70,000 Signed up for Virgin Galactic

[starfhury]

It appears over 70,000 people have signed up for Virgin Galactics SpaceShip2 flights. At $200,000 per flight that's $14 billions dollars!! That's already 86% of NASA's newly approved budget!!! If this pans out, not only will Bronson become even richer, but so will Paul Allen. Hell, in the next few years, Burt Rutan will join Allen and Bronson as billionaires! This is awesome! Drop Bigelow into the mix with his space hotels and we will have the start of a real space industry and a huge one at that.<br />Is it only my imagination? Can anyone else confirms these numbers?<br /><br />http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-04zzk.html <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[zaphod_beeblebrox]

one more example of "slipped digits".....<br /><br />Virgin/ Branson have said before they have committments from 7,000 people.....looks like the editing process over at space daily missed the additional digit.

 

[starfhury]

Hey, thanks zaphod. I thought it was too good to be true. Over the next decade, if things pan out, it will come to pass. I can't wait for that to happen. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nacnud]

A three minute flight or a chest X-ray, which is more dangerouse?

 

[wvbraun]

What the hell are you taling about? They will spend less than 10 minutes in near earth space, protected by the Earth's magnetic field. You can spend months or even years in LEO and the probability to develop cancer later in life will essentially remain unchanged.<br />Radiation protection becomes an issue with interplanetary flights.

 

[najab]

><i>That is my point. And it is not as trivial as you might think. Or want to believe.</i><p>Yes, yes it is. The general public's annual radiation dose is 1 millisievert - anything higher and they are classified as 'radiation workers'. Measurements taken onboard the Space Shuttle have found the radiation environment is such that a crew member is exposed to about 600 microsieverts per day. The Shuttle orbits <b>way</b> higher than StarShip One/Virgin Galactic, but we'll use this figure. A SS1/VG flight spends 5 minutes or less at peak but we'll pretend that the entire flight profile is spent in the LEO radiation environment. SS1's flights to date have been about an hour and a half in duration (from gear up to touchdown) in that time, at 200+ miles up, the radiation dose would have been 37.5 microsieverts - less than four percent of the annual dose. In reality, since the apogee was <b>much</b> lower and the time spent there was much shorter the dose would be near negliable.<p>I don't think this is something we have to concern ourselves with.</p></p>

 

[najab]

><i>So it's OK for PG women and children to fly aboard the SS1 flights then?</i><p>The only concern I would have with pregnant women would be mechanical shock. Children would probably need some kind of booster seat (LOL!). I <b>definitely</b> wouldn't be concerned with radiation in the least. You would get a higher dose on a trans-Atlantic flight.</p>

 

[teije]

The enhanced risk of cancer or any other disease has never stopped people from doing things that are enjoyable. <br /><br />Ask any tobacco company..<br /><br />So even if there is a radiation hazard (which I doubt as najab pointed out) it will not stop people from flying... At their own risk...<br /><br />

 

[grooble]

That 7k figure is misleading. It's only folks who filled out the web form. I filled it out too but i could not afford it. It's just a register of interest.

 

[najab]

I can't yet find any hard numbers, but XCOR has stated that the radiation dose on a Xerus flight would be minimal: <blockquote>Another concern that has yet to be fully addressed by the industry is human factors, or the effects of suborbital spaceflight on the human body. John Jurist, a biophysicist with the consulting firm CRM Inc., said he was asked by XCOR to look into the radiation exposure people for those flying the Xerus. He found that the upper limit to the radiation exposure on a Xerus flight would be 5-6 microsieverts, or one-tenth the radiation from a chest x-ray. “Someone could ride the Xerus every half hour for a working lifetime and not reach the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] lifetime limits,” he said.</blockquote>Link

 

[hansolo0]

I would think that the ISS astronauts would be cooking themselves if there were radiation danger in LEO. I've read somewhere that they are in low enough orbit that the earth's magnetosphere or something like that protect's them from radiation. So if the ISS astronauts are ok, then certainly a lower suborbital flight would be.

 

[hansolo0]

Yes , but aren't the expeditions up there for about 6 months at ISS? Also, didn't we have huge flares in the last year or so when there were astronauts up there? I didn't hear anything about them having to leave? <br />Spaceship 1 flights are only in space for a few minutes..? Why aren't the astronauts dropping dead or getting cancer, etc, etc?

 

[ehs40]

i want it to get cheeper so i can go to space every weekend!!!

 

[tempel1]

Dear friends <br />Go here please:<br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=117 <br />” The spacecraft's VELOCITY RELATIVE TO THE SUN is at about 26 kilometers per second (about 59,250 miles per hour). Cassini is now more than 9 million kilometers (almost 6 million miles) from Earth”. <br /><br />Since our probe is launched from the earth, it has already a velocity of 65,000 miles per hour (earth's velocity). <br /><br />Why have NASA engineers steered Cassini on this trajectory? <br /> http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=h_cassini_trajectory_02.gif&cap=The <br /><br />Instead of increasing Cassini's velocity they have slowed down it at 59,250 miles per hour. <br /><br />NASA engineers think the earth is the center of our solar system and don't consider earth's velocity. <br /><br />In this wrong way Cassini has travelled for 2 200 000 000 miles to meet Saturn. <br /><br />Cassini would have been able to fly along a straight line travelling for less than 1 000 000 000 miles. <br /><br />65,000 miles per hour (earth velocity) + 36,000 miles per hour (spacecraft's velocity) = 101,000 miles per hour <br /><br />1 000 000 000 miles : 365 days : 24 hours : 101,000 miles per hour = 1.13 years <br /><br />If NASA engineers considered the earth's velocity, Cassini could meet Saturn in one year! <br />

 

[grooble]

3 minutes in sub-orbit won't do much damage though will it?