[ricardobeat]

Is it? I can’t find any mentions of that plan. This ship was designed for space tourism, the burn is so short it doesn’t really go much far - it even lands back on the same location it launched from.

On top of that, a seat will cost half a million dollars.

SpaceX and maybe Blue Origin can do that, but Virgin would need a different aircraft.

[sschueller]

Space X and blue origin can not do that. Sure they can get a rocket up but you can't launch a giant rocket at Heathrow Airport. You can take off in an aircraft carrying a payload.

What space x proposed with their point to point listing cities such a Zürich Switzerland is insane. If you launch in the middle of Lake Zürich you will blow out every window in the city and probably permanently deathen part of the population. Zürich is a tiny city. Thinking there would be multiple flights like this per day when we can't eve deal with the plane noise is insane.

[ausudhz]

https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-unve...

[ricardobeat]

Yeah, that’s a completely different design for high speed travel in the atmosphere.

[ausudhz]

It doesn't mean anything, virgin galactic was initially developed with this in mind. Space travel for tourist is just a side effect.

Space X and Blue Origin are design for space exploration

[ricardobeat]

Your original reply was to this, and I'm commenting in this context:

> What are we talking about as far as going into space? This craft resembles a passenger plane more than a rocket.

Whatever plans they may have for international flights, they seem unrelated to the craft we saw today - the proposed design in the article you linked is for a new "conventional" supersonic plane, not going to orbit and back à la Starship with SpaceShipTwo.

Also, I thought Virgin Galactic was founded specifically with space tourism in mind, not transportation?