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U-2 Pilot Goes to Space

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
Sooch flew again today.

There are two true aviation programs that really excite me- The Perlan Project, and Virgin Galactic's Unity.

The SpaceX projects reek of cold war era space race "we're better than you" BS. But Perlan and Unity really drive towards what I think is the forefront of experimental aviation.
 

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
Yeah. Perhaps the wrong words- especially the BS part. But the latest SpaceX Starship wasn't so impressive when you learn about the dumb decisions that Elon made leading up to that launch, despite what his pros were telling him.

And it's getting us back to something we already did 44 year ago. Cool, we're using modern tech to do what we did in the 60s. And we're doing it generally the same way, just a little bit bigger. I'm not saying it's easy but at this stage it isn't groundbreaking.

But flying a glider up to 90,000 ft riding polar wave? That hasn't been done.
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
Yeah. Perhaps the wrong words- especially the BS part. But the latest SpaceX Starship wasn't so impressive when you learn about the dumb decisions that Elon made leading up to that launch, despite what his pros were telling him.

And it's getting us back to something we already did 44 year ago. Cool, we're using modern tech to do what we did in the 60s. And we're doing it generally the same way, just a little bit bigger. I'm not saying it's easy but at this stage it isn't groundbreaking.

But flying a glider up to 90,000 ft riding polar wave? That hasn't been done.
I’m with you. SpaceX has done some amazing things, but from a flight test perspective, the whole Starship thing has been a debacle. At least in the 50s/60s, they truly were cutting edge. They weren’t just failing on purpose in order to appear edgy.
 
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