This... is wonderful.Popular Science wrote:
Who says America isn't a manufacturing economy anymore? The country has already dedicated her first commercial spaceport, and yesterday construction kicked off on her first commercial spaceship factory. The nearly 70,000 square foot facility, home of the The Spaceship Company, will build Virgin Galactic’s fleet of White Knights and SpaceShips, the carrier craft and rocket planes (respectively) that are expected to be ferrying passengers to the edge of space sometime late next year.
The Spaceship Company (TSC) is a joint venture owned by British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, the aerospace firm founded by legendary engineer Burt Rutan the visionary behind Virgin Galactic’s fleet. TSC is being constructed at the Mojave Air and Space Port and will hopefully be completed by September.
The facility is expected to turn out three White Knight carrier aircraft and five of the smaller SpaceShip rocket planes. TSC has already begun hiring engineers and technicians and will employ as many as 170 people once production begins. How’s that for creating jobs in innovative new industries?
America's first spaceship factory
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rhoenix
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#1 America's first spaceship factory
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frigidmagi
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#4
I'll save the wine for when it's actually built.
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Mayabird
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#5
I thought I'd already commented on this. Oh well.
I seriously doubt this venture will turn a profit. It'll likely be a giant money drain and will eventually go under, just as so many pioneers do. There will be lots of problems and possibly a few deaths.
And I also think it likely that the people in this venture damn well know this and are doing it anyway because their hearts are in the right places. Richard Branson's a billionaire so he can afford to keep throwing money down a hole while making some sarcastic comment along the lines of, "Oh horrors, I'll be slightly less rich next year." What's the point of being ultra-rich if you can't do crazy things with your money? They know they're charging ahead and breaking the ground for others to follow and someone has to do it. And as risk-adverse as people are these days there are still who'll gladly take the chance for an opportunity to be a pioneer themselves.
Of course they will try to make money, because any losses recouped means they can last longer. I plan to roll my eyes and go, "Pfft," when I see the inevitable articles from some economics writers decrying how the Spaceship Company is bleeding money like a Protoceratops that just got mauled by a velociraptor. Whine whine whine quarterly statements. Fuck the quarterly statements. Let the people later figure that out once there's a road ahead instead of a big scary "needs a lot of expensive R & D for questionable profits" wilderness instead.
Go for it, guys!
Dinosaurs, spaceships, and overstretched metaphors in the same post. Check.
I seriously doubt this venture will turn a profit. It'll likely be a giant money drain and will eventually go under, just as so many pioneers do. There will be lots of problems and possibly a few deaths.
And I also think it likely that the people in this venture damn well know this and are doing it anyway because their hearts are in the right places. Richard Branson's a billionaire so he can afford to keep throwing money down a hole while making some sarcastic comment along the lines of, "Oh horrors, I'll be slightly less rich next year." What's the point of being ultra-rich if you can't do crazy things with your money? They know they're charging ahead and breaking the ground for others to follow and someone has to do it. And as risk-adverse as people are these days there are still who'll gladly take the chance for an opportunity to be a pioneer themselves.
Of course they will try to make money, because any losses recouped means they can last longer. I plan to roll my eyes and go, "Pfft," when I see the inevitable articles from some economics writers decrying how the Spaceship Company is bleeding money like a Protoceratops that just got mauled by a velociraptor. Whine whine whine quarterly statements. Fuck the quarterly statements. Let the people later figure that out once there's a road ahead instead of a big scary "needs a lot of expensive R & D for questionable profits" wilderness instead.
Go for it, guys!
Dinosaurs, spaceships, and overstretched metaphors in the same post. Check.