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to infintiy and beyond Space Ship Two - Virgin Galactic
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How many safe flights would have to take place for such a burn out not to kill the entire industry in one fell swoop?
Virgin, as large as it is, could easily be taken down by the lawyers of the families of 4-6 very dead millionaires, and nobody would ever touch civ space flight again.
That's a very pessimistic outlook, dghandi.
Not at all, just realistic, eventually one will crash and burn, probabilistic imperative . Add that to the demographic, and you have long lines of potential beneficiaries with loads of money who have not signed waivers.
I suppose that virgin could buy a couple $billion policy on each passenger, and just roll it into the price, but that payoff won't stop everyone from dragging virgin into court. It could be a PR nightmare, even if the plaintiffs didn't have the kind of high ticket lawyers and political connections which anybody related to a passenger on one of these things is prone to have.
Just think how quickly this could be shut down if the second cousin of a dead Rockefeller or Kennedy pulled some political strings.
I'm not saying they should throw in the towel, but the whole idea of suborbital manned space flight is kinda silly, and I think the passenger thing will kill it. If they could figure out a way to use the payload space to launch/retrieve small orbital satellites with some sort of secondary rocket, then this seems like it might be useful tech, but as it stands I fail to see how this is even a stepping stone to civ orbital flight. If it gets shut down it could even be an serious obstacle to opening up orbital service when the tech in ready.
I'm glad that Rutan, an American, is doing this because I fear that the country is losing it's place as a nation of clever, industrious innovators.
And this all appeals greatly to my sense of fun and adventure. Tomfoolery of the greatest magnitude.
But yeah, adventure sometimes ends in tears. Let's hope it doesn't.
http://blog.videosift.com/dag/Virgin-Galatic-flights-redeembable-by-Frequent-Flyer-Points