As far as he could tell, writing in February 2023, none of the space tourism developments he had discussed had worked out, and the field seemed stuck in the same limbo as for the past decade and a half.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
This is a hedged factual claim; judge it as of February 2023. First identify the space tourism developments he had discussed in the earlier predictions or post he is grading. True if, by February 2023, none of those developments had become operational as stated (e.g. predicted commercial tourist flights, orbital hotels or regular service had not happened) and the industry had no regular, routine commercial space tourism service. Mostly true if almost all of them failed but one minor item partly happened. Mixed if roughly half of the items he discussed happened. Mostly false if most of the items he discussed did happen (e.g. paying tourists flew on suborbital or orbital trips as he had discussed) and "none worked out" and "stuck in limbo" overstate a real lack of regular commercial service. False if the items he discussed clearly came about and space tourism had moved well beyond its state of the previous fifteen years by early 2023.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Following successful mission, Virgin Galactic targeting June for first commercial spaceflight | TechCrunch TechCrunch · 25 May 2023
“That last flight, which took place in June 2021, also took six people to suborbital space, including company founder billionaire Richard Branson.”
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E2 Inspiration4 Wikipedia
“orbital spaceflight with only private citizens aboard and was part of a charitable effort on behalf of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.”
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E3 Inspiration4 Wikipedia
“Launch date: September 16, 2021, 00:02:56 UTC (September 15, 10:02:56 pm EDT)”
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E4 Virgin Galactic Announces First Quarter 2023 Financial Results And Provides Business Update Business Wire (Virgin Galactic press release) · 9 May 2023
“Commercial service remains on track for Q2 2023.”
Reasoning
The evidence shows private suborbital and orbital flights took place in 2021 (E1, E2, E3), and that Virgin Galactic's commercial service had not yet started by early 2023 (E1, E4). It does not identify the space tourism developments he was grading, so it cannot show what share of them happened, which is what the criteria require.
Cite this claim
Scott Alexander, “As far as he could tell, writing in February 2023, none of the space tourism developments he had discussed had worked out, and the field seemed stuck in the same limbo as for the past decade and a half.” (said 20 February 2023). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_f078c16ee4cd, method 0.1.0+8bea457b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_f078c16ee4cd
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.