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This pic of @SirishaBandla from apogee yesterday. Holy freaking wow! #unity22 pic.twitter.com/pjHkWRufWI
— Jared Zambrano-Stout (@Space_Jared) July 12, 2021
This pic of @SirishaBandla from apogee yesterday. Holy freaking wow! #unity22 pic.twitter.com/pjHkWRufWI
— Jared Zambrano-Stout (@Space_Jared) July 12, 2021
Great photo. Thx for sharing, Jared. You do your client, Virgin Group, proud.
A very beautiful woman looking at beautiful Earth. What’s not to like, eh?
Folks, I wish I could say why I’m so negative about these sub-orbitals.
• Maybe it’s an ingrained anti-billionaire antipathy?
• Media failure to differentiate orbital and sub-orbital?
• Failure of the billionaire class to point out how puny sub-orbitals are, compared to orbital insertion?
• The sense that both efforts, and particularly Virgin’s, represent tech dead ends? After all, the Virgin craft is a souped up X15, and we know where X15 went.
• Jealousy that I’m not a billionaire?
Keith’s apt photo captures the well-deserved magic of the moment. at the same time, wouldn’t the same woman regard a new-fangled automobile similarly in a world dominated by horse and carriage?
And get off my lawn!
I’ll show myself out.
I guess I just break it down more simply. Going on orbital flights costs in the tens of millions. Going on suborbital flights costs in the hundreds of thousands. If only orbital flights were available, only a handful of people would get to go. But with suborbital it opens it up to so many more. And their experience will be surprisingly close to the orbital experience, albeit only for a few minutes. I have been to total eclipses and of course you wish that it lasted for an hour instead of just a few minutes. But if the choice is a few minutes or nothing, I accept a few minutes. I suspect that nearly everyone who gets to go on a suborbital flight will feel the same way, wishing that it lasted longer, but grateful that they got to experience it.
No it’s not for the masses, ticket prices would have to be the equivalent of bus fare for that to happen. And realistically not everyone in the world can afford bus fare. Much less spend hundreds of dollars per year attending sporting events, going to the movies, or even having a Netflix subscription. I’m not sure how to justify to someone in a third world country spending $5,000 for a family trip to Walt Disney World. Maybe I should not have gone to see the eclipses since so many people who would have liked to weren’t able to because they couldn’t afford it. We could shut down tourist spaceflights, the entertainment and sports industries, and all leisure travel, and send the money to countries that need it. Although that would put a lot of low income people out of work here, but at least in this country they wouldn’t be in danger of literal starvation. Maybe we should do that. But until we do I am less likely to criticize people for how they spend their money just because they are a few notches above me in the worldwide scale of income level. Now how some people make their money is a whole different question.
I’m really mixed on this.
I wouldn’t deny anyone the opportunity to make money. But when a few people (a few people) own nearly half of America’s wealth, I’m more inclined to support the notion that ‘every billionaire is a policy failure’ (I’m putting that in quotes because I’m pretty certain it is a word-by-word quote, but I don’t recall the source).
I’m pointing to the awful income gap we see in this country – something far more insidious, long term, than the fractious GOP right we see in the news so much.
After this ‘usta be’, I’ll stop: Usta be a man could support a family, buy a house, put kids through college, retire, and do it with one job, while mommies stayed home.
Lots to things have changed, including the righteous insistence by women to pursue out-of-home goals. What has also changed? Increasing productivity not reflected in wages, fo one. Wages not keeping up. Union busting, esp by those who benefit the most. Most egregiously, perhaps, is the perilous notion of government is the enemy (thank, Ronnie), rather than an agent of beneficial change.
So. Why don’t we have nice things in this country? Simple answers abound.
Meanwhile, wealth is increasingly concentrated.
I probably should have been more specific I was not talking about billionaires. Billionaires and their space toys is a more recent hot topic that pretty much went viral among the general public after Bezos and Branson announced that they were going for their space rides, as it gave the impression that they spent all of these billions just so they could go into space. When I think the intended impression they were trying to give is that they have enough confidence in their systems that they are willing to be among the first ones on it.
I was referring to the people who are paying $250,000 or whatever the eventual costs will be to make a suborbital trip into space. They have been the brunt of the past few years of criticism about the suborbital programs, i.e. this is all just so rich people can go on a joyride.
Yes from my point of view and probably most people, someone who can spend $250,000 or more on a tourist adventure is rich. My point was that the way their economic level looks to me is not that much different than how my economic level probably looks to someone in near poverty in this country, or pretty much the entire population of certain other countries. It’s human nature to think we aren’t rich, only people with more money than us are rich. Thus what we spend on unnecessary entertainment we don’t consider frivolous, it’s just part of enjoying life, and anyway everyone around us is spending money on the same things so clearly there is no moral dilemma here. Whereas spending $250,000 on a thrill ride is easy for us to criticize as being a frivolous waste of money that could be put to better use.
But I still submit that it would be a very awkward conversation to talk to someone who probably won’t make $5,000 in their lifetime, and try and convince them how spending that much or more on a week at Walt Disney World was worth it because your family had such a great time and it was such a bonding experience. It can certainly be a positive experience, and I would never criticize someone for taking their family there and if they can afford to not skimp on the level of hotel, breakfast with Mickey etc. For the same reason I’m not going to criticize someone for going on a suborbital space ride, even if from my point of view it costs an eye popping amount of money.
>ingrained anti-billionaire antipathy?
Let’s see, there are still a large number of people struggling from economic woes of covid-19, growing number of homeless, record heat waves, many expecting more widespread wildland fires… then reading about billionaires spending lots of effort to do suborbital flights which seem pointless to most.
>we know where X15 went
Actually the X15 was completely different vehicle, had completely different objectives and goals. At the time nobody had any data or experience in going really fast and really high. And they had to develop the tech to do so. Only thing in common with Bezo’s and Branson’s vehicles is it goes above 50 miles altitude.
All this stuff looks real cool when they fly but then billionaires have extra cash to spend on stuff with questionable business reasons.
You do realize these things will also fly short duration microgravity experiments? In some cases with the scientist operating it?
Granted, if Starship meets its $10-50/kg target for orbital flights they’re all obsolete, but that’s not yet and it too is an “evil billionaire” spending his money as he sees fit.
If it gets more people interested in space then it’s a success and worthwhile. Saying VSS Unity is a souped-up X15 is really saying it’s a very cool vehicle. Maybe it’s just me but when they light that candle and point it upwards it scares the crap out of me.
By all types of measures, a photo of the year finalist. Magnificent and inspirational.
Yes its suborbital – not orbital. Yes, for the moment, space tourism is only for the wealthy. But take the long view. In the same way that commercial air travel was only for the wealthy and was quite dangerous when it first began 107 years ago, it has developed and evolved, and in doing so, transformed human civilization. If Branson, Bezos and Musk can develop space tourism from sub-orbital joyrides for the rich to low cost, safe, and regular (daily) flights into LEO, where perhaps the cost will be at the level of a business class airfare, that will be a game changer – not just for tourism, but for human commercial space activities as a whole.
So I see VSS Unity’s flight as a small step along a road that may lead to giant leaps down the track in how humanity becomes a spacefaring civilisation later this century. Criticism of Musk or Branson or Bezos – simply because they are wealthy – is quite unfair. By all means, challenge them to contribute new ways of resolving terrestrial problems, and I think that better and cheaper access to space can be a big part of meeting that challenge. But decrying space tourism as a ‘stunt’ to stroke egos other wealthy is a stupid argument to make which willfully ignores the potential long-term benefits that better access to LEO would bring.
Agreed. ‘Social Media’ is full of people the last few days lumping all Billionaires together into ‘The Dr Evil Club’ or some such. Anyone with more than a few pennies to rub together are ‘ruining the planet’. And the usual suspects b1tch and complain that ‘money should be spent on Earth; not in space’. They completely miss the irony that it IS spent on Earth!! On better paying jobs based on Engineering, Science and Math. Sheesh…
I’ve given up looking at Twitter on the Space Tourism issue for the day – the negativism and animosity is just unbelievable.
95% of Twitter is close-minded idiots from both polar extremes performing mental masturbation.