Virgin Galactic unveils commercial spaceship

[jodrellblank]

There are probably several people around HN who are science-y, grew up with sci-fi and space fiction and have $200,000 to spare...

Anyone willing to own up to booking a trip?

[astine]

If I had the money, I would. Yet another reason to do a startup.

[robin_reala]

More photos on Virgin’s site:

http://www.virgin.com/travel/inside-virgin-travel/virgin-gal...

[dmoney]

Am I wrong for thinking this is lame for being suborbital? Would orbital designs based on the same principle be feasible?

[RiderOfGiraffes]

Getting 100 miles up is one thing, getting 100 miles up and then also travelling at 18000 mph is another. You need an extra mv^2/2 energy, which is quite a lot.

To get to 160km ~ 100 miles you need about 1.6 MJ/kg.

To travel at 8km/s you need about 32 MJ/kg.

There's your main difference.

[decadentcactus]

You aren't wrong, I think the same. I obviously think it is a huge step, and am definitely not saying I could do any better, but I'm more excited for (at the moment) SpaceX to do bigger things to actually get us into a "space age", not just suborbital hops.

[wlievens]

There's been some confusing communication about SS3 being (or not being) a suborbital design.

[tybris]

> Am I wrong for thinking this is lame for being suborbital?

I think you know as well as anyone that this is a crucial step.

[yters]

Nah, orbital is yet another major leap. Right now it's mainly a gee-whiz dealy.

[martian]

Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Industrial Age -> Information Age -> Biotech Age -> Space Age ?

[knv]

I think it's more like:

Land Travel -> Sea Travel -> Air Travel -> Space Travel

[lispm]

useful -> useless -> stupid