Every last flat earther is trolling so they get a free ride on Musk's or Branson's suborbitals.

Crazy... like a fox...

The booster is not orbital. It's on a ballistic, suborbital flight just as for the Blue Origin booster. The second stage goes to orbit and note that they are not trying to recover that one at all, let alone land it.

In fact, the SpaceX booster does several deceleration burns in space, and so experiences less aerodynamic stress than does the Blue Origin booster, which actually flies faster, according to the article I linked above.

I don't know that I really want this built...that's a damned powerful suborbital cannon, when (not if) it falls into the wrong hands.

At least a skyhook doesn't fire off orbital speed payloads.

>> ^Pring4:

According to the logo, this project has aspirations of sending these rails from the arctic circle to anywhere in the world. I support this.


Hate to burst your bubble, but at earth's surface escape velocity the kinetic energy of a projectile is only 32 times its weight in TNT. With suborbital flights and resistance on reentry the effect would be considerably less than that. Wind during the ascent would throw it off farther than the destruction radius unless the slug was really huge (multiple tons) or they put in some internal guidance system that can survive the biggest EMP ever.

SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital spaceplane. A space ship.

Alan Shepard, the first American in space, flew the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission, a suborbital flight, aboard the Freedom 7 capsule. A space ship.

It's a space ship.>> ^westy:

Its not a space ship.

>> ^RFlagg:

Sorry if it is bad form to build off a video like that. If so, PM me I'll trash.


Hell's no, if it ain't a dupe, it's fair game.

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Scramjets look like they will be hard to mould into an everyday working technology though;

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet

"However, scramjets have weight and complexity issues that must be considered. While very short suborbital scramjet test flights have been successfully performed, perhaps significantly no flown scramjet has ever been successfully designed to survive a flight test. The viability of scramjet vehicles is hotly contested in aerospace and space vehicle circles, in part because many of the parameters which would eventually define the efficiency of such a vehicle remain uncertain. This has led to grandiose claims from both sides, which have been intensified by the large amount of funding involved in any hypersonic testing. Some notable aerospace gurus such as Henry Spencer and Jim Oberg have gone so far as calling orbital scramjets "the hardest way to reach orbit", or even 'scamjets' due to the extreme technical challenges involved. Major, well funded projects, like the X-30 were cancelled before producing any working hardware."

Oh, and as it's long and incase some of you dont read to the end:
-----
Manned Suborbital Vehicle Development


http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26813



I thought that making a public announcement with the governor of New Mexico at the Lunar Lander Challenge about a new venture between Rocket Racing Inc, Armadillo, and the state of New Mexico while we were flying an experimental flight was a bad idea – too many things could go embarrassingly wrong. However, it turned out perfect, with the governor watching as we made the winning flight.


All the terms aren’t final, but this is a big deal. We’re going to space, sooner rather than later. Some of you can come, too.

^ I agree that the idea of a suborbital hayride is a little silly and superfluous. I also agree that if something goes wrong they will probably get dragged to court. It seems that the benefits outweigh the risks, for the things to be learned and experienced. Sailing around the world can easily get you killed, but there are so many reasons to do it, and so many that do.

I'm glad that Rutan, an American, is doing this because I fear that the country is losing it's place as a nation of clever, industrious innovators.

And this all appeals greatly to my sense of fun and adventure. Tomfoolery of the greatest magnitude.

But yeah, adventure sometimes ends in tears. Let's hope it doesn't.

>> ^schmawy:
That's a very pessimistic outlook, dghandi.


Not at all, just realistic, eventually one will crash and burn, probabilistic imperative . Add that to the demographic, and you have long lines of potential beneficiaries with loads of money who have not signed waivers.

I suppose that virgin could buy a couple $billion policy on each passenger, and just roll it into the price, but that payoff won't stop everyone from dragging virgin into court. It could be a PR nightmare, even if the plaintiffs didn't have the kind of high ticket lawyers and political connections which anybody related to a passenger on one of these things is prone to have.

Just think how quickly this could be shut down if the second cousin of a dead Rockefeller or Kennedy pulled some political strings.

I'm not saying they should throw in the towel, but the whole idea of suborbital manned space flight is kinda silly, and I think the passenger thing will kill it. If they could figure out a way to use the payload space to launch/retrieve small orbital satellites with some sort of secondary rocket, then this seems like it might be useful tech, but as it stands I fail to see how this is even a stepping stone to civ orbital flight. If it gets shut down it could even be an serious obstacle to opening up orbital service when the tech in ready.