Richard Branson Plans Orbital Spaceships For Virgin Galactic 177
Velcroman1 writes "Following the historic first rocket-powered flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, Virgin Galactic plans to build a fleet of spaceships and begin ferrying hundreds of tourists into space in 2014. And then? A whole new kind of spacecraft, Sir Richard Branson said. 'We'll be building orbital spaceships after that,' Branson told Fox News Tuesday, 'so that people who want to go for a week or two can.' Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?"
$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I could get to orbit for $1,000,000, forget it. The problem is that $200K is just barely in reach, and I'd start thinking about selling my house.
So, short answer. Yes.
Re:$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:5, Funny)
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They probably take Air Miles.
Re:$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:5, Funny)
No Air, no Air Miles. Its in the fine print.
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Don't Forget the Fuel Surchages (Score:2)
They probably take Air Miles.
Yeah, but it's Virgin. The fuel surcharges will cost more than $200,000 to orbit and back if you use miles.
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The article title should read "Richard Branson plans".
Re:$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:5, Informative)
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And if that $200k meant also the food and the service and the launch personnel and other costs
It wouldn't have to, if the food and water and whatever else was already up there.
Water can be recycled, from what I understand - and I expect that with all that solar energy, growing food wouldn't be impossible.
The less mass you can send on a trip, the less the trip costs. Just keep the stuff up there and reuse it a lot.... let people check in at the hotel that's just 250 miles away.
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Get the right job and you can work flying people up there.
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Yes but you must still turn off all of your portable electronic devices.
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Well, if it's $200k equiv. in, say, 2020, and it's an early private sector tech... hopefully by 2030 or 2040 it'll be a lot cheaper.
'course, some of us will be getting on in years then...
Re:$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us are already on in years.
I expected to be here, at this point, by the end of the 70's. Then Vietnam happened, Nixon happened, and the future was, and still is, being mortgaged.
been sitting on the tarmac since 1968. PLZ SND HLP (Score:3)
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I'm sure they will. If you've go the scratch for the ticket purchase, your reservation will be golden.
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Yeah - I'm constantly surprised how few people understand the budget, yet how many have strong opinions about it. The US federal budget is predominantly "mailing checks to the old and the poor", with a side order of "military", and stuff like NASA and freeways and everything the government actually does is a financial afterthought.
NASAs budget is certainly getting cut "because of other things going on", but those other things aren't what most would expect.
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Energy costs will limit just how cheap it can get, and energy costs are rising.
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Its not the energy cost so much as it is the amount of hardware you have to throw away or recondition between flights.
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Re:$200K ... Uh Oh. (Score:4, Funny)
So trip to orbit includes free drugs? Sign me up!
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... and no peanuts. Stupid allergies.
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I feel the same way about most airlines. ;-)
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If the cost is 'on the same scale', it's going to be one heck of a lot more than $200K. Beginning next year, they should be able to get you into space for $200K - for about five minutes. What will it cost for two weeks?
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If someone can scam a theory that space travel for a week or two extends your life by a year or 2, watch the lemmings line up like there's no tomorrow.
Even if it did, though, I'm curious how much the stress of getting into orbit would be, for folks who haven't fully trained for it. I presume there would be some sort of recommended work-out regimen beforehand, but astronauts and fighter pilots do a whole lot of that to withstand g-forces.
arent three years behind schedule? (Score:2)
I know someone who took the oreintation course in 2010. They put you in a similator so you you know how violent certain parts of the ride will be.
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LOL, wrong question ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Would I if I had it to spend? Absolutely. Can I or most of us afford to spend the cost of a house on this? Sadly, no.
I suspect most of us will never get to do this, which sucks. Because I would dearly love to do this before I die.
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Would I if I had it to spend? Absolutely. Can I or most of us afford to spend the cost of a house on this? Sadly, no.
I suspect most of us will never get to do this, which sucks. Because I would dearly love to do this before I die.
Folks said the same thing about:
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$1000 one-way tickets to Disney-Space on Southwest
I'll now be plagued with visions of moustronaut helmets. Thanks for that.
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Cost of orbital flight for one person in 1962: $1.6B in 2010 dollars
Cost of orbital flight for one person in 2014: $0.0002B in 2014 dollars
There's a bit of downward pressure on the cost, so we might see it in our lifetime yet, depending on where you are on the actuarial tables.
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Cost of orbital flight for one person in 1962: $1.6B in 2010 dollars Cost of orbital flight for one person in 2014: $0.0002B in 2014 dollars
0.0002B is 0.2M, which is $200,000. That's for a sub-orbital flight. Big difference.
There's a bit of downward pressure on the cost, so we might see it in our lifetime yet, depending on where you are on the actuarial tables.
Yeah, but not that much.
not most...but many... (Score:2)
While most can't or shouldn't afford this, there will still be at least 70 million people who can easily afford this if they chose (the top 1% of wealthy humans). It's a HUGE market.
This just in... (Score:3)
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Would have been funny if you said: "...call me Narth"
first pinballs, now orbiters? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the 1960s really are back.
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Better than the last few years where it was recession and war, which was the return of the 1930s.
Sadly, we'll probably have to go though the 60's again in space tech to get back to where we need to be to progress. That's what happens when people stop doing things and decide to forget all about them.
Well ... duh ... yes! (Score:2)
If I had the money to spend, sure thing. Any geek would.
Problem is ... I don't have the money to spend. Not even if I sell my house. And I suspect most geeks don't either. The question is, to be a bit blunt, rather stupid.
I presume Virgin will find plenty of people willing to spend 200K on a week-long orbital vacation (probably not too many geeks) but less people with the actual cash in hand.
[willing to spend] != [able to spend]
- Jesper
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Yeah, his clientele is still millionaires, just more of them will be able to afford it.
That said, like airplanes, eventually they should get to a point where it is a experience where you can afford it if you are middle class, and it is still fairly luxurious, if not quite opulent. Once that happens, sign up as soon as possible for the experience, as it may well become the Golden Age of Sub-orbital/Orbital flights.
Just don't wait until it is too cheap. Thirty years after that, you'll be crammed into tiny s
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Moonbase Alpha is also not going to happen. A domed city in Antarctica would be more feasible and no less pointless.
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This isn't transportation. It is an unusual resort, a cruise ship in orbit. People go on cruises to enjoy the cruise ship, not to get anywhere. Sure you see some sights also, but that is true of an orbital vacation too - you get amazing views of Earth all the time.
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In case you didn't notice geeks make up a very high percentage of the high net worth individuals out there. Between tech, telecom, and the quants in the financial sector geeks are probably overrepresented in the top 1%.
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Virgin isn't going to need to worry about the customers' cash flow until they get something in orbit that makes cruise ships look small. It'll be decades.
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but less people with the actual cash in hand.
My dyslexia momentarily had me read that as "with the actual cash to land."
That makes for an even stickier situation...
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If I had the money to spend, sure thing. Any geek would.
Problem is ... I don't have the money to spend. Not even if I sell my house. And I suspect most geeks don't either. The question is, to be a bit blunt, rather stupid.
What if you would get $200k tax free like in a lottery plus the opportunity to book a ticket now?! I would travel around the world first or pay my mortgage. However if I would have $2m to spend, that's another case. So even if I have the money, it totally depends on the amount that's left afterwards.
So many people say they want to go... (Score:2)
If going to space is so great, why haven't the few who've gone written more about it?
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Because there isn't a vary large overlap between 'space tourist' and 'author'?
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Out of the millions who visit Israel, Rome, Sicily, Cairo, what percentage of those tourists write books about it? The percentage is lower than that of space tourists, so obviously those places cannot be that great. ;)
If I had the financial means I'd go - I'd shoot a lot and post photos of both the cosmos and the Earth online, but I would be very unlikely to write a book about it. Personally, I'd rather see what the heavens really look like from space in properly-exposed photographs (by properly-exposed,
Lisa Nowak excluded... (Score:2)
Strike that, that would be funny as hell!
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Maybe you missed Richard Garriott's story?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611990/ [imdb.com]
He showed up to the premiere a few years back in a space suit. I have a picture of him and his wife that I took on a hard drive somewhere.
1/a dozen is a higher ratio than for most other tourists. And remember - most of these people are pretty damn rich. They [i]don't care[/i] about bragging to plebes about how awesome the thing they did was.
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Because being a space tourist means only that you have enough money to pay someone 7 figures to ferry you somewhere. There is no skill involved outside of remembering your bank account number. And nobody wants to read about that.
Now, if they would actually DO something in space? Well, that would be something to write about. Otherwise, it would be as fascinating a read as someone's exploits at the Sandals in Jamaica: "Laid on the beach. Had a drink. Went to eat and drink more. Slept. Got sunburned. Repeated
Time to consider a new career (Score:2)
VG or GV? (Score:3)
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Not according to "Taken".
If I recall correctly, if you know the right people, $100,000 can get you a young hot chick.
Yes, but only if it's a LynxJet experience! (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hky7wN2QGko [youtube.com]
Alternatively...they could offer "Natalie Portman" service, naked and petrified.
Oh yeah, with hot grits...of course
In zero G.
For two weeks.
Sorry, gotta go and lie down on my lawn now.
Carbon/energy footprint? (Score:2)
In a world of climate change and rising temperatures I can't help but wonder: What is the carbon/energy footprint of a single ticket? To speak nothing of the total impact if this "business"? It look to me like Virgin Galactic and its customers are likely to be the absolute worst polluters on the planet ...
Would they be so eager to go into space for fun if they had to pay the actual environmental cost as well? Allowing it for science is one thing ... doing it solely for entertainment is another!
- Jesper
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Yes, indeed. From a very interesting article at NASA [nasa-usa.de]:
Travelling from the surface of Earth to Earth orbit is one of the most energy intensive steps of going anywhere else. This first step, about 400 kilometers away from Earth, requires half of the total energy needed to go to the surface of Mars
It also mentions the mass to fuel ratio into earth orbit for the Saturn V was 4% whereas for the Space Shuttle (due to its heavy reusable reentry vehicle) it was only 1%.
Sorry to say it, but humankind cannot afford tourism into space until we have a space elevator.
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Surely you are joking?
The link he provided shows what enormous energy it takes to lift stuff into space. It speaks nothing of price; only thrust and energy.
The actual dollar-price, and your comparison to hollywood movies, is totally irrelevant. The important thing to learn from the NASA article, is the consumption of energy. That translates into pollution - a lot of it!
- Jesper
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The point is in the numbers after the quote, which you silently ignore. 1% to 4% mass:fuel ratio means the following
Assumptions
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*cough* Multiply the 367500km by 1.6. I got confused with units (please, please switch to the metric system) and calculated with 20 km per gallon. So you get 38 years of car use.
Re: Carbon/energy footprint? (Score:2)
I disagree. While there is plenty to be done in other areas, as you correctly point out, this does not translate into allowing a small isolated (and filthy-rich) group of people to pollute as much as several thousands "normal citizens". It is simply ethically and mortally objectionable.
They should be forced to pay the full true cost of their environmental impact - or be banned from doing it at all.
Screwing up the planet for science is one thing. Screwing it up just because they have the money to get a very
Moron much? (Score:2)
Moron. Just think about it for a minute, take a long term view...
Without the commercialization of space we are all doomed to live and die on earth, with the commercialization of space the stars are within our long term reach.
I as a child I read Arthur C Clarke's 'the next 50 years in space' and if I remember correctly, by now we should have colonies on both the Moon and Mars. Then I remember reading about project Orion, which would give us the ability to lift entire orbitals into space. But of course budget cuts and 'it's not green' saw an end to my childhood dreams.
Then I look at 'greenies' like you, and I despair. You want to keep the kindergarten neat and tidy, and can't see any further than that.
Nice. Calling people "moron" but posting as AC? Won't stand by your words, eh? What a brave person you are!
If you're not just trolling, but actually think I look no further than my childrens kindergarten, then I pity you. You must have a very narrow perception of other people.
I have no objecting to commercializing space. I have objections to doing it in ways which will doom the planet - or at least significantly hamper future generations ability to live a proper life. We simple do not have the right to dest
Bad assumption (Score:2)
Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?
If the cost were that low, and I had the money somehow, I'd love to spend it on a few weeks in orbit. However, recognizing how much harder it is to get into orbit than to just go straight up, I have strong doubts that costs won't be a factor of 10 or 100 higher. Also, since it's already taken more than twice as long as originally projected for this thing to be ready, I wouldn't expect anything orbital before 2020 or so.
I wonder who will build it? (Score:2)
I have to really wonder who will build this vision. While Scaled Composites is an innovative company, it's leader isn't exactly a spring chicken. Rutan is almost 70 [wikipedia.org] and while I know he has bright people working with him, without Burt this thing will go nowhere.
It's also been almost 9 years since they won the X-Prize so IMO, if they're not flying the public by 2014 (end of) this will be a venture that Branson and Rutan won't be seeing anytime soon.
I don't see the appeal. (Score:3)
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I don't want to loiter in the void (Score:2)
Go to a space hotel with centripetal "gravity" and 5 star food? Yeah I'm up for that.
But what I want in the short term is a fast transcontinental flight.
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There's a limited supply of seats to ISS and they cost tens of millions of dollars. A weekly flight to a Bigelow-style habitat for a few million would certainly seem like a better deal for most millionaires; for one thing you could take your mistress^H^H^H^Hwife along for the ride.
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he wont be doing anything but collecting other peoples money for doing very little work personally.
And how is this is different from how things have always been? The rich put in the money, then expect a return on that investment. Not an awesome system, but it more or less, is the way things work and have gotten us this far.
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Are you suggesting that Virgin Galactic invade Somalia?
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no you use this tech to put missiles in orbit so virgin galactic can nuke Somalia from space.
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Are you suggesting that Virgin Galactic invade Somalia?
I don't know how you can make a Galactic Empire invading a hive of scum and villainy without getting a +5 Awesome. For shame Slashdot, for shame.
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The poor scramble for food, food stamps ( SNAP program ) is being cut
The 20% of American children are in poverty
Pensions and Social Security are being cut leaving people with a life of work out in the cold
Our priorities are wrong.
No, our priorities are just right. Unless you want to kill off 90% of the worlds population, people will be *forever* in poverty. There's not enough resources on the Earth -- by a substantial factor -- to support seven billion people without 3/4 of them living in poverty conditions.
If you let the plight of the unfortunate (and irresponsible -- those people living in poverty are continuing to procreate, after all) stop progress, humanity will go extinct on this planet, along with every other form of life. Fi
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a few billion living in poverty
Not to mention that the few billion living in today's poverty live WAY better than those in poverty even a couple of centuries ago.
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A lot of people living in today's poverty live better than those NOT in poverty a few centuries ago.
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[Citation needed]
I mean, maybe. But then a few centuries ago people were free to make a living off the land. Now they have to beg for jobs and no amount of work is going to help them without that when they have nothing to work with and there's no unclaimed land to farm.
It may well be that the only truly free people were those who came into lands that belonged to nobody and it also may well be that those in fitting climates weren't really bad off. The golden times of mankind are over. Maybe there are new gol
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[Citation needed]
I mean, maybe. But then a few centuries ago people were free to make a living off the land. Now they have to beg for jobs and no amount of work is going to help them without that when they have nothing to work with and there's no unclaimed land to farm.
It may well be that the only truly free people were those who came into lands that belonged to nobody and it also may well be that those in fitting climates weren't really bad off. The golden times of mankind are over. Maybe there are new golden times far in the future, but this would require some really hard work to get us off this rock. And with "us" I don't mean just a handful of stinking rich tourists in LEO.
Virtually no one in civilized recorded history had that ability.
And that's a VERY good thing -- we wouldn't have technology if the excess work of the masses wasn't being aggregated by the few.
The extremely wealthy footing the cost of investment in developing the technology is why we have it. A seamstress working at home wouldn't have the resources to build a programmable loom. Orville and Wilbur wouldn't have the resources to build a DC-9. A fisherman wouldn't be able to build the QE2.
The only reason we're
Unless you want to kill off 90% of the worlds (Score:2, Funny)
You wrote:
"Unless you want to kill off 90% of the worlds population..."
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
Any good ideas in this direction? It would solve so many problems, unemployment, high real-estate prices, traffic, hunger, poverty, ease of netfame/tv appearances, distribution of resources, global warming, and hopefully, get rid of all the stupid people.
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You wrote:
"Unless you want to kill off 90% of the worlds population..."
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
Any good ideas in this direction? It would solve so many problems, unemployment, high real-estate prices, traffic, hunger, poverty, ease of netfame/tv appearances, distribution of resources, global warming, and hopefully, get rid of all the stupid people.
A good economic collapse, maybe with some ecologic collapse giving a helping hand will easily do the trick. People will just starve and/or kill each other.
Unfortunately it won't necessarily be the not stupid ones who survive.
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Earth has more than enough resources for 20 billion people if we were not squandering them on welfare for the non-working leaches who live off the hard work of others. Of course I am talking about the owning class of billionaire plutocrats.
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Earth has more than enough resources for 20 billion people if we were not squandering them on welfare for the non-working leaches who live off the hard work of others. Of course I am talking about the owning class of billionaire plutocrats.
The total financial resources of all of the worlds' billionaires distributed evenly across the entire planet wouldn't put everyone at a lower-class American lifestyle for a year.
Keep in mind, the *vast* majority of that wealth is held in limbo -- in banks and investments, things like that. Its *not* being spent on things that chew up time, energy and resources. If a few trillion dollars suddenly showed up in the pockets of everyone on the planet, there wouldn't be resources for people to buy anything, power
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I am not talking about money. I am talking about resources. Stuff of actual value and use that are controlled by the plutocrats to continue the illusion of the money game. Food, water, power, shelter, network connectivity. All these things could be given to the whole world for nearly free if certain investments in the future of humanity were made, but that does not serve the short term interests of those who seek a larger slice of an ever shrinking pie.
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A population of 7 billion absolutely -- by any measure -- requires the vast majority to live in poverty
What a load of crap. Will people never shut up with this Malthusian nonsense? With current technology, the 3 or 4 billion able-bodied workers can easily produce all the food, shelter, and electronic toys needed to provide an American working-class lifestyle for all 7 billion. I'd say the biggest source of waste and inefficiency is all the time and effort trying to force one another to live The One True Way.
The only real constraint on our collective standard of living is energy input, and we are currently
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Earth has more than enough resources for 20 billion people if we were not squandering them on welfare for the non-working leaches who live off the hard work of others. Of course I am talking about the owning class of billionaire plutocrats.
No, it doesn't (currently). Not at what Western citizens would consider to be a 'average' lifestyle. It's a question of available resources, their cost and availability. There's a great book called "How Many People Can the Earth Support?" by Joel Cohen. He doesn't give a single answer, because the answer is that 'it depends', on what lifestyles people have, what resources are available to them, what those resources cost, etc. If we all ate simply (i.e. little meat) and conserved water and didn't drive
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You don't have to build homes out of wood.
Water is a solved problem with enough power via desalination.
You can create the entire energy usage (including industrial and transportation) of the US with a 100 mile wide patch of solar thermal plants in the Mojave with room for a century of growth. You can do the same thing in the gobi, middle east, north africa and outback for the rest of the worlds population. This requires no revolutionary new technology or exotic rare materials.
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There will always be poor, there will always be hungry, there will always be poverty. There will always be greed.
Why wait for those problems to be solved if there's no end to them and say something as exciting as human space travel for the masses is unimportant? If it helps bring down the costs and increases the amount of interest, it could one day be a solution to the poor since there are unlimited resources out there. The survival of every species on earth could depend on that innovation, research and e
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/17/aid-trade-reduce-acute-poverty [guardian.co.uk]
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If that where only so, unfortunately the catholic church tells many of those people that they will burn in hell for all eternity if they so much as use a rubber or take a pill. It is quiet easy in the US at least to come buy free condoms, my college campus makes a habit of giving them away by the handfull. Many clinics give them away and who is so hard up that they cant pay 75 cents for one out of a vending machine at the nearest truck stop bathroom. The only people poor enough not to be able to get them al
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Not any more than other ways to burn fossil fuels. And you can use hydrogen (or synthesized hydrocarbons) if you want. There's no reason rockets can't be carbon neutral.
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he is building a space going infrastructure that will pave the way for all sorts of industry for example space mining so we can quit polluting and ravaging the earth for all of our minerals you are think very small picture (postage stamp) he is thinking big picture (sistine chapel). while it is bad for the environment on a small scale it will pave the way for a much more green future, think of all of the pollution from the manufacturing all the needed parts of solar cells a few years ago. as things go we wi
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Don't know if it's still the plan, but a few years ago Virgin were predicting the cost of sub-orbital flights would drop to $50,000 within five years of operation. While that's still expensive, it's much closer to a typical 'extreme' vacation like a few days in Antarctica.
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... a lot of people would view a week in space as such.
masochistic?
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