Branson's Virgin Orbit Files For Bankruptcy After Launch Failure Squeezed Financ...
source link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/04/04/186219/bransons-virgin-orbit-files-for-bankruptcy-after-launch-failure-squeezed-finances
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Branson's Virgin Orbit Files For Bankruptcy After Launch Failure Squeezed Finances
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...build a platform like 50 miles high? Take an elevator up, then just jump into space.
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Hey, I'll bet you could get Babbel to sponsor the building of that tower!
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This is Branson's low earth satellite launch service that has gone bankrupt. I'm sure that Virgin Galactic (and Blue Origin et al) will be happy to charge rich assholes $$$$$ for the exciting opportunity to be blown to pieces or mushed into an identifiable paste on board one of their rockets.
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Oh I see, thanks. Galactic... pff.
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Virgin Galactic was founded 20 years ago and has managed 3 sub-orbital flights.
Unfortunately they've hardly managed to attempt to kill any rich arseholes yet. It looks more like some sort of scam than an actual rocket company, but I can't figure out what Branson's angle is.
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I made the same mistake last story of thinking this was the passenger company Virgin Galactic.
This was just the company spun of in 2017, with the aim of providing launch craft for small satellites [space.com].
Not sure how Virgin Galactic is fairing...
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Fairing is a rocket-related word, but you want faring here.
Or did I.:-)
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Three words: Zero G sex!
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Unfortunately the length of time in zero G is only four minutes so... no, wait, you should be good.
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Marriage?
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So, who has the bigger dong, Bezos or Musk? Obviously Richard "Tiny" Branson is bowing out of the contest.
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Musk. Bezos hasn't put anything in orbit yet.
And even when he does, New Glenn is going to be in the same very general ballpark as Falcon Heavy. With very good odds the insanely huge Starship stack will already have made it to orbit.
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Made it to orbit carrying a production model cybertruck, though?
That won't be happening anytime soon.
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Or did he sell off and run away with a profit
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SpaceX built up based on a "break things fast then fix them" methodology which was widely derided by many observers. If it was ever a valid development strategy it certainly wouldn't be for something as risky and failure-intolerant as space travel.
They have a youtube video of all their "failures," one after another. It is pretty amusing to watch. But to them, they weren't failures as such. Each was an opportunity to learn something that they would not have learned with the traditional approach of years of simulations and calculations.
This seems to be what sunk VO. I don't know the full story there but I suspect that they built up an expectation of doing it how NASA did it way-back-when and when they couldn't, it was a "failure." No more funding for you, you failure. Can anyone here say whether I have it right or not?
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The thing worked, they had successful launches, they just ran out of money, and apparently their future sales didn't look good enough to fund further operations. I'm curious what happens now with their subsidiary VOX and its Space Force contract which appears partially fulfilled as of last year.
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I take a broader view. "Space" is ultimately something we'll succeed at as a country, if not even more broadly as a species. I applaud everyone who makes a serious effort to launch something into space.
As far as SpaceX goes, people underestimate the degree to which Musk is driven by belief and willing to gamble heavily on that belief. Every time I hear a conspiracy theory about him, I counter with... No, Elon REALLY does believe the only hope for humanity is to colonize Mars and beyond. He's willing to
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I don't under-estimate it, but call it obsession.
The Mars project is the conspiracy, in plain sight.
His sanity has already gone.
Musk and SpaceX can afford his "do or bust" approach simply because investors continue to throw money at him, however colossal the cock-up he makes. His fans regard him as the new Messiah rather than the super-salesman he really is.
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Don't underestimate the value of sales in tech.
History is chock full of great ideas and wonderful new tech that wasn't well sold and the companies died.
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You are correct.
They HAD to be successful to get any further funding due to SpaceXs run-away success.
And your point on their approach is poignant, speed seems to have been a key issue, and maybe "trying/blowing things up" progress would have been enough, hard to say (depends on how it goes).
I'm not sure if we can get a true competitor to SpaceX, they are just too good compared to anything else on Earth. They have 22 successful launches in 2023 so far (out of 50 so far total, SpaceX is 22-0, the rest of Ear
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I do remind you that, when SpaceX started, that wasn't their philosophy. Elon Musk's stated philosophy was "we will do things right the first time, and achieve 99.9% reliability right from the start, because we designed reliability in from the very beginning."
After three successive failures with their first rocket, Elon changed his story.
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Like the time they tried to land one of their rockets right next to another rocket set to launch at a future date, ensuring that if there was a failure (which there was), it would cause double the damage. Heaven forbid they move the rockets farther away from each other to minimize the possibility of nearly undetectable ricochet damage. I mean, this is common sense!
From my perspective, Space-X was just arrogant cowboyism, taking a wide variety of risks that were completely avoidable, trying to catch-up wit
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SpaceX was able to do that because they had Musk funding them from his other ventures. Bezos could do it for Blue Origin I guess, but I don't think Branson was rich enough or still invested in enough other businesses to manage. He sold off most of his Virgin brands.
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Does this mean Branson is conceding the contest for which billionaire has the biggest dong?
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filling out all those bankruptcy forms takes rocket science.
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The company, which was spun off from space tourism firm Virgin Galactic in 2017, sends satellites into orbit using rockets launched from a modified Boeing 747 plane.
No, actually it doesn't. That's the problem.
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Out of Virgin Orbit's six launch attempts, four have been successful. So, it puts satellites into orbit more often than it fails.
Turns out that wasn't good enough
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