Another 100 space tourists buy a ride from Virgin Galactic: $25k of that ticket deposit is 'non-refundable' Rocket plane company Virgin Galactic is boasting that it has sold an additional 100 seats since sales kicked off again in September. While the new price per trip is a beefy $450,000, the deposit is $150,000 – of which $25,000 is non-refundable. "Like hot cakes" is not a metaphor that springs to mind. The extra sales in …
I am slightly amazed that "CEO Michael Colglazier told analysts that next time Virgin Galactic would keep the FAA informed ".
Surely that is step 1 in flight planning these jaunts?
Let's hope the Agile/disruptive mantra "Move quickly and break things" doesn't apply literally to space tourism
The whole FAA thing was spun into something much bigger than it really was by the Reg. It was a minor error caused by a minor oversight in planning, that is fixed by a minor change in procedures.
There's a huge difference between making a mistake that directly compromises safety, and making a mistake that compromises a small part of the processes designed to ensure safety. This was very definitely the latter.
It was in no way overblown by ElReg or anyone else.
The FAA clears the airspace for rocket launches and landings (for everyone, not just VG) for the safety of normal airline traffic. VG strayed from the cleared airspace during descent. The fact that it didn't hit anything was not a reason not to tell the FAA.
As a result of the investigation, besides requiring VG to communicate better, the FAA was forced to expand the protected airspace for future flights due to VG's inability to stay on course.
"It was in no way overblown by ElReg or anyone else"
The FAA says it was.
"VG strayed from the cleared airspace during descent"
Nope. Simply not true.
"The fact that it didn't hit anything was not a reason not to tell the FAA."
There's no suggestion anything was concealed. You appear to have imagined some completely different incident.
I think the bigger reason we have to pay more tax is because we're unable as a nation to spend money sensibly or on things that are worthwhile because we're too busy pursuing hugely expensive vanity projects to try and remember the days when we were a global superpower, so we need to recapture it by leveraging our global Britain aspirations to turbocharge our levelled up synergistic relationships between public and private sector to realise our aspirational next generation gamechanging enterprise to build back better.
The income is fine as is, it's the expenditure that's the issue.
If last year I made £150k, but this year I only made £20k, then I don't go out and finance a Bugatti.
You don't need to earn that much to be in the top 1%. Somewhere around £150k this year. About 5% of us will manage that at some point (income varies annually). I managed it first in my early 30s. In about 5 of the last 20 years too - I have a very variable income.
These spaceflights are for the top 1% of the top 1% - a whole different sphere to operate in.
£150k? Whut? £50k a year puts you in the top 1% by income. Almost everyone in the UK is in the top 2.5% globally, by income.
Conspiracy theories are based on pseudo-facts like the ones you're pushing. But they're total nonsense, like your 'facts'.
"The 1%ers" is a moveable target, depending on the persons stating it, their agenda and the context. It might mean people in a specific country, region or the whole world, wage earners only, adults only, working age only or all people, amongst other definitions, which vastly changes who they are.
Really? According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (admittedly from a 2019 report):
To be in the top 1% of income tax payers in the UK (i.e. to be among the 310,000 individuals with the highest income), a taxable income of at least £160,000 is required. £236,000 is required to be in the top 0.5% and nearly £650,000 to be in the top 0.1%. 43% of adults pay no income tax and to be in the top 1% of all adults (or the top 540,000 people), a pre-tax income of at least £120,000 is required.
Is there an actual commercial use case for this?
Leisure and tourism, and the entertainment industry are as commercial as it gets. Are you suggesting that Disneyworld isn't a commercial enterprise?
Having said that, the article states that the next flight, Unity 23, for the Italian Air Force is a research mission.
"Is there an actual commercial use case for this?"
Yes, very much so. Not the 'space tourism', of course. That is just a way of making some money during the development of the real system.
People (mostly) don't seem to have clocked that the payload - the tourist capsule - is sufficiently heavy that it could be replaced with a small orbital vehicle (and the required thrusters). The total launch cost to orbit is significantly lower than rocket-from-the-ground systems.
While the Musky one has rockets that can get into orbit, it's the same old system used for a century - take off from ground level carrying all your fuel and oxidiser. Virgin are doing something new, using air-breathing jet engines to add height and (crucially) speed to a payload.
Whether this can be successfully scaled-up and made to work is still arguable. But it's definitely an ambitious attempt to move launches to new tech, and capture a large slice of the sat-launch market, rather than a plaything for rich people.
Haven't followed the Bearded Ones "efforts" so much
Does this air-launched vehicle have any path to actually being orbital?
There is a big difference between boosting a rocket cockpit to 80km before dropping back and doing 10km/s sideways to actually orbit
> Virgin are doing something new, using air-breathing jet engines to add height and (crucially) speed to a payload.
Pegasus have been doing it for 25+ years.
It adds very little speed and none of it vertical
It adds 40,000ft, out of 100km, height - not enough to allow you to optomise engine nozzles for vacuum
It's main advantage is that you can launch from regions like LA, where they wouldn't let you set off a rocket, and you can get above local weather to some extent.
while the waste like this is glorified as yet another achievement of technology/human race. I guess different standards are applied to those with boatload of $ and those that can barely afford a beater car (and may soon be forced to walk everywhere once their PoS vehicle is considered outside of compliance with some arbitrarily stringent policies applicable only to unwashed masses).
For my $450,000 I'd expect a waiting area that looks a little less like the kind of booth an SME might book at the last minute at a Midlands industrial products expo.
"Hello, Taylor Group? Yeah, we've booked a 3m x 3m floorspace and want a meeting area and somewhere to store our product brochures, and we have a budget of £150 for the whole thing. Do you have some formica furniture left over from Surgical Appliance World 2019 that we could re-use?"
Yes I know that practical uses are lacking. (Virgin's orbital company have switched to a very different system.)
Yes, I know it's terribly wasteful and polluting.
Yes, it's not even meeting the international standard for what counts as reaching space.
Fact is, if I had access to $450,000 I'd be in the queue in a heartbeat. Hopping around excitedly like an eight year old at Disney World. Even if it left me penniless, even with a significant risk of coming home in a box. Or several boxes.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
