Re: Its really not a race
Neither New Shepard nor VSS Unity are 'models'. They're trying things differently, just like Virgin Orbit is trying things differently to Orbital Sciences (Orbital ATK, now part of Northrop Grumman) who took the US Air Force and NASA's idea of launching vehicles off a flying platform and customised a Lockheed Tri-Star (the Stargazer) for that.
Add the late Paul Allen's StratoLaunch who built a similar monster to the White Knight of Virgin Galactic, but much bigger. It's nicknamed the Roc, and it made its second flight recently.
So yes, the space business is a playground for a variety of folks. You can either:
- Pay ULA, NASA, Arianespace or Roskosmos (or maybe the Chinese or Japanese) for the classic big ass big-beef rockets to get stuff into orbit or beyond.
- Pay SpaceX or Rocketlab to punt dinkier things into LEO using the same kind of 'stand it up and set its arse on fire' kind as the above, and pay less if you use something that's flown before. Yay for recycling!
- Pay Virgin Orbit to fly Cosmic Girl up to 47,000 feet and launch LauncherOne with your package on it into sun-synchronous orbit.
- Pay Stratolaunch, when they eventually launch a business, to do the same as Virgin Orbit but with a bit more oomph.
- Pay Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin to put *you* in orbit
- Pay Roskosmos to put you on the ISS.
The range is wide and varied - All are different applications for different purposes... I have no beef with any of them trying stuff. The more, the merrier... and may it help drive technology and the space 'race' forward.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
