I'm very optimisitic about human space flight in general, but I really don't think we'll see truly affordable private space travel in my lifetime.

And I define affordable as something in the realm of a 1st or even business class airline ticket. The rate they quote on their web page is "starting at $200000". Although, they do say they'll try to reduce that as fast and as far as possible.

I couldn't help but think about what the one older gentleman said in the video, something like, "my family thinks I'm a little bit tipsy, but that's okay. I know this is something that later on they'll look back on this and say, 'I can't believe my father or grandfather did this.'" Yeah... they'll be thinking that because you spent your retirement on a 30 minute joy ride. ;-)

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I'm all for Branson's efforts on this, my only issue is that it's not true orbital space flight. They have a long ways up to truly get out of the earth's grip.

Unfortunately, this model of spaceplane will probably always be relegated to "lower space" because it is super light-weight and would not be able to carry the heatshield required for orbital reentry.

I'm more excited about the inflatable Bigelow space habitat that is being tested in orbit at the moment. And I really wish that NASA would just adopt the Soyuz method of spaceflight. They are cheap, dependable and very rarely kill cosmonauts.

I believe this technology is a step back, we should be research newer ways of propulsion such as magnetic ramps and the like.

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

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Adding video to channels (Animation, Engineering, Spacy) - requested by kulpims.

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The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 13:52 - length declared by bareboards2.