Turtle Partnership Blog :: Lotusphere can get me into space!

02/28/2008

Richard Branson has just announced that you can use your Virgin Airlines frequent flyer miles towards booking a flight on Virgin Galactic.

Since we fly to Orlando each January on Virgin, I only need to go to Lotusphere a hundred more times and I can cash in my miles and become an astronaut! Let's hope IBM keep supporting Notes until about 2112, then.

Mind you, I was reading the blurb for Virgin Galactic and it turns out you only go up 63 miles. Now, that doesn't sound like Space to me, just a very high airplane. I'm sure there is some technical definition of what counts as space to do with thinness of atmosphere or something, but it got me thinking about what do I mean when I say "Going into space"?

I imagined what I would expect to see. I'd need to see black space and stars and the earth. The question is how much earth would I need to see to feel like I was really in space?

I decided I would need to see the whole of the earth, possibly without turning my head (since technically you can see the whole of the earth by standing on a tall building and turning round).

So lets say the earth should fit in my field of vision. To keep the maths easy I'll suppose this is 90 degrees. The earth is 8000 miles in diameter. Invoking Pythagorus, we get the distance from the centre of the earth being 4000 x square root of 2, which is about 5600 miles, so I would have to be 1,600 miles above the earth's surface.

That's a lot higher than 63. Maybe by the time I get enough airmiles to pay for the flight, Branson will have developed a spaceship that can reach that far.

Gab thought you would like to see my working, so here is my little diagram:
A picture named M2

Tim Davis | | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (3)

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Comments

1 - NASA's definition of "space" is about 50 miles high. Test pilots who flew the X15 and other "high" planes were awarded astronaut wings if they got up to that mark. Take a look at this, also:

{ Link }

Posted by Turtle At 04:20:41 PM On 02/28/2008 | - Website - |

2 - Fascinating. There's a fab photo at the bottom right of that page of a moonrise over the earth's atmosphere which is a great science fiction type of image, but I still wouldn't count that as 'being in space'. I guess being an astronaut isn't as impressive as I thought it was. Emoticon

Posted by Tim Davis At 05:11:49 PM On 02/28/2008 | - Website - |

3 - I thought the official height was 60 miles to qualify as "space" where one of the eastern countries just launched into to qualify?

Either way, I say just take a few round the world trips and speed up your frequent flyer status. I wonder if their platinum level will trump standbys for the flight up?

Posted by Chris Miller At 09:30:16 PM On 02/28/2008 | - Website - |