Virgin Galactic Unity 22 Spaceflight Livestream [video] | Hacker News Reader

Virgin Galactic Unity 22 Spaceflight Livestream [video]

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119 points_Microft106 comments

Lots of cynical takes on HN whenever there's a post on Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin. Personally I'm super excited about pieces of actual physical hardware that can fly really fast. Definitely beats reading a blog post on microservice best practices or JS frameworks or what have you. Looking forward to the livestream!

> Lots of cynical takes on HN whenever there's a post on Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin.

Probably the Musketeers are waiting for SpaceX to write a blogpost about how they use X language in their software stack to literally blast Dogecoin to the moon.

I don't care if it is Virgin Galactic, SpaceX or Blue Origin. I'll watch either of them going to space.

> Definitely beats reading a blog post on microservice best practices or JS frameworks or what have you.

Indeed. Add Rust to that list as well. A change for once.

Downvoters: So this is not true? [0]

[0] https://www.space.com/spacex-dogecoin-moon-mission

I am sure this is the longest ad I have ever watched.

45 mins (and counting) of massaging RB's ego and promoting his company.

With some subtle product placement for Land Rover as well.

I don't think the guy who is going to space really cares about getting his ego massaged by commercials.

Wrong

Everything Branson does is related to his ego. Unlike Musk though, his companies accomplish very little other than marketing.

His companies are marketing/branding companies. They lease the name Virgin and in exchange they handle the branding. Virgin Management doesn't actually own the hotels or planes.

I've turned off the audio, it actually gets more informative this way...

I'm really glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Anything to advance spaceflight is something I want to see more of, but this doesn't feel like that, this feels like it's going to end with a number I can call to make my reservation and get an astronaut number. It's pretty damn bold to call oneself Astronaut 001, when none of this would have been possible without the work of dozens of other astronauts before.

Gargarin would like a word.

Well, he was Cosmonaut 001.

Does "001" refer to the implication that there will be up to 999 more?

I have to agree, and such a waste of Colbert’s talents, who could’ve made it great even with neutral coverage. For me it was still fun to watch… Obviously it would’ve been much better if their live feeds were working.

I found Colbert very bland without the laugh/clap track, too.

"Hey Stephen, can you record an hour of stuff in exchange for a Virgin Galactic ticket?"

Yea, I recommend muting the stream if you are interested in watching, otherwise it's 45 min of giving RB a rimjob.

Amazing of all the things you saw you see ego and ads.

Just glad I don't share that lens with everything.

After the first 10 minutes, my wife said "Can we just mute this? I'm getting nauseous from all this stroking of RB's ego".

Before they launched all I could do was wish them godspeed and hope it brings him down to earth like nothing has ever done before.

Of course it's an ad - VG is a commercial space flight company - what did you expect?

While I wasn't too surprised there was a Virgin promotional aspect to it I was surprised at the amount of cross marketing and cross promotion they were doing. There was at least:

1. NBC

2. Land Rover

3. Some new musical artist

4. A New Mexico tourism campaign

I just thought this all made it feel really cheap. It also seems bizarre that you would want to to debase your brand like this during your premiere event.

The launch of the plane with the attached rocketship is still one hour away but here is a reminder already so that you don't miss it if you would like to watch.

If you want to read a short article about it in the meantime, here is one by Eric Berger of Ars Technica:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/jeff-bezos-says-its-...

Technically we’re about to officially launch the commercial space travel service that is not even in space. Anyhow, what was the name of the second guy to stepped on the Moon ?

Buzz Aldrin but I guess you knew that already ;)

That will be Jeff’s position as well ;)

Jeff Who? ^^

After the recent tweets of Blue Origin [0], I would have answered "Salty Jeff" but they turned the corner with [1].

[0] https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1413521631717122059

[1] https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1413942794943598594

This meme of "not even in space" seems less of a practical definition and more of an egotistical point. My understanding of the company's intention is to go far enough to realize the benefits of dramatically reduced drag. Something like a classic 80/20 flex.

Space might loose that virginity status regardless the size.

The 80km line can actually be measured objectively by physical properties and the FAI is considering making that their definition.

https://www.fai.org/news/statement-about-karman-line

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651...

etc

As your 2nd. reference shows, there are many objective facts to base a decision on, but drawing any particular line ultimately has an irreducible arbitrary element.

Also, when defining spaceflight, one could add an orbital velocity requirement - after all, a falling brick is not normally considered to be flying (even the phrase 'flying debris' implies some lateral motion.)

What counts is being able to persuade other people. It looks like the 80km faction is succeeding with the FAI.

The Kármán line isn't arbitrary - or at least it wasn't when Kármán first conceived of it. It's supposed to be the altitude at which centrifugal force becomes more significant than aerodynamic lift. That's a definite altitude with significant implications.

Whether this definition is meaningful for a suborbital flight is debatable.

Yes, but, like all the other factual bases for a definition, it is a concept that does not yield an exact number.

Er, not really. There is a specific, identifiable altitude where this happens.

Centrifugal force is a function of angular velocity, and atmospheric density varies with the weather and seasons.

From the paper imglorp linked to: "in reality the von Karman criterion defines a line whose altitude varies with position and time (because of variations in atmospheric density due to solar activity) and with the lift coefficient of the spacecraft."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651...

I'm aware. I'm not saying the altitude is the exact same altitude at all times under all conditions. I'm saying there is a specific altitude where centrifugal force becomes the dominant force if you want to stay aloft. And that was Kármán's original conception. Yes, that altitude will vary with the atmospheric tides (and with C_L, as another commenter points out). But it is still a definite altitude and not at all arbitrary.

arbitrary: "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system"

It is not based on random choice or personal whim. It is the result of a systematic analysis of the relationship between the forces required to sustain flight.

>I'm not saying the altitude is the exact same altitude at all times under all conditions.

You were disputing a post in which this was literally the only point I made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27801257

Nothing says "arbitrary" more than a quantity that was deliberately rounded up 9km just for the heck of it. Things can be guided by math/logic and still have arbitrary elements. The Karmen line definition is a logical definition with certain arbitrary constant selections, and therefore it's not specific. This doesn't mean it's random, only that there are band of valid definitions.

It's correct to state a boundary defined by centrifugal force dominance is somewhere between 80ish and 100ish km, and the specific number is somewhat arbitrary. It's not correct to say its for 20km (for example), which would be a truly random selection.

The specific identifiable altitude still requires an arbitrary selection of lift coefficient and vehicle mass in order to calculate. The calculation is vehicle dependent, not general. The values used in the original definition of the general case were set to be "typical", which yielded 91km. Because of the arbitrariness of this definition, it was defined to be 100km as that was "more memorable"

Just for reference, the news just said they’re going a little over 90km up.

Specifically for VG, it might be trivial to add a little extra thrust--some external drop tanks or small SRB's for example--and hit that line just to match Bezos.

FYI the flight has been delayed 1.5 hours due to weather early this morning delaying the rollout. New takeoff time is 8:30 local, 7:30 pacific. (I'm here)

Thanks for the heads-up, I had factored that into the UTC launch time already.

Enjoy the show!

It would be cool if the live broadcast screen was showing UTC time rather than all the other random times.

I never understood why people thought that not showing UTC might be a good idea. With UTC anyone in the world only needs to know their own timezone (and DST status) to convert it to local time instead of having to know their own plus whatever timezone the event is referencing (which is the actually tricky part).

UTC is the only civilised timezone. That’s what server internal clocks should use.

I disagree, the British created time. GMT it is.

UTC is the successor of GMT, there's no difference other than the name.

And it was approved by the TVA, so...there's that.

I think someone claiming the British created time might not be 100% serious.

It's an interesting question. Clearly the British didn't "invent time", but when the railways became widespread in the UK they needed to have "Railway Time"[0]. Before that each village had their own local time, and it was a mess when trains would arrive or depart minutes earlier or later than expected.

So "Railway Time" was invented in 1840 ... unified across the country, and it created a Time Zone.

Was Britain the first place this happened? I suspect it was.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time

In the context of GMT the importance of time to establishing longitude and the Longitude act[0] seem much more relevant to me. I still think it's a bit of a stretch from that to "created time" though!

Whoever came up with the sundial first would have the claim to having invented time - and the sun's not out often enough in Blighty for them to be a contender :P

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act

Dunno. The British have a Timelord, so they seem to take it pretty seriously. ;)

That's not technically correct. The difference is tiny and for most purposes can be ignored, but GMT is based on the mean solar time at Greenwich whereas UTC is based on International Atomic Time.

Doesn’t GMT follow daylight-saving time while UTC does not?

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboututc.shtml

No. Local time in Greenwich is currently 1657, that's 1657 BST (which has daylight saving). It's 1551 GMT. Solar noon today as 1205 GMT.

Just like in New York where it's 1157 Local, or 1157 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) - 1057 EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Canada created time zones so let's go with... err, GMT it is then.

And Canada has the one time zone that’s shifted by only a half hour, invalidating their positive contributions to time management entirely. :)

(Pedantic) UTC isn’t a time zone, it’s a time standard (https://www.timeanddate.com/time/gmt-utc-time.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time)

Also, time zones were invented in Italy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone#Worldwide_time_zones)

I'm always glad when I see SpaceX's stats in SI, whereas Blue Origin doesn't care at all about it.

It's not like there's limited screen real estate which prevents to show the stats in both units.

A former space shuttle manager at NASA (now president at Virgin) told CBS:

"It's a small community. I know dozens of people who work at Blue Origin, I know dozens and dozens of people at SpaceX, and we all used to work together at NASA. And I wish every single one of them the best.... Because all of us together is what's going to get humans into space and our culture to recognize that space travel is the foundation for the future for everyone..."

He also described Branson as "happy, excited... But that excitement is really infectious. And so the whole crew is feeling it."

Saturday Jeff Bezos posted a picture of Richard Branson on Instagram, with the message "Wishing you and the whole team a successful and safe flight tomorrow. Best of luck!" (And Elon Musk tweeted out a video of Branson too.)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/branson-flight-signals-confiden...

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRKHsLENB-n/

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1413736778658459649

Link to track the flight live:

https://www.flightradar24.com/VGX01/285e221f

It's a dead link now.

Since its landed its available here: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n202vg/#285e221f

Can someone explain why it's so technically challenging to get a good quality audio and video feed to / from a suborbital vehicle? Is it just a matter of a long physical distance between transmitter and receiver? How is it that I can stream HD quality audio from satellites (XM Radio) in near-realtime but near-realtime audio and video from spacecraft seems to be extremely low quality and high latency? Is it just a matter of transmitter power?

bluetooth has always been pretty bad.

Here is a manual to the Falcon9 which talks about how they do it. It’s all digital S Band https://www.spacex.com/media/Falcon_Users_Guide_082020.pdf

And yet the live video from the Moon was higher quality using analog: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2993/how-did-nasa-...

I feel like we have made negative progress in this particular area.

On the way down it's easy: because the air compresses and heats up to the point it becomes a plasma. And despite that we associate it with a glow, it's actually perfectly dark (there are free electron bands in it). In other words: it blocks every frequency, and lasers, if you want to go line of sight.

Now you can get better quality with better receivers/transmitters, but I guess it takes a lot of engineering they didn't do yet.

"Astronaut 001, licence to thrill"

This is comically cringeworthy :)

Austin Powers in Space.

It’s typical Brandson to approach everything from the fun side - the whole live stream shows it :)

Are they actually going into space? I have read that they fly up to an altitude of 80 km. Doesn't space first start at 100 km?

NASA defines space as starting at 50 miles (~80 km), FAI defines it as 100 km (~62 miles).

Scott Manley gave a nice summary a few days ago: https://youtu.be/0b1VgtyIQN0?t=627

Here's the article he references: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.459...

EDIT: Added links.

Yes, everywhere except in the USA.

It will be interesting what is most commercially successful in the short term. I've a feeling Bransons option will be and he'll develop the option to 100km

Then again might get bought out

Trying to find this, but google results are just full of the controversy about this flight rather than information: _can_ SpaceShipTwo reach the Karman line?

Great flight! Quite a milestone. Congratulations to the team

The oldest person to venture into space was John Glenn who went into space at the age of 77 in 1998.

Brandon will be the second-oldest person who turns 71 next Sunday.

Wally Funk, A Lifelong Aspiring Astronaut, Will Finally Head To Space At 82. On July 20, she'll join the crew on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

(Based on 80km being space for Virgin, New Shepard seems to make the 100km mark)

Stream "live" for 10 minutes now with just a static image. Definitely should take some things from SpaceX's book, re: making a dynamic "We'll be live soon" screen.

Edit: Youtube stream is properly live now. 12 minutes of "dead air".

Haha they clearly screwed up with hundreds of thousands of people watching a blank page. On Bloomberg they are already streaming it and it just took off.

Link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTpWYWIfP7Y

It has got a comedy show on at the moment.

The whole broadcast has been a disaster.

Makes me appreciate even more how good of a job SpaceX has done with their broadcasts.

Yes telemetry and comms were really subpar. But that shouldn't shadow the pretty incredible technical feat.

Is this you? [0]

> Please sir, only Elon Musk is allowed to declare people pedo guys.

No need to tell us that you're not a fan of Virgin Galactic.

They still went to space and you're still hate-watching the event. So what is your point?

I bet you will also sit down and hate-watch Blue Origin's launch.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22355491

...and its live now, and it is in the air. Oh, cuts to a count down. Shambles! Hope the flight bit is more prepared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KI2_cpR9Ek is showing the climb-out from takeoff.

This is a much better feed than the official one.

There's been a bunch of small miscues on the broadcast (weird delays, music coming in too loud and at weird times, etc). We've been spoiled by SpaceX's experience broadcasting. Regardless, so awesome that everyone is broadcasting these flights for the world to see!

Can someone also post non-YouTube streams? The ads on the platform are getting positively insane.

Das Valdez (part of NASA Spaceflight - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/ ) is streaming it on Twitch. https://www.twitch.tv/dasvaldez

Twitch has ads too which you can remove by subscribing for about $6 a month per channel.

YouTube has Premium for $12 a month which remove all ads from every channel. I think it’s worth it.

You're not telling the whole story. Twitch Turbo ($8.99/month) removes ads from every channel.

It wasn't intentional. I didn't know that existed, and I've been paying for multiple subscriptions (mostly to support the streamers, but also due to ads). Wish I knew about that sooner.

You're welcome :)

I'm a big space nerd. Regardless, these supersonic flights are just not very exciting. The only exciting thing would be a tragedy and i don't want that.

Yeah these tourism flights have limited utility on their own beyond rich people games. They're also years from competing with the big guys, if ever.

BUT these B teams things advance tech anyway, cross pollinate, help with public awareness and motivation for new students. Some of this stuff will be garage startup level soon.

The BE4 engine is in a deal to be used by ULA, if they ever get their business figured out.

SS1 was a Scaled Composites design by Burt Rutan, pioneering carbon fiber construction, now in wide use for space applications.

It's telling that neither Boeing nor Lockheed can make their own engines. It seems like their problem is their business model is hindering their engineering accomplishing anything and they depend on the B teams to absorb the risk. SLS is using RS-25's from inventory, will they all go home when those are depleted?

edit, correction: They CAN make new RS-25's and in 2020, NASA signed up AR to make 18 more.

Mheww, completely underwhelming. Didn't even see Richard when they reached apogee or "space". I really wanted this to be like a mind blowing space X moment, but it felt like a high altitude flight.

Who cares. You still watched them 'successfully go into space' in the livestream and you are here commenting about it.

It's not everyday a company risks money, lives and time into this and executes it safely.

That in itself is an engineering success, no matter whoever it is. I congratulate Virgin Galactic for this successful flight and will be also looking a Blue Origin's launch.

Well said

Hopefully they'll get the footage off the GoPro's SD cards, transmitting video is not easy.

Although I wonder if analog TV broadcast would've been easier.

I posted that as a comment / question earlier. Why is transmitting high quality video from at / near space so difficult when we've been doing live satellite broadcasts at broadcast TV quality for decades? The current responses are non-sequitir as they don't explain the seeming contrast.

Do you mean like you can later today watch the Euro Soccer finals in HD? Hmm, that footage will be beamed into space by a giant dish, to a stationery (or at least easily trackable) target that weighs several tonnes and large solar panels, and they can beam the stuff down with a lot of power.

Meanwhile the Virgin spaceship is a glider...

Is tracking the Virgin spaceship really that much more difficult? The size of VSS Unity is about the same as or larger than many communications satellites, and the craft has enough power, since it doesn't need to operate autonomously for years.

Is this really the edge of our ability to innovate here? We can send people to space but we can't reliably get good quality audio and video?

Meanwhile Starlink promises 300mbps down and 30mbps up [0] with dinky low powered consumer-grade dishes beamed to satellites a quarter the size [1] of Virgin Galactic ...

[0] https://www.teslarati.com/starlink-2x-speed-update-elon-musk...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/g9aot6/what_are_t...

Size of Intelsat for reference: https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/MicroGE...

Is externally mounted antennae the primary issue? Perhaps.

Given that Branson sunk his boat and crashed his balloon during those challenges, this doesn't bode well and that altitude doesn't leave room for error.

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