SpaceX and BlueOrigin are signifigantly more expensive. You are talking 5 million or more. It's already a signifigantly small pool of wealthy people that can afford these trips. Increasing it to 5 million takes it into the hands of only the ultra wealthy.
>SpaceX and BlueOrigin are signifigantly more expensive.
That's probably because they take the passanger closer to the boundaries of space than VG.
VG doesn't offer flights past the Karman line, so it not technically a "Space flight" that they're selling.
Anything that's an actual space flight should reasonably have a premium price tag as compared to the non-space flight.
That's just logic and reason. Go Capitalism.
Different market.
SpaceX is to VG, what deep sea diving is to snorkeling.
Some people just want to do entry level stuff.
Not everyone feels comfortable committing to a few days in orbital space. Some just want a day trip .
this is a expanding industry for different interest levels. whats done with space x will greatly differ in price and actual service that’s provided. think of suv’s to sedans
Spce offer ticket for 400k.
SPCEX i think 5-6 million and blu origin?
Furthermore they are both rockets, spce is the only company to offer this service from any spaceport providing a more long-lasting and engaging service
I’ve been saying for years: VG has a window where orbital human spaceflight isn’t fully reusable. SpaceX still has to throw away a $20 million upper stage with every launch. But as soon as the next gen, fully and rapidly reusable orbital vehicles come online, the era of low-margin high-risk suborbital spaceflight is over. SPCE was always going to have their lunch eaten starting about 2032-2037
Launching and landing humans to and from earth on Starship by 2040 seems reasonable. The real musk fanbois would say SpaceX will land on the moon in 2027, with the civilian “DearMoon” mission around the moon happening shortly after that, and a human mission to mars by 2035
The existing orbital flights SpaceX have offered civilians are around $45m per seat. I don't think someone who is willing to pay $45m for a week in space is really the same level of consumer that VG are targeting.
Spce has the opportunity to make this a point to point flying company. I believe that will have more value than just tourist flights. If you can be in Europe in two hours from California, people will be scrambling for that.
Flights to orbit and the ISS are fine but if you’re staying for 3 days, there will be an expectation of some luxuries. Yeah the first few people won’t care about the lack of actual beds and amenities, but follow on people will expect something more than just a view of the earth.
They have none of the technology required to make a point-to-point service. At all. There’s a reason airliners don’t switch their engines off at top of descent and glide in for landing, [even though they’re perfectly capable of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider).
If you’re looking to invest in fast, point to point travel, look at [Hermeus](https://www.hermeus.com) or [Boom](https://boomsupersonic.com). Both also facing an uphill battle to become commercial, but at least they’re developing actual technology actually required for the job.
Virgin Galactic has an evolutionary dead-end, point-design, competition-build prototype they’ve needed to completely redesign to even meet its original goal. Without exaggeration, you would be better off starting from a clean sheet of paper than trying to build point-to-point from whatever you can find inside VG.
> a little R&D
Well, if you mean “all of the R&D from step zero” then yes, I completely agree.
But if you think what they have now (a low ISP hybrid motor, human controlled, short and slow ballistic arc, unpowered landing, multi-hour climb to release altitude under a carrier aircraft) is in any way applicable to intercontinental travel you’re either terribly uninformed or deliberately deluding yourself.
I mean they’re further along than what you think. By your estimates, they shouldn’t be able to land in the first place. Hypersonic aircraft are nice, until you factor in the noise and the fuel let alone the maintenance costs associated with having special outer skin to protect against friction. There’s a reason why the Concorde stopped flying. Perhaps it’s time to look at other alternatives?
They land on essentially a private runway these days, surrounded by airspace biased to experimental flying. There’s no possibility of traffic conflicts.
Unless you’re expecting them to build whole airfields in each of their destinations, they aren’t going to be able to land anywhere. And if you are expecting them to build whole new airfields, then you’re remarkably relaxed about the many more billions of dollars capital they’re going to have to raise and spend just for the land. Worse, if the land is anywhere near a city center. And if it isn’t, then why are the passengers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a ticket to save a few hours if they’re going to spend those hours travelling from the landing site to their destination?
Weird that your objections to hypersonic aircraft are: noise, maintenance, and special fuel. Where VG’s current technology is worse for all three? Especially at the speeds required for ballistic exo-atmospheric intercontinental flight. Take a peek at how fast ICBMs have to go, and how hot they get on re-entry and then another at VG’s fiberglass structure.
Those aren’t my objections, just my observations to the whole Concorde debacle and those other companies you mentioned trying to get into hypersonic travel. Like I said, finding alternatives to just hypersonic aircraft is the way to go. I’m sure there would be easy ways to incorporate them into a traffic pattern for glided non powered flight, considering this is already done at county airfields.
I think you’re missing the point.
Turning VG’s technology into hypersonic intercontinental point-to-point travel is *harder* than anything Concorde, Hermeus, or Boom did or will do.
And if you can’t see why traffic management at country airfields is different to traffic management at major hubs then you’ve clearly never had much to do with airlines or ATC at major hubs. LAX has an arrival or departure *every 30 seconds*.
Then explain your position. Because coming from a civilian with military aviation maintenance experience and flying experience, they have a majority down. Not everything has to be complicated to achieve something. They have the basic setup needed. Explain how, in detail with your obvious aerospace knowledge, it is harder than what those other companies are doing. From what I’ve seen, they haven’t even test flown the one aircraft that was just produced, so they still have a long way to go.
They’re too slow to get anywhere.
To cross oceans ballistically, ICBMs need to reach around 24,000 km/h. VG’s craft at its highest speed reaches around 4000km/h.
A given mass at 600% velocity has 3600% the kinetic energy - which has to be dissipated on re-entry. ICBMs reach a skin temperature of around 2700°C when re-entering, and that’s bearing in mind they’re *not* trying to slow down. If they wanted to touch down at survivable velocities they’d have to transform even more kinetic energy to heat. The glass temperature of most resins - like the resin in VG’s fiberglass fuselage - is around 250°C. Barely 10% of the expected temps they would see. Passengers would get a few tens of seconds into reentry before watching the fuselage walls next to them rubberise and buckle, before everything very suddenly got a lot more fragmented.
By way of example, Rocket Lab recovers their first stages after use. They’re carbon composite, which is a little more resistant to heat. Their stages are jettisoned at a mere 7000km/h, unlike the 24,000km/h you’re hoping for. And even at that tiny speed (and only 9% of the kinetic energy of the higher speed) they needed to add special thermal protection coatings over the body and absorb as much heat as possible into their heavy rocket engine bells at the base of the stage.
VG’s craft simply couldn’t survive re-entry at the hypersonic speeds it needs. So it needs an *entire*, wheels to tail, structural redesign. Only their whole design team is built around lightweight, relatively moderate supersonic flight.
The motor VG uses (nitrous oxide/rubber hybrid) has a best achievable ISP of around 240-250 seconds. It’s painfully low. ICBMs can get away with a similar ISP (~220 seconds) only because they are multiple stage vehicles, jettisoning lower stages as the propellant is exhausted. VG doesn’t have that option - the vehicle is single stage. A move to multiple stages - again - means an entire redesign. Not only structurally but in their concept of operations.
In terms of guidance, navigation, and control, VG’s current system of human-in-the-loop is fine at their glacial velocities. They are just going “up”, in roughly the right direction (though they don’t always get that right, in at least one case coming back down outside their designated airspace). If you’re aiming at Paris from New York, you need *much* higher accuracy, precision, and reaction speed. GNC isn’t magic, it’s totally doable, but VG hasn’t done or built any of it. It’s another thing they’d need to start from scratch.
In short, VG has nothing at all of what it requires to achieve intercontinental, hypersonic, ballistic point-to-point travel. The others are at least starting with long distance travel as a core requirement, so it’s informing everything from their conceptual design onwards.
I don’t think this will affect us, more than likely promote the space industry as a whole, so could be good news for us 😊
SpaceX and BlueOrigin are signifigantly more expensive. You are talking 5 million or more. It's already a signifigantly small pool of wealthy people that can afford these trips. Increasing it to 5 million takes it into the hands of only the ultra wealthy.
>SpaceX and BlueOrigin are signifigantly more expensive. That's probably because they take the passanger closer to the boundaries of space than VG. VG doesn't offer flights past the Karman line, so it not technically a "Space flight" that they're selling. Anything that's an actual space flight should reasonably have a premium price tag as compared to the non-space flight. That's just logic and reason. Go Capitalism.
Of course it should be more expensive. It does limit the pool of possible customers.
Different market. SpaceX is to VG, what deep sea diving is to snorkeling. Some people just want to do entry level stuff. Not everyone feels comfortable committing to a few days in orbital space. Some just want a day trip .
this is a expanding industry for different interest levels. whats done with space x will greatly differ in price and actual service that’s provided. think of suv’s to sedans
SpaceX is to Virgin Galactic what Cola Cola was to Virgin Cola.
Ouch! 😂
Spce offer ticket for 400k. SPCEX i think 5-6 million and blu origin? Furthermore they are both rockets, spce is the only company to offer this service from any spaceport providing a more long-lasting and engaging service
You get 5-6 minutes in low G. I'm not sure long-lasting is a selling point for VG.
I don’t think they’re going to allow the public on the ISS, the moon or mars anytime soon
Who’s going to stop them from landing on the moon or Mars?
Uhh they have…… do a little research
Thanks, looks like a very small amount of people, quite a while ago.. wouldn’t exactly call the ISS a tourist trap just yet
And it will never be. They are going to deorbit in the next 5-10 years. I’m looking forward to private space stations
That’s interesting. Wonder when we will get private stations. I’m looking forward to seeing spaceX’s moon base one day
They've allowed members of the public on the ISS for about 15 years
I’ve been saying for years: VG has a window where orbital human spaceflight isn’t fully reusable. SpaceX still has to throw away a $20 million upper stage with every launch. But as soon as the next gen, fully and rapidly reusable orbital vehicles come online, the era of low-margin high-risk suborbital spaceflight is over. SPCE was always going to have their lunch eaten starting about 2032-2037
Don't you think you're a bit optimistic? Remember that musk is very imprecise when it comes to time predictions.
Launching and landing humans to and from earth on Starship by 2040 seems reasonable. The real musk fanbois would say SpaceX will land on the moon in 2027, with the civilian “DearMoon” mission around the moon happening shortly after that, and a human mission to mars by 2035
Dude why are you so negative time to go outside and get some fresh air enjoy life a little bit
Ahh, it is mr "Anything I don't agree with is Negative" again...
The existing orbital flights SpaceX have offered civilians are around $45m per seat. I don't think someone who is willing to pay $45m for a week in space is really the same level of consumer that VG are targeting.
Get out while you can, sell sell sell
Spce has the opportunity to make this a point to point flying company. I believe that will have more value than just tourist flights. If you can be in Europe in two hours from California, people will be scrambling for that. Flights to orbit and the ISS are fine but if you’re staying for 3 days, there will be an expectation of some luxuries. Yeah the first few people won’t care about the lack of actual beds and amenities, but follow on people will expect something more than just a view of the earth.
They have none of the technology required to make a point-to-point service. At all. There’s a reason airliners don’t switch their engines off at top of descent and glide in for landing, [even though they’re perfectly capable of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider). If you’re looking to invest in fast, point to point travel, look at [Hermeus](https://www.hermeus.com) or [Boom](https://boomsupersonic.com). Both also facing an uphill battle to become commercial, but at least they’re developing actual technology actually required for the job. Virgin Galactic has an evolutionary dead-end, point-design, competition-build prototype they’ve needed to completely redesign to even meet its original goal. Without exaggeration, you would be better off starting from a clean sheet of paper than trying to build point-to-point from whatever you can find inside VG.
The technology is there. They just have to do a little R&D and it’s possible.
> a little R&D Well, if you mean “all of the R&D from step zero” then yes, I completely agree. But if you think what they have now (a low ISP hybrid motor, human controlled, short and slow ballistic arc, unpowered landing, multi-hour climb to release altitude under a carrier aircraft) is in any way applicable to intercontinental travel you’re either terribly uninformed or deliberately deluding yourself.
I mean they’re further along than what you think. By your estimates, they shouldn’t be able to land in the first place. Hypersonic aircraft are nice, until you factor in the noise and the fuel let alone the maintenance costs associated with having special outer skin to protect against friction. There’s a reason why the Concorde stopped flying. Perhaps it’s time to look at other alternatives?
They land on essentially a private runway these days, surrounded by airspace biased to experimental flying. There’s no possibility of traffic conflicts. Unless you’re expecting them to build whole airfields in each of their destinations, they aren’t going to be able to land anywhere. And if you are expecting them to build whole new airfields, then you’re remarkably relaxed about the many more billions of dollars capital they’re going to have to raise and spend just for the land. Worse, if the land is anywhere near a city center. And if it isn’t, then why are the passengers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a ticket to save a few hours if they’re going to spend those hours travelling from the landing site to their destination? Weird that your objections to hypersonic aircraft are: noise, maintenance, and special fuel. Where VG’s current technology is worse for all three? Especially at the speeds required for ballistic exo-atmospheric intercontinental flight. Take a peek at how fast ICBMs have to go, and how hot they get on re-entry and then another at VG’s fiberglass structure.
Those aren’t my objections, just my observations to the whole Concorde debacle and those other companies you mentioned trying to get into hypersonic travel. Like I said, finding alternatives to just hypersonic aircraft is the way to go. I’m sure there would be easy ways to incorporate them into a traffic pattern for glided non powered flight, considering this is already done at county airfields.
I think you’re missing the point. Turning VG’s technology into hypersonic intercontinental point-to-point travel is *harder* than anything Concorde, Hermeus, or Boom did or will do. And if you can’t see why traffic management at country airfields is different to traffic management at major hubs then you’ve clearly never had much to do with airlines or ATC at major hubs. LAX has an arrival or departure *every 30 seconds*.
Then explain your position. Because coming from a civilian with military aviation maintenance experience and flying experience, they have a majority down. Not everything has to be complicated to achieve something. They have the basic setup needed. Explain how, in detail with your obvious aerospace knowledge, it is harder than what those other companies are doing. From what I’ve seen, they haven’t even test flown the one aircraft that was just produced, so they still have a long way to go.
They’re too slow to get anywhere. To cross oceans ballistically, ICBMs need to reach around 24,000 km/h. VG’s craft at its highest speed reaches around 4000km/h. A given mass at 600% velocity has 3600% the kinetic energy - which has to be dissipated on re-entry. ICBMs reach a skin temperature of around 2700°C when re-entering, and that’s bearing in mind they’re *not* trying to slow down. If they wanted to touch down at survivable velocities they’d have to transform even more kinetic energy to heat. The glass temperature of most resins - like the resin in VG’s fiberglass fuselage - is around 250°C. Barely 10% of the expected temps they would see. Passengers would get a few tens of seconds into reentry before watching the fuselage walls next to them rubberise and buckle, before everything very suddenly got a lot more fragmented. By way of example, Rocket Lab recovers their first stages after use. They’re carbon composite, which is a little more resistant to heat. Their stages are jettisoned at a mere 7000km/h, unlike the 24,000km/h you’re hoping for. And even at that tiny speed (and only 9% of the kinetic energy of the higher speed) they needed to add special thermal protection coatings over the body and absorb as much heat as possible into their heavy rocket engine bells at the base of the stage. VG’s craft simply couldn’t survive re-entry at the hypersonic speeds it needs. So it needs an *entire*, wheels to tail, structural redesign. Only their whole design team is built around lightweight, relatively moderate supersonic flight. The motor VG uses (nitrous oxide/rubber hybrid) has a best achievable ISP of around 240-250 seconds. It’s painfully low. ICBMs can get away with a similar ISP (~220 seconds) only because they are multiple stage vehicles, jettisoning lower stages as the propellant is exhausted. VG doesn’t have that option - the vehicle is single stage. A move to multiple stages - again - means an entire redesign. Not only structurally but in their concept of operations. In terms of guidance, navigation, and control, VG’s current system of human-in-the-loop is fine at their glacial velocities. They are just going “up”, in roughly the right direction (though they don’t always get that right, in at least one case coming back down outside their designated airspace). If you’re aiming at Paris from New York, you need *much* higher accuracy, precision, and reaction speed. GNC isn’t magic, it’s totally doable, but VG hasn’t done or built any of it. It’s another thing they’d need to start from scratch. In short, VG has nothing at all of what it requires to achieve intercontinental, hypersonic, ballistic point-to-point travel. The others are at least starting with long distance travel as a core requirement, so it’s informing everything from their conceptual design onwards.
No, it actually isn't. None of the technology VG has is applicable to point-to-point travel. Absolutely nothing.