Watch Richard Branson fly to space on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo!

[6Foot2]

[tg12]

Bit underwhelming, I remember watching SpaceShipOne, Burt Rutan's experimental craft that lead to Virgin Galactic in awe, but this fell short in comparison.

 

For a start, by my maths it was 47,000ft off reaching the Karman Line for a start!

[siuko]

Yeah I would have to agree that it was rather underwhelming

 

It didn't last very long at all and I really don't think it helped that we didn't get to see any onboard videos

 

Lets hope we get the better footage afterwards

[localzuk]

I don't really get the point of this setup to be honest. Just seems to be a toy for rich people.

[tg12]

Very, very long term here, but sub-orbital flight does have some benefits, like fast transport across vast distances, but that's a long way off from what this is doing. So yeah, this at the moment is just a rich man's toy. Shame really. The original SpaceShipOne concept that won the X-Prize for being the first private manned spacecraft was genuinely exciting, but this almost feels like they've spent 17 years since not really going much further with it. Given how these trips were supposed to be starting in 2009 when Virgin Galactic started, to have this to show for it only 12 years late is underwhelming.

[jthompson]

Oh I don't know - I think it might encourage some much needed humility amongst the elite super-rich, which can only be a good thing.

 

Oh wow! My private island looks so small from up here.

[Duranis]

I had a similar conversation with my Mrs. The likes of Branson, Boeing, Blue Origin, etc have been working on this stuff since I was a kid and then in the last 15 years Space X has completely blown them all out of the water.

 

That being said the more private companies working on any of this stuff the better. Sub orbital flight, while not as impressive as what Space X is doing, is still useful for both travel and research. It also will be a source of revenue which will hopefully be driven back into these companies developing and expanding their technology. While it is very much a rich mans toy at this point in time hopefully the tech and knowledge that comes out of it will trickle down for use by the rest of us. There has been more advancement of space travel tech by private companies in the last 20 years then any Government funded agency could ever hope to achieve so I hope these rich guys keep wanting to spend money on it no matter what their motivation is.

[Dos_Box]

Watched it laive yesterday and was baffled as to how bad the production was, compared to say, SpaceX it looked very ill-prepared.

Some cockpit footage and audio would have been great, as well as some footage from inside the passenger compartment in zero-g was needed.

Not sure how long they had weightless, but it couldn't have been more than a few mins. I stifled a giggle when they showed the 'special edition' Range Rovers which they announced as being available to order for all Virgin Galactic customers.

It was at that point I realised it will always be out of my price range.