Re: Another space race: China & Russia vs. the USA


"Guy Fawkes" <spare_the_rod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
news: 4508140b$0$19707$88260bb3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agreed but Branson is as much a toy-boy billionaire as an entrepreneur
IMHO. He's doing this mostly for fun, and because it will put Virgin in
the spotlight (especially the airline business). I don't honestly believe
he's going to make any money off it, although I do hope he does, off
course. Once suborbital flights are up and running people will quickly
clamour for orbital flights, which are *much* harder to do. I think Elon
Musk has the best papers here, since his Falcon 9 will be capable of
putting tourists into orbit, albeit billionairs (I reckon $25 million for
a week in his space hotel).


Provided Falcon 9 ever flies sucessfully ( it's not a trivial matter to go
from Falcon-1 to Falcon-9 in a few years ), it will have the capability to
lanch people in orbit, with a lot to spare. Then, it will need to design a
manned capsule ( again not impossible but not trivial ) and convince people
it is safe, which will depend on history of previous falcons. Currently, I'd
much rather go up in a soyouz, thank you. You can send the luggage and food
( and hotel ) with a falcon-9. Not to mention that Soyouz is less than half
the foreseen price for Falcon 9, so you'd need to set at least 7 people on
your falcon to make it worthwhile ( provided no price change )


.

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