[HN Gopher] Virgin Orbit confirms that LauncherOne has reached o...
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       Virgin Orbit confirms that LauncherOne has reached orbit
        
       Author : _Microft
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2021-01-17 21:38 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | sebmellen wrote:
       | Does Virgin Orbit have anything to do with Virgin Galactic? I
       | vaguely remember Chamath talking about Virgin Galactic's
       | commercial market opportunities when shilling his SPAC, but
       | nothing directly about Virgin Orbit.
       | 
       | That aside, I'm really thrilled to see renewed interest in space,
       | and I hope that we will end up with moon bases and Mars colonies
       | in the near future... Now, the challenge is not to end up with
       | corporate hegemony of space.
       | 
       | Reminds me of that infamous _Fight Club_ quote:
       | 
       | > _When deep space exploration ramps up, it 'll be the
       | corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the
       | Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks._ [0]
       | 
       | [0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Va2K__8rV3o
        
         | imustbeevil wrote:
         | Based on the wikipedia page it looks like Virgin Orbit is it's
         | own separate private company held by the Virgin Group. It also
         | seems like it's taking a bit of the work Galactic was initially
         | intended to do.
         | 
         | > Virgin Orbit focuses on small satellite launch, which was one
         | of three capabilities being focused on by Virgin Galactic.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Orbit
        
       | tectonic wrote:
       | This is great news, congratulations to everyone on the team!
       | 
       | We'll cover this in more detail in this week's Orbital Index
       | (https://orbitalindex.com), but the gist is that Virgin Orbit now
       | joins SpaceX and Rocket Lab in the elite club of NewSpace
       | startups that have actually made it to orbit. (Also in this club,
       | albeit likely with significant Chinese military tech transfer,
       | are iSpace and Galactic Energy. And we're ignoring "old space"
       | companies like Arianespace, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and
       | ULA.)
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-17 23:01 UTC)