Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/12/virgin-galactic-test-flight-ended-after-lost-connection.html
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I think Virgin Galactic is getting left far behind.
They have GOT to upgrade their software from Windows ME.
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Behind who though? They’re building (comparatively) low-cost passenger ships to bring rich tourists to suborbital space, so it’s not like their craft are meant to compete with the stuff SpaceX is building.
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Close to 20 years ago with Spaceship one they were very much leading the commercial entities. Their progress has been fairly stagnant since then. Certainly a fatality during flight tests has forced them to redesign and caused delays and loss of investor confidence. They’ve also continued to cling to the drop ship approach for getting to orbit despite this approach being largely abandoned by all others. Even the stratolaunch system, planned to carry the follow-on systems for scaled composites, has been sold off.
I think if they had made different choices they could have been leading SpaceX.
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Again though, I don’t see the two companies really pursuing the same business plans so it’s hard to characterize one as “leading” the other.
SpaceX is obviously far beyond Virgin Galactic when it comes to putting people or equipment into orbit, but Virgin Galactic is far beyond SpaceX when it comes to building spacecraft that might be economically feasible for tourism or intercontinental transportation.
Also, at least this test flight ended better than the one SpaceX had this week.
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[quote=“Brainspore, post:6, topic:186663, full:true”]
Again though, I don’t see the two companies really pursuing the same business plans so it’s hard to characterize one as “leading” the other.
Yah! Like…
I dunno… I though it was 95% successful. A few seconds more thrust and it would have been perfect. I was lucky to see it before knowing the ending, nor really what they were attempting. I thought it was game over when the belly flop started.
Go rocket people!!
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Yeah but that last 5% of any rocket voyage is still pretty important.
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Given Richard Branson’s history of embellishment, and looking back at where they really were with Spaceship One and how Spaceship Two has frankly been a disaster thus far, I don’t think they were as far ahead as they let on.
Like their Virgin Hyperloop program, I think there’s not a lot of actual progress, but a lot of hype.
even though I think it is just an expensive joyride for people with too much money, just get in the air already!
The more companies offering options to get to space and near space the better for the future of humanity.
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The Virgin brand has always seem like Bang and Olufsen: not an actual advantage in terms of the technology, but a superiority of look and feel.
You just described Apple Corp, too.
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