The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
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Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#2Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#3Telling they fired Sturckow when he was pretty outspoken such as this:
In another e-mail, in 2019, he urged his fellow test pilots to be more transparent: “Failure to admit mistakes in flight test is a cancer that must be nipped at the bud.” Stucky, whom I wrote about in the magazine in 2018, had been particularly troubled by Mackay and Masucci’s unwillingness to take responsibility for what he perceived to be their mistakes on the July, 2018, flight.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#4Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
As much as I hate to admit it, "ego" has driven so much innovation in space that it was probably inevitable that something like this would happen.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#5Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
I would unpack "gutsy" with its overtones of grudging admiration, into a lot harsher terms related to toxic narcissism and what amounts to a pissing contest between competitive men.
I suspect there is a natural evolutionary curb on the somewhat sociopathic qualities at work, whereby bravado is kept in some check by self-culling being commonplace.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#6Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
The whole exercise was dumb. Flying up and then down on a rocket is a difference in degree, rather than type, from taking a ride on the Vomit Comet.
Orbit -- half way to anywhere -- that's the accomplishment.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#7Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
Hardly the first time Branson has put his life at risk, with others in tow, for an aeronautical accomplishment.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#8In short, we are now using billionaires instead of dogs to test spaceships. I would argue that's progress.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#9Brilliant well written article. Not without bias, but you can see through the words on the page and into the immense pressure that team at Virgin Galactic must have been under to get their boss into space and to beat Bezos, all for the inflated ego of one man. Branson did put his life on the line to achieve that accolade though, which was a gutsy move.
It seems humans need a sense of competition to make progress towards any goal beyond the day-to-day.
If I have to choose between this and nuclear-armed superpowers intimidating each other with super-accurate rockets - I'll take the billionaires.
To be honest I think it's awesome. We need people who are able and willing to push for something beyond the everyday, and it doesn't really matter why they're doing it.
Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight
#10Wow.
Despite his ever growing amount of haters, Musk & Co. do really seem to be placing safety fairly high up on their priority list, if not at the top where Musk says it is.
Branson... does not particularly seem to be doing so. I'm unaware if he's ever repeatedly claimed safety is Virgins top priority though.
Wonder how things go down in Bezos land.