SpaceShip Two! Virgin Atlantic...

[amicus]

Branson and Rutan Form
“The Spaceship Company”

To Jointly Manufacture and Market Spaceships for the new
Sub-Orbital Personal Spaceflight Industry

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 27th July 2005:

Today, Sir Richard Branson (Founder, Virgin Group of Companies) and Burt Rutan (President, Scaled Composites) announced their signing of an agreement to form a new aerospace production company to build a fleet of commercial sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft. The new company will own the designs of the new SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and White Knight Two (WK2) launch systems that are now in development at Scaled Composites. The SS2/WK2 system will use the ‘Care-free reentry’ and the ‘cantilevered-hybrid’ rocket motor technology developed for the Ansari X prize-winning SpaceShipOne (SS1), and will license that technology from Paul Allen’s Mojave Aerospace company. The Spaceship Company will manufacture the new launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment and market them to spaceline operators, including the launch customer, Virgin Galactic.


http://www.virgingalactic.com/en/press/Oshkosh Press Release.doc


When Spaceship One flew, I requested to be placed on a mailing list for press release information, this came today.

Amicus…

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Russia offers $100-million lunar tour.

26/ 07/ 2005

MOSCOW, July 26 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian space-shuttle maker Energia has submitted a proposal for would-be space tourists to the Federal Space Agency Roskosmos to charter a flight to the moon, the daily newspaper Izvestia reported.

Spacecraft have already been selected, a flight route worked out and a business plan compiled. All that is left to do is find someone wanting to take a 2-week trip to the Moon for $100 million.

The game tourist will spend the first seven days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). After that, a Soyuz TMA spacecraft will carry a mission commander and the tourist for a flyby of the Moon, subsequently returning to the Earth. It will take 18 months or two years to manufacture all the required equipment and to implement the project as soon as the money is received . . . .

Isn't the Free Market a BLAST!

 

[amicus]

Oshkosh and Moscow...telling...


When Pullman cars on the Railroads, and commercial air service began, only the wealthy could ride.

You really should do a small study of just how a free market functions.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

The largest spaceship operating today transports approximately 6,446,131,400 passengers and crew.

Save our spaceship, why transfer to a competitor?




Spaceship Earth​

 

[amicus]

Sounds like a gal who wishes she still lived in a cave and got dragged around by the hair from time to time.

And we gave you the right to vote? Oh, me, oh my...


chuckles...

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Until they admit that they don’t know what they are doing and give up the remote control, men will continue to make embarrassing public guesses at their misunderstandings about woman.

Excerpt from The Primitive Psychology of Alfred Kinsey by J. D. Perry, PhD

Thus it was Kinsey, and not Freud, who was responsible for the Vaginal versus Clitoral debate. Freud, as we have shown, believed that orgasm could be stimulated by BOTH vaginal AND clitoral stimulation. (He just thought one was immature and/or immoral.) This unitary focus assumption was the basis for Kinsey's gynecological "vote" in Table 174.

In other words, what Kinsey proposed to do was to define the sensitivity argument in such a way that there could only be ONE answer when previously there had been two. Then he proposed research aimed at finding the best ONE answer to the question of the locus of maximal sensitivity in the human female.

 

[Liar]

The largest spaceship operating today transports approximately 6,446,131,400 passengers and crew.

Save our spaceship, why transfer to a competitor?




Spaceship Earth​

What crew?

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

What crew?

GreenPeace Rainforest Action Net Center for Disease Control & Prevention to name just a few of the janitorial crew.

 

[SeaCat]

Branson and Rutan Form
“The Spaceship Company”

To Jointly Manufacture and Market Spaceships for the new
Sub-Orbital Personal Spaceflight Industry

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 27th July 2005:

Today, Sir Richard Branson (Founder, Virgin Group of Companies) and Burt Rutan (President, Scaled Composites) announced their signing of an agreement to form a new aerospace production company to build a fleet of commercial sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft. The new company will own the designs of the new SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and White Knight Two (WK2) launch systems that are now in development at Scaled Composites. The SS2/WK2 system will use the ‘Care-free reentry’ and the ‘cantilevered-hybrid’ rocket motor technology developed for the Ansari X prize-winning SpaceShipOne (SS1), and will license that technology from Paul Allen’s Mojave Aerospace company. The Spaceship Company will manufacture the new launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment and market them to spaceline operators, including the launch customer, Virgin Galactic.


http://www.virgingalactic.com/en/press/Oshkosh Press Release.doc


When Spaceship One flew, I requested to be placed on a mailing list for press release information, this came today.

Amicus…

Hmmmm, I couldn't open the link for some reason so some of my questions may be answered in the article. This does sound like an interesting venture and I'll be watching to see how it developes. I am wondering though if this, being a private enterprise venture, will require and/or receive government funding. Also what regulations are in place governing the private/civilian space flight and who will administer this? The F.A.A. or maybe the D.O.T.?

Another question I have about this is; what kind of flights will these be? Orbital? Suborbital? If orbital who will help them if they run into problems? The unfinished space station? Or will they build their own space station? Will these flights be passanger flights or cargo? Oh yes I have a lot of questions about this because it intrigues me. Like I said I will be watching with great interest to see how this developes.

Cat

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . Another question I have about this is; what kind of flights will these be? Orbital? Suborbital?. . .

Oh, yes!

Will they offer affordable insurance against Post Orbital Remorse? What about Post Suborbital Remorse — and is there such a complex?

 

[SeaCat]

Oh, yes!

Will they offer affordable insurance against Post Orbital Remorse? What about Post Suborbital Remorse — and is there such a complex?

Hey a something new the insurance companies can make it mandatory we buy plans for. Then they can raise their rates every couple of months without doing a damned thing to help out. Oh and another plan they can foist on homeowners. Space Debris coverage, that way your protected in case something comes sailing out of orbit and nails your house or car. I think I'll have to mention this to my neighborhood deduction boy when I see him next.

Cat

 

[Weird Harold]

I am wondering though if this, being a private enterprise venture, will require and/or receive government funding. Also what regulations are in place governing the private/civilian space flight and who will administer this? The F.A.A. or maybe the D.O.T.?

As far as I know, this is a strictly privately funded enterprise that neither needs nor wants governemnt funding. Since the incorporation was done in the US and as far as I know, the initial commercial flights will originate and land in the mojave desert, the FAA would be the logical regulatory agency. However, if the busines succeeds and future flights originate and land outsideof the US, the Interntional space Agency is the logical arbitor for confliscting regulations and certifications.

Another question I have about this is; what kind of flights will these be? Orbital? Suborbital? If orbital who will help them if they run into problems? The unfinished space station? Or will they build their own space station? Will these flights be passanger flights or cargo?

When the original proposal for Vrigin Galactic was announced, just after SS1 claimed the X-Prize, the proposal was only for sub-orbital passenger service.

Bert Rhutan has mentioned some plans for an orbital, cargo carrying developments from the SS1 technology that could be contracted to the ISA and Space Station and some ideas for simple, inexpensive (inflatable) orbital factories and habitats, but the Virgin Galactic company isn't directly related to those plans (just a way of making money to fund them.)

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . Space Debris coverage . . .

Just in case Space Debris does land in your quadrant, you won't want to forget the auxiliary Space Rabies coverage.

 

[SeaCat]

As far as I know, this is a strictly privately funded enterprise that neither needs nor wants governemnt funding. Since the incorporation was done in the US and as far as I know, the initial commercial flights will originate and land in the mojave desert, the FAA would be the logical regulatory agency. However, if the busines succeeds and future flights originate and land outsideof the US, the Interntional space Agency is the logical arbitor for confliscting regulations and certifications.



When the original proposal for Vrigin Galactic was announced, just after SS1 claimed the X-Prize, the proposal was only for sub-orbital passenger service.

Bert Rhutan has mentioned some plans for an orbital, cargo carrying developments from the SS1 technology that could be contracted to the ISA and Space Station and some ideas for simple, inexpensive (inflatable) orbital factories and habitats, but the Virgin Galactic company isn't directly related to those plans (just a way of making money to fund them.)

Thanks Harold,

Again this should be interesting to watch if for nothing else than to see what happens. I am amazed that there hasn't been a lot more information put out about this. You would think it would have been well publiscised(sp) but so far there has been nothing said about it around here.

Would this be something other private industry would be interested in? What is the financial feasability of these suborbital flights and/or the orbital factories and habitats? It make for interesting thoughts and questions, I just wonder at what the answers will be.

Cat

 

[The_Darkness]

Oshkosh and Moscow...telling...


When Pullman cars on the Railroads, and commercial air service began, only the wealthy could ride.

You really should do a small study of just how a free market functions.

Yes, but here we are 3/4's of a century later and now we can fly from one major city to another for less than a week's pay (well, most of us anyway...) Commercial flight won't affect most of us, but it may in future generations. You know, on that long commute to the Moon every morning.

 

[Weird Harold]

Again this should be interesting to watch if for nothing else than to see what happens. I am amazed that there hasn't been a lot more information put out about this. You would think it would have been well publiscised(sp) but so far there has been nothing said about it around here.

The information is out there, but it gets buried in politics and gore -- it's not a story that "bleeds" so it doesn't generate ratings for the "front pages".

Would this be something other private industry would be interested in? What is the financial feasability of these suborbital flights and/or the orbital factories and habitats? It make for interesting thoughts and questions, I just wonder at what the answers will be.

The sub-orbital flights appear to be a viable economic proposition -- for rich people. Eventully, they might develop enough hardware to disperse operations around the world and provide a high-end, Concorde-like passenger service for trans-oceanic flights without the noise polution problems that so limited Concorde destinations.

The orbital flights and inflatable space stations are something that some private industries should be interested in and should be able to easily afford to rent space in once they're established -- it's getting the funds to establish and prove them that is the stumbling block. Virgin Galactic is in part a way to fund the establishment and proving of other private venture space operations.

Judging by the announced development and operations cost of the X-prize winning SS1 system, as compared to the US's Mercury Project, similar systems should be able to launch satelites and provide orbital space facilities for about 1% to 5% of what NASA or the Russian Space Agency are spending with comparable or better safety provisions and reliability.