Posted on 07/11/2021 5:51:51 AM PDT by LibWhacker
To this I give a “meh.” he road above 50 miles in an airplane, just like a couple of X-15 pilots did to get the ‘astronaut’ title. He did NOT go into space and orbit the earth.
On there is a pilot, Branson was a passenger with 5 other people.
True about Musk’s financing. Of course, there would have been a whole lot of unemployed space experts without someone carrying on.
“Why must women announcers do uptalk? Like, ya know?”
I know what you mean. It sounds like they are fishing for approval, which may well be the case.
But, we probably shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Musk has grown his SpaceX business on the backs of US Taxpayer...not unlike his Tesla business, it shouldn’t be forgotten.
So you would prefer that we continued to pay the Russians to take our astronauts and cargo up to the ISS? Or that, to this day, we continue to buy Russian RD-180 rocket engines to power some of our rockets?
I think that you are forgetting that Musk did not receive a single cent from NASA or the US government while he ‘developing’ his Falcon rockets. He got NO engineering or technical support from NASA. In fact NASA did everything they could to cripple him and slow him down.
He had to pay millions of dollars just to be able to use a launch pad at the Cape. No support services of any kind, just to use the pad itself. Then he was required to refurbish the pad after every launch.
The only real technical support he got was by hiring laid-off and retired NASA engineers. And SpaceX workers have found their tires slashed while working at the Cape.
No, the money/contracts from the US government only came after Musk spent almost $400 million of his own money to develop the Falcon series of rockets. Only then did NASA very reluctantly start to use SpaceX.
As far as Branson goes, how many astronauts does he plan to deliver to the ISS in the next year?
How many tons of supplies?
How’s Branson Moon Lander development coming along?
There’s really no comparison between Musk’s and Branson’s projects.
I made the mistake of perusing Twutter while Richard was gimbaling across the sky and one Twut said that airplanes are responsible for 2.5% of global swarming, and that spacecraft would be a fraction of that.
Complete bs, of course, but surely spacecraft aerosol release is de minimus in any sustained 'pollution'-type way, other than brief human-hazard gases on launch and landing.
In my best Jan and Dean, two boys for every girl...
Actually it was June 1959 when we did it with an X-15 dropped from a B-52.
I had it on, and I went back intermittently luck, and came in just in time to see it separate. I don’t have a problem with commercialization of this kind I applaud it.
I find him distasteful. Not to mention the reprehensible Colbert.
What I meant to say, as I find Branson distasteful. I don’t know anything about him, but He reminds me of one of those desiccated aging rock musicians, which is probably no accident.
I think they call it “lowering the bar”. It’s always been 62 miles minimum to get into “Space”. Now it’s only 50.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.