MadameConcorde From San Marino, joined Feb 2007, 10241 posts, RR: 40 Posted (11 months 3 weeks 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 7164 times:
This is some news!
Richard Branson must be a happy bunny!
The FAA has given the go for SS2 to go on experimental suborbital test flights. Will be quite interesting to see how it goes.
SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger commercial spaceship owned by Virgin Galactic, has been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to begin test flights beyond the atmosphere.
Spaceship builder Scaled Composites received an experimental launch permit from the FAA on May 23.
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1986 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (11 months 3 weeks 2 days 1 hour ago) and read 7129 times:
I don't understand your excitement about something like SS2 that is a technological and practical dead end that will never progress beyond a ballistic suborbital joyride, while being so dismissive of Falcon-9/Dragon which can actually put real payloads into actual orbit, with a clear path to putting actual humans in orbit.
MadameConcorde From San Marino, joined Feb 2007, 10241 posts, RR: 40 Reply 2, posted (11 months 3 weeks 2 days ago) and read 7113 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 1): with a clear path to putting actual humans in orbit.
It will be a while until non-professional paying passengers can fly on the Falcons/Dragons. They already do it on the Soyuz. Think of those lucky rich few like Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté who could buy themselves rides to the ISS with a stay on board.
SS2 will make it so that others will be able to fly suborbital and get short but interesting trips to heights never yet reached by non-Astronauts with amazing views of earth - only from one set point... but still.
Suppose you can pay for the flight, you can book today and go when your turn comes.
Higher and faster than a Concorde or Mig 29. Not bad.
SS2 is the first one ever. No doubt I would have gone if I had that kind of money. It will only be affordable by a chosen few.
First to Fly the SS2 will be very lucky.
maxter From Australia, joined May 2009, 191 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 7085 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 1): I don't understand your excitement about something like SS2 that is a technological and practical dead end that will never progress beyond a ballistic suborbital joyride, while being so dismissive of Falcon-9/Dragon which can actually put real payloads into actual orbit, with a clear path to putting actual humans in orbit.
Funny that, I was thinking exactly the same thing... And the above answer doesn't explain it either...
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1986 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 7063 times:
Quoting MadameConcorde (Reply 2): The two ships SS2 and Falcon/Dragon cannot be compared.
That's my point. One will actually accomplish something, the other is a really expensive rollercoaster. Sure it might be fun to ride the latter, but what does it have to excite anyone other than the handful of those with enough spare cash to take one for a five minute ride into space? It doesn't actually accomplish anything. Who knows, Virgin Galactic may actually make money with this thing, but that's no more exciting for real life than the new amusement park in town making money.
MadameConcorde From San Marino, joined Feb 2007, 10241 posts, RR: 40 Reply 5, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 7055 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 4): what does it have to excite anyone other than the handful of those with enough spare cash to take one for a five minute ride into space?
Rutan and Branson and their Virgin Galactic plan are just the beginning, same as with the Falcons/Dragons. There will be others, doing other things, more elaborate I hope and maybe for longer trips. Not sure about the XCOR (I have seen real size mockups) and what their goal is and there will be others the same as there will be competition for the Falcons and Dragons, Boeing and others.
For now it's the only way for fairly wealthy people to fly to suborbital heights and see the Earth like you could not see from Concorde or Mig passenger flights.
I for one would love to see the EADS Astrium passenger space plane project coming to fruition. The company already has lots of experience and background in the field. This is one I would really like to fly on.
Talking about cost, it will probably cost zillions more for a willing passenger to fly on a future Dragon and go orbital than for those who use the Rutan/Branson Virgin Galactic, the XCOR or Astrium space planes.
There was a better way to fly it was called Concorde
casinterest From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 3251 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 7025 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 4):
That's my point. One will actually accomplish something, the other is a really expensive rollercoaster.
That's a bit shortsighted.
Think about the folks that are behind Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic. These are the same folks that designed a plane to fly around the world non-stop and an airline owner. Think about the long term possibilites of their success. Perhaps a 2 hour flight from New York to Sydney?
Scaled has designed something that can be reused reasonably fast and lands on a runway. They are going for a niche earth to earth transport, while others are looking for commercialized space transport.
Older than I just was ,and younger than I will soo be.
nomadd22 From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 1561 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 7019 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 1): I don't understand your excitement about something like SS2 that is a technological and practical dead end that will never progress beyond a ballistic suborbital joyride, while being so dismissive of Falcon-9/Dragon which can actually put real payloads into actual orbit, with a clear path to putting actual humans in orbit.
I don't understand people's need to pollute a technical thread with their whining about other people's interests. But, that's life.
jollo From Italy, joined Aug 2011, 178 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 7004 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 1): I don't understand your excitement about something like SS2 that is a technological and practical dead end
I don't know about that: SS2 + Stratolaunch could contain the technological seeds to a viable passenger suborbital transport service... and *that* would be something to be excited about.
Picture something like this:
1 - a fully reusable air-launched suborbital passenger transport, with a pressurized cabin but otherwise quite unlike SS2: a main engine with ISP around 450s (SSME-like), a re-entry shield from near-orbital velocities and hypersonic glide capability (no "feather" maneuver!), total wet mass including passengers, baggage and crew around 10 t
2 - an expendable external tank packing around 55t of fuel and oxidizer, probably criogenic, as light and cheap as possibile al long as it's able to whithstand ascent stresses (not meant as the "structural backbone" of the assembly, unlike SST), max 3-5 t empty
3 - a mother ship capable of lifting to FL300 and air-dropping a 70t craft
The back-of-the envelope gives me a max speed around 7 km/s, an apogee of 1500 km and a ballistic cross-range radius of over 5000 km (and as much as 50-70% more by stretching the re-entry glide). That means you would be able to fly almost anywhere on the planet in 2-3 hours (getting a landing clearance for a supersonic glider would be tough, though), peaking at *15 times* the altitude of a SS2 ride (actually, a lot higher than LEO: talk about a breath-taking view), at a cost of at least many times a SS2 ticket (but less than a trip to ISS).
I know, that's quite a leap of imagination, and we're talking at most about a niche market for billionaires, but seeing more and more bits and pieces coming to reality one can always dream
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1986 posts, RR: 2 Reply 9, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 15 hours ago) and read 6931 times:
Quoting jollo (Reply 8): I don't know about that: SS2 + Stratolaunch could contain the technological seeds to a viable passenger suborbital transport service... and *that* would be something to be excited about.
Picture something like this:
1 - a fully reusable air-launched suborbital passenger transport, with a pressurized cabin but otherwise quite unlike SS2: a main engine with ISP around 450s (SSME-like), a re-entry shield from near-orbital velocities and hypersonic glide capability (no "feather" maneuver!), total wet mass including passengers, baggage and crew around 10 t
2 - an expendable external tank packing around 55t of fuel and oxidizer, probably criogenic, as light and cheap as possibile al long as it's able to whithstand ascent stresses (not meant as the "structural backbone" of the assembly, unlike SST), max 3-5 t empty
3 - a mother ship capable of lifting to FL300 and air-dropping a 70t craft
OK, so a completely different carrier aircraft, a completely different engine technology (BTW, LOX/LH2 is the only thing that will give you that ISP, and more than a bit of an issue for passenger flight, IMO, plus the boil-off issue will complicate things on the long slog to altitude by the carrier), a completely different reentry system (not only do I not think the SS2 shuttle-cock reentry will actually work at Mach 20, using it would also eliminate most of the final glide you're hoping for), so basically a complete different spacecraft. I don't see any of the main technologies going into SS2 as being applicable to such a design, or reasonable predecessors of applicable technologies.
IOW, if you want to go in this direction, what Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are doing with WK2/SS2 is not actual progress towards that goal.
Quoting jollo (Reply 8): The back-of-the envelope gives me a max speed around 7 km/s, an apogee of 1500 km and a ballistic cross-range radius of over 5000 km (and as much as 50-70% more by stretching the re-entry glide). That means you would be able to fly almost anywhere on the planet in 2-3 hours (getting a landing clearance for a supersonic glider would be tough, though), peaking at *15 times* the altitude of a SS2 ride (actually, a lot higher than LEO: talk about a breath-taking view), at a cost of at least many times a SS2 ticket (but less than a trip to ISS).
Didn't I post numbers just like these over in TechOps a couple of months ago?
But what the Stratolaunch is planning (again Rutan's got his fingers in there), will be using a scaled down Falcon-9 (LOX/RP-1, not LH2) as the dropped vehicle in the half-million-pound range, and should manage to put 6t into orbit. 10t suborbital should be doable, but we're still short a ship to mount on the front of that (which is going to be nothing at all like SS2). If you want that sort of sub-orbital transport, the Stratolaunch guys are on the actual track (although not very far down it).
jollo From Italy, joined Aug 2011, 178 posts, RR: 0 Reply 10, posted (11 months 3 weeks 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 6874 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 9): so basically a complete different spacecraft.
Yes, "quite unlike SS2" was probably an understatement. More to the point, I specifically wrote that an hypersonic glider cannot rely on SS2 "feathered" re-entry method (*of course* that maneuver would rip any craft apart at 7 km/s).
Quoting rwessel (Reply 9):
Didn't I post numbers just like these over in TechOps a couple of months ago?
You did better than that: you posted a tutorial and shown me (and many others) how to *run* the numbers! Teach a man how to go fishing... Thanks again for making the rocket equation work on the back of *my* envelope as well.
Actually, these are slightly revised numbers: dropping the requirement for a powered landing and a few more tons of total mass make things a lot easier.
Virgin Galactic is the first commercial enterprise to seriously work towards bringing passengers out of the atmosphere: their craft may be very different from what may one day the first commercial suborbital transport, but it's still a step in the general direction.
titanmiller From United States of America, joined May 2006, 86 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (11 months 2 weeks 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 6553 times:
Quoting jollo (Reply 8): That means you would be able to fly almost anywhere on the planet in 2-3 hours
Precisely. Any idea how far SS2 could fly horizontally? Granted, the White Knight 2 ride to 50,000' will be so slow that it would negate a lot of the benefit.
I think the point is that this is a stepping stone to "affordable" hypersonic point-to-point transportation.
ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3244 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (11 months 2 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 6543 times:
Quoting jollo (Reply 8): I don't know about that: SS2 + Stratolaunch could contain the technological seeds to a viable passenger suborbital transport service... and *that* would be something to be excited about.
What you need for a long range sub orbital transport service is an orbital craft on a near orbital trajectory. SS2 won't cut it, it's designed to fall, as in nearly straight down, back thru the atmosphere - not glide thru it at near orbital velocities.
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MigPilot From Germany, joined Nov 2005, 16 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (11 months 2 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 6528 times:
I couldn't care less about SS2, nothing useful will ever come of this. It only serves the vanity of a few astronaut wannabes with too much money at their hands. Oh look I was in space, right!
I have much more respect for what SpaceX is doing. SS2 will never make it to suborbital flight - let alone into actual space.
For clarity: no one ever said SS2 will eventually become a suborbital transport: as many underlined, it's designed to have no cross-range capability at all, to keep speed down (because it has no thermal shield worth of the name). So ok, SS2 is a mere joyride, unworthy of your consideration (but, if I had that kind of money to throw at a stunt, you bet I'd book a ride tomorrow).
Still, they are a private enterprise gearing up to fly civilian passengers out of the atmosphere (well, most of it), and that's a capability anyone designing a suborbital trasport will have to match (while adding many more that SS2 lacks by design). Even if that craft will *never* move beyond mere entertainement equipment, it's still a first. That's no mean feat: if you think it's easy to do something no one ever did before, I urge you to try.
ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3244 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (11 months 2 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 6495 times:
Quoting jollo (Reply 16): That's no mean feat: if you think it's easy to do something no one ever did before, I urge you to try.
X-15 did the quick ride to space trick in the 60's
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GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12701 posts, RR: 80 Reply 18, posted (11 months 2 weeks 6 days 9 hours ago) and read 6451 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 4): One will actually accomplish something, the other is a really expensive rollercoaster. Sure it might be fun to ride the latter, but what does it have to excite anyone other than the handful of those with enough spare cash to take one for a five minute ride into space? It doesn't actually accomplish anything. Who knows, Virgin Galactic may actually make money with this thing, but that's no more exciting for real life than the new amusement park in town making money.
I agree, sure if there was ever a free ticket and I somehow had a chance, I'd go.
But there won't be. How could there be if this venture has any chance of paying it's way?
Of course you have to respect the work that Rutan and his team did in a pure technical sense.
But I find it hard to see any application beyond very rich celebs doing a watered down version of what Alan Shepard did in 1961. But that of course was an - including his personally - early stepping stone that ultimately led to the Moon.
Agreed also that anything beyond this current application would require entirely new vehicles - which is only likely if SS2 is a phenomenal success, with multiple sites doing very brisk business, day in, day out, for a long time.
But the prices and customer base are not likely to allow that.
I sort of get why some see SS2 as more innovative than what at first looks like, with SpaceX, just another conventional rocket. SS2 is a new concept compared to that.
But that, IMHO, is a misunderstanding of what is meant by commercially driven spaceflight.
For me, spaceflight is getting into orbit.
Branson is good at marketing, he's more a modern P.T. Barnum showman than a true player in commercial spaceflight however.
'Spaceship Two' is more of a marketing based name than one that actually describes what it is. Though I guess that Very Brief Suborbital Craft does not quite have the same ring to it.
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1986 posts, RR: 2 Reply 19, posted (11 months 2 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 6337 times:
Quoting GDB (Reply 18): For me, spaceflight is getting into orbit.
Quoting ZANL188 (Reply 17): X-15 did the quick ride to space trick in the 60's
And they did it more or less accidentally - this was never a goal, just a byproduct of some of the flight profiles chosen for their high-altitude/high-speed research.
StudeDave From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 392 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (4 months 3 weeks 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 2998 times:
Quoting zanl188 (Reply 20): 2013 is shaping up to be a big year for Scaled & Virgin Galactic.
VERY BIG indeed.
Several days ago I learned that a friend of my brothers works on this project.
Being as they hadn't seen each other in quite sometime it was hard to ask much,
but he did say much is happening, and it's all forward progress...
I plan to try and keep in touch with him and get updates.
I wanna see this thing fly. In person!!!
Classic planes, Classic trains, and Studebakers~~ what else is there???
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