Virgin Galactic Unveils Space Mothership

mercurial

mercurial

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MOJAVE, Calif. — The space tourism race marked a milestone Monday as British mogul Sir Richard Branson and American aerospace designer Burt Rutan waved to a crowd from inside the cabin of an exotic jet that will carry a passenger spaceship to launch altitude.

The photo-op was the public unveiling of the White Knight Two mothership before a crowd of engineers, dignitaries and space enthusiasts at the Mojave Air & Space Port in the high desert north of Los Angeles.

Virgin Galactic envisions a future where space voyages will become as common as airplane travel. It wants to fly 500 people into space in the first year for $200,000 a head.

If it succeeds, that would be on par with the same number of people who have gone up in 45 years of space travel.

So far, more than 250 wannabe astronauts have paid the full amount or put down a deposit to fly with Virgin Galactic, but when they will float in zero gravity is unknown.
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Full article
 
Kind of disappointing, looks like an farm aeroplane.
was hoping for something out of hitchhikers guide

guess this is only the beginning, woopie!
 
Thats a hell of a lot of money for space travel, once again this is only something for the super rich. Looks just like a plane nothing really special about it at all.
 
Office Furniture said:
Thats a hell of a lot of money for space travel, once again this is only something for the super rich. Looks just like a plane nothing really special about it at all.
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Well, if you consider that the last plane that was capable of this sort of performance was the X15 then this IS something special. Burt Rutan knows his sh*t better than most.
 
The article is incorrect. They're not going up into Space, they're going up into the upper atmosphere, still within Earth's magnetic field. Once you go above that you become
exposed to cosmic rays and solar wind while during transit you have to overcome the Van Allen Belt. Even the ISS is not shielded from cosmic rays and depends on
the Earth's own magnetic field for protection.

As for zero gravity you can experience that by having your plane go into a nose dive
which is what they do for astronaut training.
 
The spaceflight — up and back down without circling the Earth — will include about five minutes of weightlessness.

The total trip, from White Knight Two's takeoff to SpaceShipTwo's unpowered landing, will last about 2½ hours.
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Erm ... 5 minutes .. $200 000 per head? Stupid. I'd expect at least 4 hours for that cash.
 
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