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Comment by cwkoss | Hacker News Reader

Neither Bezos or Branson achieved orbital velocities, which is the minimum bar for doing useful things related to space. It really is just a carnival ride - it's not about who's in it, its that they didn't actually achieve anything: what they built has no utility except as a dick-measuring contest.

Orbit is a little bit of upwards velocity and a whole lot of sideways velocity. They only did the much simpler former.

These sub orbital flights are just barely over the line into what can be called space travel, and do nothing useful except letting them brag that 'they went to space'

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Suborbital rocketry can be useful. Much early rocket science involved "sounding rockets", which were capable of going above (very nearly all of) the Earths' atmosphere, as well as serving as testbed platforms for rocket-surgery-related systems (launch, recovery, plumbing, guidance, etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_rocket

The delta-v differential between sub-orbital and orbital is tremendous, though.

Isn’t part of the VG business plan to sell cheaper zero gravity time for small experiments ?

At least cheaper than going to actual space and longer than using parabolic flights in planes.

Look up "vomit comet".

> Neither Bezos or Branson achieved orbital velocities, which is the minimum bar for doing useful things related to space.

Well, ICBMs are very useful, and only require sub-orbital velocities, though I don't necessarily want Bezos or Branson to get those.

Do ICBMs have any practical uses besides delivering explosives?

If you can deliver a warhead, chances are you can deliver a satellite.

Some of the space launchers today either started life as an ICBM turned dedicated launch vehicle (Proton) or are decommissioned ICBMs turned launch vehicles (Minotaur)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur_(rocket_family)

Makes sense that former-ICBMs that can reach orbital velocity have utility. (Are they still ICBMs if the goal isn't to reach another continent?)

I think the deltaV's needed to place a warhead on the surface are significantly less than those needed to put a satellite into low-earth orbit.

If you can lob your warheads into orbit with enough propellant left to accurately deorbit and aim them, you've then 1) got the capability of dropping them anywhere on the planet you choose, and 2) no longer have them sitting vulnerable in the silos and can sit back and choose your retargeting strategy without worrying about whether all your launch facilities will get nuked before you chose which cities to retaliate on...

There has been somethink kinda like that, just not long term orbit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardme...

The other nuclear powers did not like it and it was scrapped. Not to mention that even if you might get the first shot this way, there will almost certainly be retaliatory strikes back on you.

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literally lol, thanks

There were some plans to convert demilitarized R-36 ICBMs to land couple tons emergency supplies (eq. lifeboats, medical stuff, firefighting gear) anywhere 10000 km from the launch site. In the end those rockets were just converted to the Dnepr space launcher.

ICBMs travel about 7km/s, Bezos and Branson both got up to about 1km/s, 1/7th of the speed, and 1/49 the kinetic energy.

ICBMs can be converted to carry a human in a tin-can on top into space, if you happen to find yourself in a space-race.

Well, a little bit of sideways could sure speed up intercontinental travel. Sure, could be a rich person toy. I’d imagine sometimes it’s useful to move a rare thing halfway around the world very quickly.

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