Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo
Summary: Virgin Galactic showed off models of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.
Image 4 of 12
An animation of what WhiteKnightTwo will look like in flight.
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Talkback
Spaceship Two
RE: Flight profile (Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo)
I'm still hoping to make it to space in my lifetime, and you guys are my best hope.
RE: Flight profile (Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo)
able to afford it... : (
RE: Flight profile (Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo)
Correction
That is the only way I have ever seen it spelled. I would caution you not to shout unless you were absolutely correct in your facts.
Typos are better than ignoring
T twice and "a" instead of "u"
And yes, they left him out. But hey, money men always get all the credit :/
Not that Rutan is the only engineer involved in the project either.
RE: Flight profile (Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo)
Roughly 30 years ago, a physicist (I can't recall who, offhand, but he had good credentials) wrote an article in Omni magazine about how virtually LIMITLESS, FREE (after initial costs and maintenance) electricity could be generated via an orbiting space station with its entire exterior composed of nothing but solar cells, exposed to unfiltered sunlight 24/7.
He said a large enough station, rotating at the proper speed, could generate its own partial gravity in work areas via the rotation, grow all its own food, be a completely private and profitable project and collect millions of megawatts of electricity to beam back to earth using lasers or masers or some similar technology (again, it's been A LONG TIME since I read the article, and I hawked the idea to everyone I met for years, but the details are a bit fuzzy at this point)...
Only VERY RECENTLY has this SAME CONCEPT (or something similar) been mentioned in the news as a possible "green source" of electricity for the planet... I guess the power elites had to wait until they were dragged kicking and screaming away from their Weapons of Mass Pollution (and most are STILL kicking and screaming)!
If more private enterprise had been allowed to get involved in this process much sooner, the benefits for all of us could have been realized by now... While I very much DISAGREE with the Bush Administration about government NOT being the one to do some things (like help the poor). One thing they definitely SHOULD have been opening to the private sector a long time ago is the space industry -- not just making the rockets and satellites, but doing the actual job and getting up there and MAKING IT WORK!
A lot of billionaires are little more than greedy oligarchs, but I think Richard Branson deserves his title of "Sir," because he continues to be an adventurer, innovator and a true inspiration for mankind, even if he DOES appear to have a bit of "billionaire ego."
Private enterprise
We should maybe start thinking about who is going to govern those who live in space, and how...
You need to Re-Read me, ZDNet -- We AGREE...
So my whole point is that we should have had PRIVATE ENTERPRISE working on this sort of project A LONG TIME AGO... It's a WHOLE LOT BETTER than private enterprises favorite NEW high-profit industry -- especially for the Military-Industrial complex -- a slow-burning, unending "war on terror" almost TOTALLY outsourced to private companies like Haliburton and Blackwater with no-bid contracts at HIGH profit rates and paid by American tax dollars while projects to help the poor or pay for medical care for everyone are cut or non-existent.
Everyone read Naomi Klein's 2007 book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" for a REAL eye-opening experience on just what is REALLY going on with global capitalism and the so-called "free market." The level of lies we're being told and how much of our money is being blown to enrich a few big corporations is mind-blowing! A bit off-topic, I know, BUT, my point is, private enterprise doing space travel is finally something RIGHT for a change.
CAN you STOP writing LIKE this PLEASE
History repeats
As for green power, had we followed France's example, we would be putting 2.2 Billion pound less of carbon in the air, and be under Kyoto standards. I think it would have been a great program.
Of course, they used nuclear power. . .
Absolute bunk
Someone always has a conspiracy theory that greedy companies are holding back a utopian technology, when actually, as Microsoft thoroughly demonstrates, they actually always try to get it to the marketplace, but keep a controlling grip on it.
NASA is NOT for forwarding...
NASA has done everything possible over the years to prevent the privatization of space, and to keep average humans (us) from ever going up there.
Carbon Fooprint !!!
The hypocrisy of this beggars belief
Personal Space travel should be outlawed by International Treaty as bad for the planet!
What next, 10 million man hours of effort, 1 trillion tonnes of oil so some rich moron can have 1 hour messing about on the moon!
How ignorant
As one of the previos commentators pointed out, if we had followed Frances example with nuclear power, we'd be in an enormously better place - environmentally, politically, financially. But nooooo. Nuclear power is baaaaad.
It's ignorant people such are yourself, who are apparently incapapble of understanding science and its benefits, that are mucking up the environment.
Stop being part of the problem and go back to school to learn a few things. Then maybe you'll better appreciate the significance of what's going on here.
Carbon Footprint
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7206165.stm
The fall of Icarus
RE: Flight profile (Virgin Galactic models SpaceShipTwo)
France and its carbon footprint
The question I have is how many lives could have been saved by investing those billions in some other endeavor as opposed to reducing their carbon footprint?