Thursday 10 August 2023

Not Quite A SpaceCraft

I really hate to be a pedant about it but stuff it, i'm going to be anyway because i can't allow the headlines that Virgin today flew people into Space because he never, he flew them very, very high but not technically into Space.
Richard Branson's space tourism business, Virgin Galactic, made it's virgin flight into the upper reaches of the atmosphere today, an altitude of 49.7 mile which is short of the Kármán line which is the internationally agreed-upon border at 62 miles that marks the border where outer space officially starts.
To Virgin Galactic 02 Spacecraft is therefore not a Spacecraft and according to Virgin itself it is not designed to reach the Kármán line so we can't put it down to a test and it will gradually fly higher and reach 'Space' so to be more accurate it's a very high-altitude aircraft.
Given that commercial flights are between six and eight miles above sea level, reaching a touch off 50 miles is still amazing and the view of the Earth must have been magnificent but i don't want to urinate on Branson's campfire too much as with his other venture, Virgin Orbit, on the rocks having filed for bankruptcy after it's first and only UK launch failed in January, i hope it is a success because the more people we have attempting Space Flight the better but for the more pedantic amongst us, like me, Virgin Galactic 02 Spacecraft really should be renamed the Virgin Galactic 02 AlmostSpaceCraft.

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