Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo (SS2) Flights

[toyinattic]

And to think this is fake. I can't wait to go on a trip!!!!!!!!

[deltauniformbravo]

FYI, Tom Cruise has property on the moon. If anything goes array, he at least has a contigency!

[ZOMIBErevolution]

to bad i seen a real space ship that makes this look stupid.

[AugustLoye]

Bravo!

[rchadda]

who made the music for this ?

[MithraisAugustus]

I wonder when they'll start offering EVA's. Not to mention start thinking of building a space station built strictly for tourism.

[Del1720]

How about the problem in space that makes you lose bone cells? Were they able to solve that?

[LouSaydus]

@Del1720 It's called not having gravity, and yes they can solve it. All they have to do is build a large centrifuge for the living quarters of any crew memebers.

[jaspa0tha0ghost]

i dunno what u guys are on about, but this has already been done! by spaceship one!! so it must be safe, and it definately works.

[FlightCrewWannaBe]

Fantastic, is this actually getting built? It looks to complicated for it to be safe lol

[Yu99Ea]

Amazing,a beauty!!She will tranfomer to interplanetary ship within 20 years.

[POTVIN121]

woops what happens if they go to high and get stuck r they totaly fucked what happens if they lave a small part in the run way the little ball pont pen front wheel will snap off i think in 10 years we will have the tec but not yeat i think the ad is a little premature

[nasdrasil]

I dont think there is such a thing as getting too high. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you get too high you'll just fall back to earth in this case because the velocity is only aimed "upward" and away from gravity. To get "stuck" (or in other words, to get in orbit) I think you also need a velocity parallel to the surface of the earth.

Besides, this ad is not premature because spaceshipone already flew this way.

[socceromar]

thats amazing

[wentwirth]

Science fiction - I love it, but this thing simply does not have enough fuel for the sort of push shown beginning at 2:10

[MuziqIsLife36]

what excatly would make you say that??

[wentwirth]

Have a look at any rocket - the payload is that little capsule sitting atop the massive boosters. There is no fuel capable of fitting inside the vehicle shown and safely providing the boost in this fanciful animation - hope Branson didn't pay too much. Advertising, I suppose.

[MuziqIsLife36]

Well if u payed attention to this fanciful animation you would see the high altitude plane that virgins new ship is hanging off. that plane brings the new ship to a high enough altitude then they do a low burn and detach from the plane thats y there able to open this to the public in the 1st place

[wentwirth]

Sorry - won't work. Might as well be Walt Disney Productions. LEO is at least 200 miles and even high altitude jets cannot exceed 20 miles - 16 miles to be more accurate, or around 85 000' It takes an unbelievable amount of energy to achieve even LEO and this cartoon doesn't have it. You can achieve a weightless effect by diving a plane faster than the objects inside, but that's another game entirely.

[MuziqIsLife36]

o i didnt know that but they must have figured some way to do it since there test flights are suppose to begin in the end of this year

[chronose]

Nobody said this thing was going to achieve LEO. Spaceship Two is a sub-orbital spacecraft reaching a height of around 100km (the generally accepted edge of space), with an extremely steep trajectory.  This is much easier to achieve. It also has relatively low fuel requirements due to the two-stage launch (from about 14km, btw), small payload, and lightweight composite construction. Even ignoring all that, Spaceship One accomplished a similar feat not too long ago. It was in all the papers!

[hara001]

Dude, they already achieved all your saying with spaceshipone. Could we please stop arguing that what has already been done can't be done.

[MoonTrot101]

So where's SS1?

[stepbackfool]

hanging in the smithsonian.

[prestwoodstudios]

Well I've got a spare £100,000 so I think I'll book myself a flight right now

[enogael]

You have time. I read there are already 400.000 people on the waiting list.

[shmenge71]

I'm pretty sure not everyone will be allowed to go up there. I'm assuming that you will have to pass some kind of physical examination before they let you on. It's all about liability. If I were to weigh 350 would i have to spend $400,000 cause 2 seats would be needed. LOL.

[cwilkinson099]

Richard Branson is the Juan Trippe of the 21st Century.

[Triple7F]

fine detection!. :)

[jhftang]

Brilliant! I strongly believe that by SS4...we should be able to find a way to get to orbit.

NASA can work on the big Moon/Mars stuff while the civilian takes care of the earth-side.

I hope its not a pipe-dream...

[SS2flight]

Virgin are looking at the options for a SS3, which for commercial reasons is likely to be a much larger version of SS2 and will provide point-to-point travel. Rumours were that SS4 is on the drawing board too and will be able to fly in orbit, space hotels etc...

[aremisasling]

A year or so ago I heard that SS3 would be potentially orbital. Had I misheard, or did that change?

Also, there's talk all over the place in the blogosphere of WK2's potential to launch a small tsto rocket, achieving orbital on what they have now. It all depends on the payload capacity which has not been clarified. I presume WK3 will be able to lift more than WK2, surpassing that mark by a long shot. So with or without SS4 we may see a Scaled orbital offering.

[aremisasling]

The technology isn't a pipe dream. The question is, is the market ready for it. SS4 is a long way off. Scaled and VG are really focusing on suborbit at the moment and for some time to come. If I were you, I'd be keeping an eye on SpaceX, SpaceDev, Kistler (down, but not out), and the dozen or so other names putting rockets on the pad. SpaceX is supposed to demonstrate their Dragon by late '08 or early '09. It may not be man-rated at that point, but I suspect it will be shortly after.