- SpaceNews
This is pretty sad actually, they were the only ones doing the air launch strategy, which is a fundamentally good idea but very difficult to execute. I think the concept may die with them, at least for the foreseeable future.
Their launch failed in January with an unexpected fuel line disconnection. All previous launch attempts have also failed, and it’s not looking good for their company. They apparently found and fixed it for the next launch, but maintaining and operating a 747 and a rocketry program is not cheap.
A reminder that rocket science is hard is not out of the question, sometimes you can put together the best group of people in the world and it can still frick it up. You may never even know why, it just happens.
Here’s hoping it doesn’t spread to other companies.
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Sure, sure, but did you notice that their name "Virgin" hahahaHAHAHAHALOLOLOLXDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
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HOLY SHIT I JUST REALIZE IT NOT JUST VIRGIN.
IT"S VIRGIN ORBIT
AS IN VERGEN ORBITER
AS IN BETA ORBITER
OMG
!nooticers
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i am starting chad orbit company RIGHT NOW
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More like Incel Orbit
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Did it ever make sense physically? Getting like 10 km above ground requires a miniscule part of the total energy expenditure.
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It does, actually. The thing with rocketry is that every stage must be lifted by the one below it. That’s why the SLS and Saturn V are so much larger than, say, Falcon 9. They have larger upper stages, which are the parts that will do the lunar transfer. Those larger upper stages need to be lifted into space, and the size gets out of hand very quickly. If you can start higher up than where you are, you’ve saved that energy, which has reduced the size of your rocket. 10km is pretty significant.
But it’s not just the vertical height that’s saved, it’s the added speed from the aircraft. Another free starting bonus of kinetic energy before you launch. That’s why everyone launches as close as possible to the equator, it’s free energy.
So yeah, it should in theory dramatically reduce the size of the rocket and make it easier to get to orbit, making it much cheaper. But it’s a tricky proposition for a startup.
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That's like 200 m/s subtracted from 9 km/s.
Idk, right now it feels like they kinda misjudged the way space exploration is going to be. Like, it's not getting 20% more efficient at getting stuff to LEO, it's the fricking Starship that gets 100 tons to orbit.
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Have you ever noticed how the bottom stages that are 90% of the weight of the spacecraft are jettisoned while still in atmo? Delta v is a very misleading metric when you’re also fighting through a liquid at 2km/s, in addition to the problem of needing exponentially more fuel to carry fuel
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Lets be honest they sucked anyway, they weren't going to do much in the industry regardless
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Probably not, but it’s better than fricking Spinlaunch that’s for sure. At least this was a practical idea and not an investor scam
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Investor scams are based, though. The more investors that get dabbed on the higher the proportion of conservative future investors. Grifters are basically doing wider society a solid by making the economy more efficient through giving investors shit-tests.
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Oh for tech, absolutely lmao. But space is a lot of risky technology where the pitch is incredibly stupid at first (e.g. landing a rocket). If the field develops a reputation for being mostly scams, we’re all fricked and the new space revolution is over
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why is spinlaunch a scam? it seemed to be making good progress last year
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Snapshots:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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That's right, Snappy, they are on the ground!
Trans lives matter, robot lives matter, alien lives don't.
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