Touchdown! Virgin Spacecraft Prototype Soars Over Mojave, Testing Re-Entry System

[FLPanhandle]

Source: universetoday.com



Virgin Galactic has finished yet another stepping-stone to its first commercial spaceflight. The New Mexico-based company sent SpaceShipTwo aloft on a test of the re-entry system Oct. 7, making a safe landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

The company is among a handful of firms competing to bring well-heeled tourists into suborbital space. There are more than 700 people signed up to take a flight on SpaceShipTwo, with tickets running at $250,000 per seat. The spacecraft is put into the air using a carrier aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo, then separates for a brief flight in space. Exact timing for the first flight has not been disclosed yet, but it is expected to be in the coming months.


“SpaceShipTwo is safely back on the ground after her 54th test flight, including her tenth test of the feather system,” wrote Virgin Galactic in a tweet yesterday (Oct. 7). “Coupled with several good, full duration ground tests of SS2’s rocket motor in recent weeks, today’s flight brings spaceflight closer.”



Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/115109/touchdown-virgin-spacecraft-prototype-soars-over-mojave-testing-re-entry-system/

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This and the Boeing spacecraft are NASA's winners for returning the US to space.

[Plucketeer]

1. QUARTER MILLION ride ticket

for a couple minutes of weightlessness jollies. And you can bet your sweet backside that these same folks can afford tax consultants that get them a FREE RIDE on our country's revenue system. How FORTUNEate is that???

[FLPanhandle]

3. Two different subjects: The spacecraft and our tax code.

However, those fools and the anticipated profits from them are driving funding a lot of the development of this spacecraft. NASA gets to leverage it too.

In this case, if they want to spend their money that way, so be it.


As for their tax consultants, that's another topic.

[Plucketeer]

5. I'm all for the advancements in aerospace

And I understand that this project might not have even germinated without that big, fat carrot out there on the end of the stick. My point is/was that these 70 pre-paid riders are almost certainly amongst those who would protest the idea of raising the minimum age - or resist yielding to tax loopholes being plugged. In essence, I know damned good and well that I'm helping pay for some of those tickets. And I'm not gonna get even the tiniest thrill from the events.

[FLPanhandle]

7. I understand, but tax dodging means we also pay for all other things the rich spend their money on.

Yachts, private jets, etc.

At least this has some use beyond "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".

[True Blue Door]

11. Spaceflight is one of those rare areas where "trickledown" is actually genuine.

The high up-front fixed costs of developing private space travel means that the original consumers have to be the filthy rich. But there is reasonable evidence that the business will scale over time and end up within reach of the middle-class.

And on a long enough time scale, pretty much everybody, because at least suborbital spaceflight ultimately intersects with air transport.

But in the early days, it's the luxury crowd - same as automobiles and passenger aircraft were.

But first they have to actually get to space, and Virgin Galactic is malingering like a motherfucker.

[upaloopa]

2. I don't see sending well heeled people into sub orbital

flights as a return to space

[FLPanhandle]

4. It's not only going to be used for that purpose.

NASA will also be using the spacecraft so a successful test is a good thing.

[lapfog_1]

6. sending well heeled people into sub orbital flight is a good thing

bringing them back again is the bad part of this deal.



just kidding... if I had the money I would probably be lined up too.

[upaloopa]

8. My flight to Hawaii went up to 40 some thousand feet

It was -70 degrees outside. So what is the thrill of going a little higher and colder?

[lapfog_1]

9. Black sky. stars, and the earth as a globe.

a really close globe, but you will be able to see true curvature.

[True Blue Door]

10. We've seen this song and dance from Virgin Galactic before.

They spend the better part of a year not testing at all, then announce their "comeback" with a flurry of low-altitude, unpowered test flights or maybe one or two short-duration rocket burns, and then it all just stops for months more with no explanation.

They've done this multiple times over the past half-decade, and every time they reset back to low-level testing instead of proceeding back to where they were before.

Unless and until they deliver operational spaceflights on a regular basis, as they've been promising for a decade while letting their ship mostly sit in the hangar doing nothing, they have no credibility as far as I'm concerned.

I've taken to referring to SpaceShipTwo as the "Spruce Deuce" or "VSS Godot".

I have much more hope for XCOR, although they have much less money than Virgin.