I'll fill out more info in the morning. Not a dupe of:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Virgin-Galactic-Spaceship-Two

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Thanks, I almost called dupe on it. I just posted a rough video of the assembly process for SpaceShip2 here:
http://www.videosift.com/video/SpaceShip2-Virgin-Galactic-Assemby-Video

Cool! I think this would also be in the *animation category, right?

Adding video to channels (Animation) - requested by Issykitty.

Wahow. I've always been a fan of that composite company and Branson is pretty cool too. I want to go, but I'm not sure those suits would look particularly good on me.

Anybody want to start a pool on how many flights this thing goes up before one burns up in takeoff/reentry?

How many safe flights would have to take place for such a burn out not to kill the entire industry in one fell swoop?

Virgin, as large as it is, could easily be taken down by the lawyers of the families of 4-6 very dead millionaires, and nobody would ever touch civ space flight again.

That's a very pessimistic outlook, dghandi. Don't let the man and his litigious nonsense get you down. Some humans still have spirit! I hope.

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I'm sure that they sign extensive indemnity waivers before they get to board.

>> ^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.

^ 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.

*Engineering

*engineering

They're being a bit optimistic with this Galactic monicker aren't they?

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*promote because I'm saving up frequent flyer points.
http://blog.videosift.com/dag/Virgin-Galatic-flights-redeembable-by-Frequent-Flyer-Points

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Thursday, January 24th, 2008 4:55pm PST - promote requested by dag.