First images of Spaceship Neptune's capsule structure | Hacker News Reader

First images of Spaceship Neptune's capsule structure

latteluxurynews.com

28 pointsbelter18 comments

The fine article states that this "spacecraft" is to launch under a "SpaceBalloon". There is no mention of altitude. I am sceptical about a launch system whose name implies that it relies on buoyancy to be able to rise into the vacuum.

https://spaceperspective.com/spaceship

Knowing that the name “spaceship” is 100% hyperbole brings things into perspective.

Still no mention of altitude on that page so far as I could see.

It is in the FAQ. - https://spaceperspective.com/faq

"How long is the flight?"

The flight will last approximately six hours, from launch to landing. Spaceship Neptune will ascend for two hours, float at its apogee of 100,000 ft (30 km) for two hours, and descend gently over two more hours before splashdown in the ocean where a ship awaits."

Thank you. So it is a spaceship in the sense that it is a ship with space inside. It just happens to get to 30% of the altitude of space.

Likely around 40 km, like the Baumgartner jump.

I hadn’t heard about this before and was confused about why I hadn’t heard about plans to send a spacecraft to Neptune.

I thought so as well, then I saw the sphere and thought "oh - they are sending it to the bottom of the ocean, hence Neptune..." and now its a frickin balloon!?

/grabs trident

Honestly compared to other space tourism outfits this one seems pretty reasonable. No flashy new tech, no intense reentry. We have sent vehicles and even people up on high altitude balloon rides before. I am quite sure it would be too expensive for me and I don't care for dangerous experimental tech, but otherwise it seems like something I would enjoy.

man the cycles of confusion i had about this article sets off so many internal alarm bells.

I'm inclined to dismiss this as just snake oil scammy rubbish.

If they had named it something less misleading and click baity I'd be super enthused by it.

>Spaceship Neptune was developed to be the most accessible, most sustainable, and safest spacecraft on or above our planet.

I was very dubious about the sustainable part since I assumed they would be using helium, but it looks like they are using renewable hydrogen.

Sounds explosive.

If this is a spaceship then my car is a fighter jet.

This looks awesome. Going up shouldn’t be too bad; but the decent is the part that scares me. Wouldn’t it reenter orbit with extreme velocity?

Orbit? It’s a balloon gondola.

It will have about zero horizontal velocity, or whatever ambient wind speed. For orbit, it would need 21000 kph.

Average windspeed at 30km altitude looks to be about 15 m/s which is certainly not nothing especially compared to average surface speeds.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-wind-speeds-in-m...

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