NBC to televise first Virgin Galactic commercial flight

reply to post by Angelic Resurrection


No, they won't survive. But a hundred years from now? Who knows?!

People never thought we would be able to fly, and when we learned that we could get airborne, there was speculation that moving at the speed of sound or more might render a person dead by some means. Before they detonated the first nuclear weapon, there was some speculation that it might ignite the atmosphere and burn it off, leaving the Earth a scorched, barren husk.

I would also remind you, that a space bending methodology would actually not require intertial damping of any vast capability, because there would not be movement in the traditional sense. Space would be moving around the craft, and not the other way around, or at least, not nearly as much as one might think. A simple volumetric restrictor would be sufficient to counter such forces, probably involving immersion in a breathable liquid medium of some sort.

Agent008
Just a thought..

Think about this for a minute before coming to a answer.

Do we really want (rich) humans galavanting in space?

It's actually kind of cool! You don't have to be some genius or angelic being with the highest of IQ's to go to space... just a little dough and you can buy your way to space! That means ANYONE with money! Money knows no bigotry or discrimination.... it's pure! Anyone can simply find it be a killer, rapist, or madman in a straight jacket (which we all are)!

So take off your morality suit'n'go and loot!

We can meet one day on Mars

reply to post by Angelic Resurrection


That's what the inertial dampeners are for! LoL

I'm sure we can develop our force field technologies so as to allow humans along for the journey, I mean if we manage to get mass under control the sky's the limit!

Failing the invention of some kind of inertia cancellation device maybe even something like the fluid tubes/gravity couches from Forbidden Planet/Event Horizon could be used to keep us relatively safe and sound during the journey.

If indeed exotic matter does exist and can be harnessed controlled the above technologies will most lightly become available. Its just a matter of time.

TrueBrit
reply to post by Angelic Resurrection

 

No, they won't survive. But a hundred years from now? Who knows?!
A simple volumetric restrictor would be sufficient to counter such forces, probably involving immersion in a breathable liquid medium of some sort.

100 yrs, yes maybe.
The movie mission to mars has that bit about breathable environment when immersed

andy06shake
no FTL propulsion system pretty much limits humanities colonization to only our local star system.

Not really as if NSA and other space agency got there fingers out and switched to Nuclear propulsion (which was deemed viable in the 60's) the you could If i rember corrcetly reach 10% the speed of light. That puts our nearest stars 40 years away.

Build a big arse ship in orbit and you could do it.

But no we carry on with Chem rockets.

Only thing they should be used for is to get things into orbit if that.

reply to post by crazyewok


Project Orion, basically this method works on the principle of repeatedly detonating a nuclear device behind a protective shield and riding the detonation wave. It most certainly would not be a good idea to try this within Earths atmosphere. I suppose if we ever manage to refine the fusion process this would become more efficient. But that would be one hell of a payload to be traveling with!

How many Nukes does it take to achieve 10% the speed of light anyway?

And how would you slow down once you are traveling at 10% C?

en.wikipedia.org...(nuclear_propulsion)

andy06shake
reply to post by crazyewok

 

Project Orion, basically this method works on the principle of repeatedly detonating a nuclear device behind a protective shield and riding the detonation wave. It most certainly would not be a good idea to try this within Earths atmosphere. I suppose if we ever manage to refine the fusion process this would become more efficient. But that would be one hell of a payload to be traveling with!

en.wikipedia.org...(nuclear_propulsion)

edit on 12-11-2013 by andy06shake because: (no reason given)

Yeah I know how it works.

And by the end of the project I beleive they sorted the problems of denotating within the Earths atmosphere by useing "clean" nukes which is one of the reason it ended up classfied. Plus some of the more moden designs like project daedalus used a fusion reaction so long term radiation was not a problem.

Anyway if the flower crowed still are not happy you can build the beast in orbit.


Either way FTL is not needed.

reply to post by crazyewok


Well i imagine that's exactly where technology/space flight is quite possibly heading should this space tourism venture actual work and the technology matures.

Maybe in 15-20 years we will be building ships in orbit, don't know about star yet, but we can but hope.

reply to post by andy06shake


It does seem to be the tradition that the rich get to have technology 10-25 years ahead of its time (I mean, most people think of computers as being a phenomenon of the 80s, but they had been in wide use since at least the 60s)
but isn't it strange that NO ONE seems interested in breaking the trend?
I'm not going to go into a conspiracy rant (though I easily could haha) but this is also the first *real* expansion in the use of space-technology in DECADES and it always seems to ONLY be "one small step" at a time..

where DOES that money go, when at this point (50-ish years since the beginnings of space exploration and "The space-age") we really only have un-manned craft with very limited equipment, exploring very specific ASPECTS of things, and only now are they even considering the idea of "letting" us pay thousands of dollars to escape the atmosphere..?

I get that they have tons of staff, equipment, buildings.. but they're also always getting more of each of these things and no *real* progress seems to be the direct result of it.

as much as i'd like to be optimistic about this, I also have to be fairly skeptical of the benevolent intentions of Virgin.. besides being A RECORD LABEL who mostly has profited from the exploitation of any generic wave of music that comes their way, they also are a PHONE COMPANY and AIRLINE...

why is it up to this type of company to expand THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE..? This seems like something that a government or I dunno.. NASA would get behind.. considering they're supposed to be all about "Education" and blah blah blah.

I truly hate having to be suspicious of every move these people make, but NEVER does it turn out to be in the interest of progress or the result of unbridled curiosity, as science used to be.

reply to post by MikhailBakunin


I think your reply is saying one thing, but proving another... or perhaps it's sarcasm and aware of this haha. Space is something humans currently see (or don't "see"..) as the most hostile environment yet discovered.. so just as humanity (of the recent western cult-ures) approaches Nature with caution and suspicion (to only be CLOSELY studied by experts and professionals), so too humanity feels it must only probe so far into space, as it can be exploited (either out there, or here on Earth) and all else as seen as "speculative", "not-viable", and "theoretical" until they find ways to use it.

Just imagine if things happened 100 years before they actually did, but with the spirit of those times.. we would have colonized AT LEAAAST The Moon by 1913..

The technology is there to change things IMMEDIATELY, but the drive isn't..

yet.

Agent008
Just a thought..

Think about this for a minute before coming to a answer.

Do we really want (rich) humans galavanting in space? Shouldn't someone more worthy of space travel be on this flight instead of a corporate shmuck? What are the motives of rich people going into space, to explore and better understand the universe for the betterment of all man kind? (Ya right) It is all about PROFIT!

You could have said the exact same thing about getting on airplanes early in the last century.

dragonridr

Oddly i had similar thoughts if a corporation were to say put there headquaters in space they no longer have any laws to govern them. Its the ultimate freedon to a corporation no taxes no laws to abide by.

The UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 disagrees.

As do most governments. You'd still need to launch from somewhere, unless the corporation owned its own island launch facility.