Galactic Virgin's Successful Launch

[Ifreann]

It’s not similar systems it’s the same.


They. Don’t. Do. The. Same. Thing. Only where money is allocated. It costs the US 100 million to launch a Falcon 9. It costs SpaceX 64 million. It’s lower to make a profit but it doesn’t actually get lower anywhere on the chain since any cost saved on SpaceX capable missions are spent on missions SpaceX can’t possibly do. I’m increasing unsure what point you’re arguing against but it’s one I’m not making.

The point i am making is its far cheaper for the private sector to do space than the public sector, and I would rather let billionaires spend their money on it, even if to them its just a who has a bigger dick contest, rather than waste the taxpayers money.

You would rather spend $200 million of taxpayer's money on a launch base for Richard Branson's private use than to waste taxpayer's money on the same thing and have it used for the benefit of all.

[Just-An-Illusion]

To be honest, I don't like where this is headed, which is corporate control of space. It's like seeing the formation of corporate controlled dystopian societies.

Wouldn't surprise me if the fictional lore of 'The Outer Worlds' becomes a reality in the near future.

[South Welford]

The point i am making is its far cheaper for the private sector to do space than the public sector, and I would rather let billionaires spend their money on it, even if to them its just a who has a bigger dick contest, rather than waste the taxpayers money.

You would rather spend $200 million of taxpayer's money on a launch base for Richard Branson's private use than to waste taxpayer's money on the same thing and have it used for the benefit of all.

Richard Branson is hardly the only person who uses it. We can bash his redundant field trip while being honest about what that launch base is. It has 3 other clients in what some are foreseeing to be a growing industry and has been around since just before the 2010s. Whether it was well-spent is already a decade-old question in terms of financing and its actual uses for all sorts of projects.

[Rusozak]

To be honest, I don't like where this is headed, which is corporate control of space. It's like seeing the formation of corporate controlled dystopian societies.

The alternative is state control of space, which can be just as bad. Not that government agencies have really done much to further space exploration recently. More like stagnating until we're all cooked alive by our own pollution.

[Ethel mermania]

How is space humanities common heritage? Without very expensive means, you go into space you die. Man is not designed to go into space.

Exactly. It is only by our collective cooperation that we can venture into space, therefore it is wrong for private ownership to be exerted over it or to control access to it.

How does private enterprise going into space steal it from you?

The same way the Grand Canyon would be stolen if Richard Branson bought all the roads to it and land around it and charged hundreds of thousands of dollars for entry to Virgin Canyon Park™, despite the fact that it was the work of many other people to create the access that he personally would control.

NASA or the ESA isn't offering trips to citizens anytime soon. People like Branson and musk like it or not drive the cost of space down, and make it more accessible not less.

Branson has increased the price of visiting space infinitely by putting a price tag on it in the first place. That the price on that tag might some day be lower than it is now is immaterial, it is wrong in the first instance for Richard Branson or any person to build a fence around this planet and charge us for access to the entire rest of the universe.

Branson doesn't stop you from going to space. You can do it yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. How does building a rocket and getting people to pay for a ride, stop anyone else from doing it?

[South Welford]

Also, if I might add, the Spaceport America Branson travelled from was funded state-side and with these tax-backed construction bonds (voter-approved) from two different counties. Might be interesting to know for the nature of this whole New Mexico project.

[Ifreann]

Exactly. It is only by our collective cooperation that we can venture into space, therefore it is wrong for private ownership to be exerted over it or to control access to it.


The same way the Grand Canyon would be stolen if Richard Branson bought all the roads to it and land around it and charged hundreds of thousands of dollars for entry to Virgin Canyon Park™, despite the fact that it was the work of many other people to create the access that he personally would control.


Branson has increased the price of visiting space infinitely by putting a price tag on it in the first place. That the price on that tag might some day be lower than it is now is immaterial, it is wrong in the first instance for Richard Branson or any person to build a fence around this planet and charge us for access to the entire rest of the universe.

Branson doesn't stop you from going to space. You can do it yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. How does building a rocket and getting people to pay for a ride, stop anyone else from doing it?

As you said yourself, humans cannot survive in space. The means to go there are very expensive. None of us can build a rocket ourselves, that's an obviously ridiculous thing to suggest, as well you know. What's happening is akin to every road out of town being a toll road, a mere $250,000 to drive across the desert to the next town, never mind that the roads were only possible because of public funding. And you tell me that no one is stopping me from building my own road, when you had just been telling me that it's ridiculous to say that everyone should have access to the next town because it's so expensive to build a road across the desert.

[Ethel mermania]

Branson doesn't stop you from going to space. You can do it yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. How does building a rocket and getting people to pay for a ride, stop anyone else from doing it?

As you said yourself, humans cannot survive in space. The means to go there are very expensive. None of us can build a rocket ourselves, that's an obviously ridiculous thing to suggest, as well you know. What's happening is akin to every road out of town being a toll road, a mere $250,000 to drive across the desert to the next town, never mind that the roads were only possible because of public funding. And you tell me that no one is stopping me from building my own road, when you had just been telling me that it's ridiculous to say that everyone should have access to the next town because it's so expensive to build a road across the desert.

I am telling you, you want to go to space, build a way to go. Its not my responsibility to pay for it. Its clearly not impossible to do as three people are doing it now.

At least these billionaires are using their own money to finance it, not mine.

[Ifreann]

As you said yourself, humans cannot survive in space. The means to go there are very expensive. None of us can build a rocket ourselves, that's an obviously ridiculous thing to suggest, as well you know. What's happening is akin to every road out of town being a toll road, a mere $250,000 to drive across the desert to the next town, never mind that the roads were only possible because of public funding. And you tell me that no one is stopping me from building my own road, when you had just been telling me that it's ridiculous to say that everyone should have access to the next town because it's so expensive to build a road across the desert.

I am telling you, you want to go to space, build a way to go. Its not my responsibility to pay for it. Its clearly not impossible to do as three people are doing it now.

At least these billionaires are using their own money to finance it, not mine.

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

[Ethel mermania]

I am telling you, you want to go to space, build a way to go. Its not my responsibility to pay for it. Its clearly not impossible to do as three people are doing it now.

At least these billionaires are using their own money to finance it, not mine.

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

I am not paying for it, Branson and Musk get contracts to use their equipment in space. To use your road analogy, my tax dollars did pay for the road, it didn't pay for my car, or bus ticket. The road gets used by lots of things

To build a space technology infrastructure public or private costs billions. I would rather let Musk and company pay for it than the public

[Ifreann]

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

I am not paying for it, Branson and Musk get contracts to use their equipment in space. To use your road analogy, my tax dollars did pay for the road, it didn't pay for my car, or bus ticket. The road gets used by lots of things

Your taxes built the road and your taxes go to private companies that drive trucks on the road for the government and you never get to use the road or the trucks because the shit you paid for isn't for you, it's for the profits of Richard Branson. And you think that's good, apparently.

To build a space technology infrastructure public or private costs billions. I would rather let Musk and company pay for it than the public

Branson isn't paying for space infrastructure. He's using the space infrastructure you paid for to line his own pockets and live out his personal fantasies of being an astronaut.

[Ethel mermania]

I am not paying for it, Branson and Musk get contracts to use their equipment in space. To use your road analogy, my tax dollars did pay for the road, it didn't pay for my car, or bus ticket. The road gets used by lots of things

Your taxes built the road and your taxes go to private companies that drive trucks on the road for the government and you never get to use the road or the trucks because the shit you paid for isn't for you, it's for the profits of Richard Branson. And you think that's good, apparently.

To build a space technology infrastructure public or private costs billions. I would rather let Musk and company pay for it than the public

Branson isn't paying for space infrastructure. He's using the space infrastructure you paid for to line his own pockets and live out his personal fantasies of being an astronaut.

I have a truck and a car, what are you talking about? I can use the same roads as anyone's truck carrying public or private goods. Branson doing something doesn't exclude anyone else from doing it.

[Senkaku]

Yeah three minutes seems too short for a trip to the upper stratosphere. Guess the rich would do anything to waste their time and money on.

Spending so much has got to be good for the economy, though.

not if you're just spending it on jet & rocket fuel for personal use lol

[Senkaku]

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

I am not paying for it, Branson and Musk get contracts to use their equipment in space.

Does Virgin Galactic have a single commercial launch under its belt? I dislike Elon for a lot of reasons but at least you can't deny SpaceX actually goes to space and does serious business there; Branson has always seemed like third fiddle to him and Bezos and just goes for these on-the-cheap, technically-above-the-Karman-line things that are basically just very expensive airplanes

To use your road analogy, my tax dollars did pay for the road, it didn't pay for my car, or bus ticket. The road gets used by lots of things

I mean this whole thing is sort of a bad analogy because no one is really creating space "infrastructure" in the same sense as roads are infrastructure for ground transportation; they're building launch systems, but that's the equivalent of building cars or trucks not building roads (call me when one of them builds a skyhook or a space elevator or a mass driver, now that would be a groundbreaking contribution to the species I would respect)

they're building private vehicles that you can pay to use if you have insane amounts of money, not infrastructure systems that are publicly available and open to public use-- some of those vehicles are very sophisticated, and they might have efficiency gains that make them marginally more accessible (you can be a millionaire instead of a full-blown billionaire and hitch a ride on one of their launches), but they are not in any sense beneficial infrastructure for the public

To build a space technology infrastructure public or private costs billions. I would rather let Musk and company pay for it than the public

The public finances a considerable portion of their development anyways thru subsidies and the government contracts that sustain a lot of SpaceX's business, and those private billions are just money they extracted from the population anyways soooo

[Risottia]

What are your thoughts on this NSG? Will this new "space plane" kick off the space tourism industry

No.
Space tourism isn't happening in the next 50 years. It makes sense only if there's a cheap method to send tens people into LEO, keep them there on a station for a while and then getting them down alive again.
This is just suborbital fun. Neat, I'd love to get a ride if I had all that money, but suborbital flights for three minutes of freefall? You can get the same ride on a Vomit Comet.

[Heloin]

What are your thoughts on this NSG? Will this new "space plane" kick off the space tourism industry

No.
Space tourism isn't happening in the next 50 years. It makes sense only if there's a cheap method to send tens people into LEO, keep them there on a station for a while and then getting them down alive again.
This is just suborbital fun. Neat, I'd love to get a ride if I had all that money, but suborbital flights for three minutes of freefall? You can get the same ride on a Vomit Comet.

And the Vomit Comet has a better name.

[New haven america]

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

I am not paying for it, Branson and Musk get contracts to use their equipment in space. To use your road analogy, my tax dollars did pay for the road, it didn't pay for my car, or bus ticket. The road gets used by lots of things

To build a space technology infrastructure public or private costs billions. I would rather let Musk and company pay for it than the public

Yes you actually are.

Multi-millionaire and billionaires are the largest recipients of government financial aid, along with the the fact that they are in fact receiving government subsidies in order to fund these projects. (And guess where government's get the money to fund subsidies?) These rockets are coming out of your pocketbook but they're not letting you use them.

So yeah, this is basically like having someone steal your wallet, but not wanting to call the police to get it back because it means paying the police through taxes. You're losing money either way, but at least one of those programs actually benefits you.

"No, I don't want you to get my wallet back!"
"But you lost more from getting your wallet stolen than you lost funding our operation through taxes."
"Government leeches!"

Like, ^this is basically what your entire argument boils down to.

[Just-An-Illusion]

IM, I hate to burst your bubble but... All Branson did was reach the stratosphere and then came back down after three minutes.

Until his space plane can actually reach outer space and stay in it for more than three minutes. Then I'll be impressed with it.

Can you see a huge part of planet Earth’s glowing blue-green in addition to the black with white dots of “space” from there?

Sorry this took long to respond.

I really don't have a answer for your question. I'm sure you can see some of the Earth in the stratosphere. Rather or not you can also see stars, I don't know really.

I never been to the stratosphere.

[Qhevak]

Branson has increased the price of visiting space infinitely by putting a price tag on it in the first place. That the price on that tag might some day be lower than it is now is immaterial, it is wrong in the first instance for Richard Branson or any person to build a fence around this planet and charge us for access to the entire rest of the universe.

Branson has reduced the price of visiting space infinitely because accessing space outside of astronaut employment was otherwise impossible.

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

Scientific research and improved satellite communication infrastructure are both greatly in the public benefit.

[Immortan Khan]

Pretty neato, though SpaceX is still far more impressive as far as private space companies go. Hopefully though they improve upon their stuff to go higher and for longer periods of time. As well as reducing the cost as much as possible, of course. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be able to justify buying a ticket. Thumbs up.

[Arcturus Novus]

Galactic Virgin was my nickname in high school.

But seriously, rich man goes very high in special plane, who cares? Not like this'll actually lead towards anything useful, y'know?

[Postauthoritarian America]

If these rich fuckers can't think of anything better to do with their fucking money than fucking launch themselves into outer fucking space they should all be taxed until they fucking scream.

[Immortan Khan]

If these rich fuckers can't think of anything better to do with their fucking money than fucking launch themselves into outer fucking space they should all be taxed until they fucking scream.

Why's that?

[Postauthoritarian America]

If these rich fuckers can't think of anything better to do with their fucking money than fucking launch themselves into outer fucking space they should all be taxed until they fucking scream.

Why's that?

So their ill-gotten gains will be put to a higher and better use than their fucking masturbatory outer fucking space fucking fantasies.

[Ifreann]

Branson has increased the price of visiting space infinitely by putting a price tag on it in the first place. That the price on that tag might some day be lower than it is now is immaterial, it is wrong in the first instance for Richard Branson or any person to build a fence around this planet and charge us for access to the entire rest of the universe.

Branson has reduced the price of visiting space infinitely because accessing space outside of astronaut employment was otherwise impossible.

Going from a thing not being for sale to being for sale is not a reduction in price.

You are already paying for it. Your taxes are funding the subsidies these businesses use. I'm saying that the shit you are paying for should be available to you and the rest of the public, and you're saying no, only the mega-rich should get the benefit of your taxes, not you and certainly not me.

Scientific research and improved satellite communication infrastructure are both greatly in the public benefit.

Fly-by tours of space do not benefit the public at large, and the proliferation of commercial satellites is a catastrophe waiting to happen, and if it does we will very literally not be able to access space at all.