Virgin Galactic - First full crew space flight with Branson on-board

[Bregor]

The exact point at which the atmosphere ends is impossible to define. The best you can do is look at whether an object in orbit experiences significant drag. By this definition 80 km is a good measure, and both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin meet it.

 

[TAJ]

The exact point at which the atmosphere ends is impossible to define. The best you can do is look at whether an object in orbit experiences significant drag. By this definition 80 km is a good measure, and both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin meet it.

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I'm not trying to knock 80km. If anything it's silly to recognize 100km but dismiss 80km.

 

[Deleted member 14568]

I'm not trying to knock 80km. If anything it's silly to recognize 100km but dismiss 80km.

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even karman original line was at 84km before it was rounded up to 100km by the FAI

 

[Terrell]

The only option for humanity longer term is to move to space eventually. We're going to run out of resources here and eventually we or something will kill the earth. To ensure our species survival we have to escape the grips of earth's gravity somehow.

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"We". Private enterprise will ensure that the only surviving and free members of the species are (predominately white) billionaire industrialists and/or their children, replete with their psychopathic behaviour patterns. If you think that these people will want to extend the courtesy of survival to the plebs without making them their permanently-indentured servants, I have some bad news for you.
And really, if that is the world that survives, where we see technological achievement but social regression back to a new feudalism led by the psychopathic rich, I can hardly see what in that is worthy of preservation.

also, the people destroying the world now are not going to be alive in a hundred years.

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Their trust fund children will be, with all the wealth of the world destroyers at their fingertips. You think they'll be more benevolent? Didn't turn out that way with the Waltons.

 

[jetpacks was yes]

Their trust fund children will be, with all the wealth of the world destroyers at their fingertips. You think they'll be more benevolent? Didn't turn out that way with the Waltons.

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So all of humanity should die because of them? Makes sense.

 

[Terrell]

So all of humanity should die because of them? Makes sense.

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Who said anything about "should"? No, humanity shouldn't die out. But if the rich are the only part of humanity that survived long-term, I don't see why anyone would be interested in species preservation when it's not for the self or for the collective good aspects of humanity, but for them, the families who likely destroyed it for every other member of the species with their selfish clawing and clutching for influence.

Species preservation purely for the sake of it when it's not preserving our best natures and involves a massive societal regression doesn't make any sense to me. You're basically saying that we need to put our foot forward into space, and whether it's the best or the worst foot forward doesn't matter in the slightest. I highly disagree. I wouldn't want to beset the same plague that kills most of us off onto any potentially-discovered alien civilizations.

 

[jetpacks was yes]

Who said anything about "should"? No, humanity shouldn't die out. But if the rich are the only part of humanity that survived long-term, I don't see why anyone would be interested in species preservation when it's not for the self or for the collective good aspects of humanity, but for them, the families who likely destroyed it for every other member of the species with their selfish clawing and clutching for influence.

Species preservation purely for the sake of it when it's not preserving our best natures and involves a massive societal regression doesn't make any sense to me. You're basically saying that we need to put our foot forward into space, and whether it's the best or the worst foot forward doesn't matter in the slightest. I highly disagree. I wouldn't want to beset the same plague that kills most of us off onto any potentially-discovered alien civilizations.

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Oh, I definitely don't want rich folk to carry on the human race if everyone else dies. I thought you were saying in general, humanity doesn't deserve to keep on living if we have to flee earth after destroying it.

 

[Kelsdesu]

Why is Branson the only one infront of the cameras? What about the other three?

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Because it's HIS goddamn moment 😂

 

[Terrell]

Oh, I definitely don't want rich folk to carry on the human race if everyone else dies. I thought you were saying in general, humanity doesn't deserve to keep on living if we have to flee earth after destroying it.

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Yeah, good, we're in agreement. I'm just incredibly pessimistic based on who's involved in commercial space flight and think that we'd not be the ones permitted the option to flee the earth, or that the only way that would happen is a survival lottery and the re-introduction of serfdom if they aren't going to be able to live in a fully-automated space capitalist paradise.

 

[GoldenFlex]

Surprised it's actually happened/happening. It's been a childhood dream of mine to go to space, and it feels like within my lifetime it might actually happen. To think, in a few generations this might be as commonplace as hopping a flight to LAX.

 

[RLCC14]

So he didn't PARODY JOKE SATIRE in space? What a shame. Here's hoping Bezos does whenever its his turn.

 

[Gashprex]

Based on mishaps during this flight, Virgin Galactic is grounded as of today.



Its a long extremely concerning article, but basically the key parts:

The craft was about twenty miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, and climbing, travelling more than twice the speed of sound. But it was veering off course, and the light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn't fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent

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On the July 11th flight, with Branson on board, it was a trajectory problem, or what's known as the "entry glide cone." The ship uses rocket power to get into space, but glides back to Earth and lands on a runway, like the space shuttle would do. This method, mimicking water circling a drain, enables a controlled descent. But the ship must begin its descent within a specified, imaginary "cone" to have enough glide energy to reach its destination. The pilots basically weren't flying steeply enough.

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On July 11th, it had a few more seconds to go when a red light also appeared on the console: an entry glide-cone warning. This was a big deal. I once sat in on a meeting, in 2015, during which the pilots on the July 11th mission—Dave Mackay, a former Virgin Atlantic pilot and veteran of the U.K.'s Royal Air Force, and Mike Masucci, a retired Air Force pilot—and others discussed procedures for responding to an entry glide-cone warning. C. J. Sturckow, a former marine and nasa astronaut, said that a yellow light should "scare the shit out of you," because "when it turns red it's gonna be too late"; Masucci was less concerned about the yellow light but said, "Red should scare the crap out of you." Based on pilot procedures, Mackay and Masucci had basically two options: implement immediate corrective action, or abort the rocket motor. According to multiple sources in the company, the safest way to respond to the warning would have been to abort.

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Although Mackay and Masucci attempted to address their trajectory problem, it wasn't enough. And now they were accelerating to Mach 3, with a red light glowing in the cockpit. Fortunately for Branson and the three other crew members in the back, the pilots got the ship into space and landed safely. But data retrieved from Flightradar24 shows the vehicle flying outside its designated airspace. An F.A.A. spokesperson confirmed that Virgin Galactic "deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance" and that an "investigation is ongoing." A Virgin Galactic spokesperson acknowledged that the company did not initially notify the F.A.A. and that the craft flew outside its designated airspace for a minute and forty-one seconds—flights generally last about fifteen minutes—but said that the company was working with the F.A.A. to update procedures for alerting the agency.

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Stucky, a pillar of Virgin Galactic's program and a legend in the flight-test community, had issued his own warnings about protecting the integrity of the flight-test program.

...

Some of Stucky's criticisms appeared in the book I wrote about him and Virgin Galactic's rocket ship-program, "Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut." After the publication of my book, in May, Stucky was stripped of his flight duties and excluded from key planning meetings ahead of the July 11th event. He watched Branson's flight from the runway; it was the first mission for which he had no responsibilities after more than a decade on the program. Eight days after Branson's flight, an H.R. manager booked time on his calendar, and then fired Stucky over Zoom.

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The Red Warning Light on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Space Flight

The F.A.A. is investigating the ship’s off-course descent.

www.newyorker.com

Please note that this very program killed people in the past.

 

[Mobius 1]

Very concerning. That highly trained and skilled pilots ignored a critical master safety alert poses a number of worrying questions.

 

[SinkFla]

Based on mishaps during this flight, Virgin Galactic is grounded as of today.



Its a long extremely concerning article, but basically the key parts:

The Red Warning Light on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Space Flight

The F.A.A. is investigating the ship’s off-course descent.

www.newyorker.com

Please note that this very program killed people in the past.

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I'm glad you shared the article. I came to do the same haha.

 

[Bregor]

A rocket which deviates outside of it's designated flight corridor has it's flight termination system activated. Obviously, that's not possible with passengers on board.

Edit: The Virgin Galactic craft has always been very unusual compared to other modern spacecraft in that it has humans piloting it. All others these days (and basically since the beginning of the space age, to be honest) are computer controlled.

 

[Deleted member 14568]

Based on mishaps during this flight, Virgin Galactic is grounded as of today.



Its a long extremely concerning article, but basically the key parts:

The Red Warning Light on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Space Flight

The F.A.A. is investigating the ship’s off-course descent.

www.newyorker.com

Please note that this very program killed people in the past.

Click to shrink...

update

 

[Bregor]

This incident may be resolved, but when you put it together with other problems Virgin Galactic has had it doesn't make one feel good about the safety culture at the company.