Suborbital space tourism

[klugesmith]

In the news lately are upcoming revenue flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin rocket planes.  One newspaper headline said "to orbit", but that word was properly omitted in follow-on stories.

Rockets by Branson and Bezos put people on ballistic trajectories that peak at altitudes of more than 100 km, and provide a few minutes of "weightlessness". 
The parabola is arguably part of an elliptical orbit, with extreme elongation and perigee close to the center of the earth.  Like the path of an artillery shell.

Customary "orbital flight" begins with sustained Low Earth Orbit. 
Payload energy of at least 25 MJ/kg, compared with 1 MJ/kg for lift to 100 km.
Five times more gee-minutes of acceleration, then thousands of times longer to feel weightless.  25 times more energy to dissipate for safe return to the ground.

[alan sailer]

And thousands, upon thousands of kilograms of carbon dioxide set loose to tickle the egos of a
couple of .001 per-centers.

I read something a few years back that has stuck with me,

"Billionaires are not your friends".

What Bezos and Branson want is not in anyone's else's best interests. 

I say this from Southern California, which is going through it's third record heatwave of the year,
after the driest winter in the states history.

[MRMILSTAR]

The stuff they are doing is just an extremely high altitude parabolic shot. Its just my opinion, but unless your orbiting the Earth I don't really consider it space flight.