far". Yeah. Space X doesn't have that fucking problem you morons! Maybe you should stop worrying about creating an 'airliner to space' and instead do something useful--like launch a metric fuckton of satellites up there that can support your video feeds and provide internet service. What a twat.
Oh...I'm sorry. I meant to say Sir What a twat.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:40PM (4 children)
SpaceX is planning to make their launch broadcasts more stable than they are now:
SpaceX says Starship can beat ‘plasma blackout’ with Starlink antennas [teslarati.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:58PM
I hope it works, but I have my doubts. At least they won't be trying to transmit through the high plasma density of the bow wave, but there's still a "tube" of cooling plasma in their wake, and it's unlikely any satellite will have line of sight down that tube.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @09:39PM (2 children)
I somehow picture your bedroom walls littered with all sorts of Elon Musk pictures. Tiger Beat-like posters of him smiling with his shirt partially unbuttoned, you lying there on your bed on your belly looking up at the posters, all giddy, chin in hands.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 12 2021, @01:11AM
That's not all it's littered with.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 12 2021, @02:58PM
s/partially/fully/g
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @04:50PM (3 children)
I don't care about two rich guys in a dick-waving contest. I care that I am allowed to live my life in freedom and liberty.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:37PM
Well you don't have that and never will. So you should care about two rich guys in a dick-waving contest.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday July 12 2021, @11:38AM
Apparently walking across a road is a crime in the US, which claims it's the freest country in the world.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 12 2021, @03:03PM
We are all allowed to be free within the confines of government regulations and laws. We all have the liberty to complain about it in a constructive manner which doesn't breed disloyalty.
Individual expression is grate as long as everyone does it in a uniform and identical manner.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:22PM
I reckon that staged space flights ain't cheap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday July 11 2021, @05:57PM (2 children)
So what they're saying is that Project B Arc was a failure?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @06:11PM
Virgin had a lot of bark, but not much bite.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 12 2021, @01:42AM
A case of "If at first you don't succeed..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford