It has been 12 months to the day since Sir Richard Branson briefly departed this world, only to make a feathery return back to Earth, landing on a hot, dusty runway in rural New Mexico.
The flight marked a triumphant moment for Branson, who, just a week before turning 71 years old, fulfilled a childhood dream of going to space. In doing so, Branson beat fellow space-obsessed billionaire Jeff Bezos to the punch. The exuberance about his flight—and what it promised for Virgin Galactic—helped push his company's stock above $50 a share.
As Richard Branson went to space, he and his company seemed to be on top of the world.
But it has been a rough ride in the year since. Most crucially, Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceship has yet to fly a single time again, and it may not do so until this winter. In the meantime, Bezos' space tourism company, Blue Origin, has started to regularly fly paying customers into space, higher than Virgin Galactic, on a fully reusable spacecraft. Partly as a result, Virgin Galactic's stock price has crashed, now trading at about $7 a share.
[...] "They've always overpromised and undelivered on their flight schedule, so I never expected their promised flight cadence," said Laura Forczyk, a space industry analyst. But the long delay between Branson's flight and a successor mission raises red flags, she said.
"Going a full year without even setting a date for their next flight is not a good sign," she said. "It leads me to conclude there really were serious structural or operational issues with Virgin Galactic's recent flights, despite their denial."
[...] Back at Virgin Galactic, Bezos' announcement set off an internal debate about whether its flight order should be rearranged—and its schedule pushed up—so that Branson could "beat" Bezos into space. Publicly, Virgin Galactic officials denied that this is what happened. But that's exactly what transpired, and Branson got his coup in the billionaire suborbital space race. Nevertheless, it seems to have been a pyrrhic victory.
[...] Prior to Branson's flight in 2021, more than 95 percent of all human spaceflights had been undertaken by government astronauts on government-designed and -funded vehicles. During the last 12 months, however, private astronauts have outnumbered professional astronauts by nearly three to one. The trend is likely to continue.
[...] "The long-sought goal of a $50,000 ticket price remains years away," said Ladwig, who characterized the current phase of space tourism as the pioneering phase. "We are many, many years away from reaching a mass-market phase with ticket prices more aligned with the costs of adventure travel activities such as climbing the Himalayas, taking year-long cruises around the world, or becoming a drag racer."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15 2022, @05:54PM (3 children)
They're both "space as destination" companies now. Can either of them take the next step and become suborbital transit companies? It seems like rich people with the stomach for a roller-coaster ride from LA to Tokyo would be a real market, and not just a thrill ride. Musk's rockets are overkill for that, but these two seem like not enough. It seems like Bezos' would have a better shot since capsules are a more tried and true tech, but the landing is an inconvenient splashdown. Perhaps the proper speedboat service with champagne would help that. OTOH, a beefed up Virgin spaceplane could theoretically land at an airport which would be a major coup.
Unfortunately it looks like neither one of them thought that far ahead? It seems like the ultra-wealthy (and those of us who enjoy watching cool tech) are stuck waiting for the next SST that seems to be always on the drawing board. That will just be a return to the 1970s state of the art Concorde though.
(Score: 5, Informative) by r1348 on Friday July 15 2022, @06:04PM (2 children)
They are nowhere near the range, speed, and re-entry capability for such endeavor. Going for a suborbital route 1/4 across the planet would use *much* more fuel than their tanks can hold, and it would require much more powerful engines. Not to mention the shielding for high-velocity re-entry.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday July 16 2022, @09:15AM (1 child)
Are the Virgin rocket's engines not really dirty [wikipedia.org]? They're not the sort of things you want flying routinely belching out fumes.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by r1348 on Saturday July 16 2022, @10:15AM
Oh yes, they're environmentally terrible. Anything large scale fueled by N2O/HTPB would see our ozone layer disappear real quick.
But the rocket equation is a bitch, and spaceplane designs are always limited by their small tanks.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15 2022, @06:01PM (7 children)
When you look back in history, there have been civilizations whose resources are spent on luxuries for a very, very small segment of society. Gold palaces, etc. which when just a tiny bit of equality arrived became unaffordable. For "us" as a society to have amazing toys for the ultra wealthy, we will all need to sacrifice. Are we prepared to do that? So that Emperor Branson can be the first human to step on Mars or whatever. If so, we really need to tighten our belts, give up our freedom and work like, well, like slaves. Sound good?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday July 16 2022, @03:42AM (6 children)
There's that zero sum thinking of class envy. There's no real sacrifice to those amazing toys for the rest of us because it's a reward for the much greater value said ultra wealthy helped produce and second, what are you going to do about it that would be better? Maybe appoint a thief to steal from the ultra wealthy and hope it doesn't blow back on you?
(Score: 5, Informative) by turgid on Saturday July 16 2022, @08:32AM (3 children)
Many of these ultra wealthy people got there by exploiting workers, working them too hard in poor conditions for not enough money, and by not paying their fair share of taxes. I don't mind people getting wealthy, but it shouldn't be at the expense of everyone else. It's great that people can innovate and make things of value that people want to buy. What's not great is when people are made to suffer for it and when the society that supports their endeavours gets abused.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday July 17 2022, @04:28AM (2 children)
This is all just a subjective judgment by you. My take is that all those people just lining up to be exploited have displayed a different judgment - that the work in question is better than what else they could be doing at the time. And there's another word for exploitation here: cooperation.
As to taxes, my take is nearly everyone agrees that their fair share should be smaller than it currently is. Those billionaires have paid a considerable share of taxes in your country (UK) just as they do in my country (US). Whether that is fair or not depends on whose feelz you are polling at the time.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 17 2022, @07:50AM (1 child)
First, let's deal with the tax issue. You say, "my take is nearly everyone agrees that their fair share should be smaller than it currently is." This is not true. There are many places in the world where progressive governments are democratically elected. Here in Scotland, we voted for higher taxes to have better public services. When I relocated back to Scotland, for example, I knew I'd be paying 1% more income tax, which I am happy to do to live in a happier and more cohesive society. Recently, some very wealthy people, including Americans, have stated in pubic that they would like to pay more tax. Before you suggest they can do that voluntarily, that would put them at an economic disadvantage to their business competitors who do not chose to donate the extra voluntarily, so it's a silly idea.
I'll dig out some citations regarding the worker exploitation. I can think of a few aimed at Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for starters.
It's a small world. As you go through life you meet people who have known people who know people who worked for various personalities. I wouldn't want to libel any with unsubstantiated rumours, but let's just say you don't get rich by spending money. There are those of us who work hard, save for our futures and pay our bills on time. Then there are those who get nice contracts and take their time paying their bills.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 17 2022, @01:12PM
In other words, they don't really want to. It's just virtue signaling. That's what makes it a silly idea.
We already know about Amazon's 3% per week turnover. Won't take long at that rate before they've gone through all available workers in a region - it's a problem fixing itself. Either they'll figure out how to retain workers or they'll run out and go out of business. As to Musk, he's notorious for working people hard. But in either case, you can leave. Nothing forces people to stick around either way and many people choose not to. My take on them is that if you don't want to work for them, then don't. Unlike the example of rich people wanting to pay more taxes, but refusing to, when people don't want to work for Bezos or Musk, they choose to do what they allegedly want to do. You may want to check those narratives to see if they're still working.
I have too. So what?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 16 2022, @06:05PM (1 child)
The point is, do we create a society to get 0.00001% "over the line", in a sense, to be able to live lives of absolute rulers. Because that seems to be the strategy. It's sort of an optimization based on L_inf rather than L_2, i.e. get the highest single value possible rather that the highest average value (of quality of life).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:33AM
Whose strategy is that? No one here. My take is that it'll need more than a few billionaire luxuries in the news for that to be a real strategy.
Are you trying for the highest average value of quality of life?
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Friday July 15 2022, @06:55PM (1 child)
Just 2 years after SpaceX was founded. So here we are with SpaceX ready to try a Mars capable rocket and Virgin Galactic still working the kinks out of suborbital flight. Part of the reason is that plane launched rockets are obviously a dead-end, with Paul Allen's Stratolaunch also going nowhere; the plane itself adds extra complexity. Bezos however has no such excuse and also no excuse for lack of investment money. It'd be interesting to see an analysis of exactly how SpaceX pulled so far ahead. Google turned up this but not very in-depth https://www.makeuseof.com/spacex-virgin-galactic-blue-origin-differences/ [makeuseof.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday July 16 2022, @08:45AM
The Earth's atmosphere is an impediment. Anything that has to have wings is an added complication that makes the problem much harder. Anything that has to breath air to get oxygen adds even more complexity. Having your fuel and oxidiser in a tube with a big fire at the back end, and pointing it straight up seems to be the simplest way to go about it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 15 2022, @08:14PM (1 child)
Neither Bezos or Branson have any relevance to space flight. None.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 17 2022, @09:21AM
VHS won over Betamax and Video2000 so wait and see. I expect the cheapest, nastiest technology to win for tourist joy rides above the Karman line.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tizan on Friday July 15 2022, @10:38PM
Remember on that flight they went outside the airspace that the FAA gave them for doing this launch. so basically they cannot control the climb very well.
Any sensible pilot would have aborted the attempt once it became clear that they could keep to the airspace they were given as nominally they could come into
collision with airplanes etc outside that protected space.
So may be they are still fixing that climb problem