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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

#221

Post by aazaa »

> ... On the morning of the flight, Branson, an outspoken environmentalist, appeared on the “livestream” arriving at the spaceport on a bicycle. But this turned out to be false: Branson did not pedal to work that day; the bike ride was filmed a week earlier and then made to look like it happened that morning. When Reuters called out the company, an anonymous official said, “We regret the error and any confusion it may have caused.”

But this was no "error":

> Branson also told spectators about the bike ride during a post-flight celebration at the spaceport, Reuters said. "It's so awesome to arrive on a bicycle, across this beautiful New Mexico countryside," Branson was quoted as telling the crowd from a stage.

https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-bike-r...

Even without the red light, this incident speaks volumes about what's going in inside this "company."

As long as Branson is at the helm, VG's prospects as a going concern seem dim. You can't merch your way into space with the usual marketing game plan. Mother Nature always calls bullshit.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#222

Post by danpalmer »

pinewurst wrote: post #78
bryananderson wrote: post #36

I recommend Schmidle’s recent book “Test Gods” if you are interested in Virgin Galactic and test piloting. Schmidle is not an engineer and I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into Virgin Galactic’s design choices, but it is a great book about (among other things) the tensions that emerge when a complex technical project is overseen from a distance by utterly nontechnical, PR-oriented upper management. The company’s co…

SpaceShipTwo (and SpaceShipOne) are fascinating to me because they're so _not_ general purpose vehicles, yet are sold and in most cases perceived as such. SS1 was conceived by one of the most creative designers in aviation as a point solution for the X-Prize contest - the minimal design/implementation to precisely solve that problem in the most cost effective way possible (as detailed in "Test Gods"). This cobbled to…

> SpaceShipTwo (and SpaceShipOne) are fascinating to me because they're so _not_ general purpose vehicles, yet are sold and in most cases perceived as such.

I agree. I think much of the value attributed to Virgin Galactic is on the basis of _either_ SS2 being a relatively general purpose vehicle, or the _process_ of building new vehicles having been figured out by them.

The problem is that it's obvious that neither of those are true. Specific use-case vehicles are fine if you have a process that can make you new specific vehicles, but Virgin Galactic took a decade to make SS2 and had a lot of problems along the way.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#223

Post by pessimizer »

crooked-v wrote: post #99
mc32 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other flaws too. Like pretending to bike to the spaceport on the day of, but it was actually filmed the week before and when called out, they said, oops, you're right, sorry! It's like when Guy Fiery in his hot rod. He pretends he rolls up to the place in his 70s hot rod, but actually it's just rolled out of the truck that lugs it around from location to location and he opens the door, sits, gets filmed get…

The Guy Fieri comparison seems like a weird one, since the actual subject of the show (that is, the restaurants) isn't faked. The hot rod and whatever goofy stuff comes with Fieri's persona is just a framing device around the actual establishments.

You don't think the bicycling, Branson's persona, and the speech where he mentioned the bicycling are just framing devices around an engineering team pulling off a passeneger spaceflight?

I'd be surprised if he even came up with the idea. They probably had a speech written for him, he got busy (or just felt out of it) and didn't bicycle there as planned, so they found some footage to release so they wouldn't have to change the speech.

It's identical. In this thread, Guy Fieri fans jump out to declare his persona actually true and good; on another message board, Branson fans are doing the same thing, explaining how he's nothing like Fieri.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#224

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

anonAndOn wrote: post #34
Invictus0 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like when Guy Fiery in his hot rod. Better than driving on a real road whilst talking to a camera off to the side, no? Every car scene in every movie and TV show is "fake" too, just so you know.

Steve McQueen wants you to hold his beer.[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJZ-BHBKyos

Apparently they had to do major repairs on the cars every night, because the jumps were so brutal. In one shot, you can see a large plume of oil appear as the car hits the ground and its oil pan is destroyed. :-O

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#225

Post by tragomaskhalos »

WalterBright wrote: post #139
theelous3 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically warning lights appear when the thing they warn about is impending, not that you've past the point. Otherwise they would be useless, except for existential mockery.

I always wanted a street navigator that would say: "you should have turned left back there" followed by a random insult in various languages. Much like every human navigator I've ever had who has been as unhelpful as possible.

Satnavs are actually too polite - explicitly telling the driver that they went wrong (sans insults of course!) is useful information that could avoid a lot of confusion.

I imagine the reason that this is not done is the same reason as lots of sound engineering is compromised - marketing dweebs.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#226

Post by pessimizer »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #94
ragnot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We used to have smart guys in competition. Edison vs. Tesla. Not we have rich business savy guys with not much of a science background holding the cards. I have met very few wealthy men, young or old, who had great ideas. It's almost like the money dulls their brains? And their vanity projects are usually way out of their wheelhouse. It's the same with Writers. I have read very few wealthy guys shop could write. They…

Edison wasn't a smart guy. He hired smart guys and didn't give them credit for their inventions, while trying to talk to the dead.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#227

Post by bee_rider »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #220
bnralt wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't think people realize how close to the earth these people still were. Take a globe, hold your finger as close as you can to it without touching, and that's about as high as Bezos and Branson went. As you said, orbital is what matters, and a suborbital flight around the Karman line doesn't mean much.

For comparison, how high off the globe would orbit be?

Orbit can occur at any distance from Earth if you are the right speed I guess -- although below a handful of fingers you'll get significant drag from the atmosphere. Since the atmosphere doesn't just suddenly cut off at some point, it is a matter of degrees. But for example, the ISS orbits around 400km and needs to be boosted a 'few times a year.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit#Examples

(The Karman line is around 100km, so if we want to use 500ish km as the threshold for reasonable orbits, we really are in the ballpark of a hand's worth of fingers).

The altitude isn't really the point, so much as the trajectory -- if they miss the ground at least once I say we give them a round of applause.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#228

Post by bumby »

Sebb767 wrote: post #149
rpmisms wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge difference. Deviating from a flight plan, even majorly, is orders of magnitude less dangerous than glancing at your phone on the highway. Airspace is really big, and flying into area outside their flight path is so unlikely to hurt anyone as to be laughable. The ballsy part that deserves respect is pushing the envelope on safety, executing perfectly, and playing it off like it's nothing.

> Deviating from a flight plan, even majorly, is orders of magnitude less dangerous than glancing at your phone on the highway. No. These safety margins are expensive and they are there for a reason. Airliners don't expect a f-ing rocket to shoot by and just the air disturbances caused by it can seriously hurt or kill people. > The ballsy part that deserves respect is pushing the envelope on safety, executing perfect…

>These safety margins are expensive and they are there for a reason.

Maybe I missed it in the article but did they elaborate on exactly where they strayed?

The White Sands Missile Range is really quite large, even for restricted military airspace standards. I would assume they would have to really go off course in order to appreciably put people at risk, the irresponsibility notwithstanding.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#229

Post by SonicScrub »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #220
bnralt wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't think people realize how close to the earth these people still were. Take a globe, hold your finger as close as you can to it without touching, and that's about as high as Bezos and Branson went. As you said, orbital is what matters, and a suborbital flight around the Karman line doesn't mean much.

For comparison, how high off the globe would orbit be?

Bit of a bad comparison of accomplishment. Low Earth Orbit isn't that much higher. But it is much much faster (which is what's hard). Getting into orbit is about going fast enough that the centripetal force from your velocity keeps you aloft. To get into a stable orbit at a precise target altitude requires accurate timings and controls, and lots more energy. The engineering challenge is orders of magnitude more difficult.

Re: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

#230

Post by bumby »

doctor_eval wrote: post #80
JohnFen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that is deserving of respect? Edit: This was an honest question, and I was hoping for an answer that would help me to understand. It's a shame that this is getting downvoted rather than someone enlightening me.

Anyone can win if they are allowed to break the rules. You get my respect by completing the mission within the rules.

This is unfortunately common. Even NASA regularly ignores their own standards and procedures due to schedule and budget pressures.
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