Yesterday, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo successfully completed its second supersonic rocket-powered test flight. In our previous article, we were able to share a video view of the flight — as seen from the ground. But now Virgin Galactic has shared the flight footage from a camera mounted on the tail of the ship, allowing us all to ride along and see the views. I’m hoping for they’ll eventually show a cabin view video so that we can see what the ride inside will be like.
The ship went to 69,000 feet (21 km, 13 miles) but you can still see the blackness of space and the curvature of Earth in the video.
Virgin Galactic Founder Sir Richard Branson said yesterday that commercial flights with passengers should begin in 2014 … which is next year, meaning that perhaps space flight for the rest of us is not always 5-10 years off anymore.
I’ll be honest, the audio recordings of that don’t instil a quite calm in me if I were to be a passenger on it. They sound like they are wrestling with something at times while wearing Darth Vader masks. Not sure if its a good PR clip for them. All that being said, I’d be up on that thing in a heartbeat if I got the chance.
Wow…. sign me up! Thanx for the eye candy and hope Nancy… yassss!
Very bumpy ride if you ask me…
The thrust from that take off must have made it real hard to breathe. Re: Hearing the sounds of the test pilot’s breathing at blastoff.
Was that a satellite going past 2:10 in, top left corner of the video?
Not that I don’t find this awesome, but I have trouble calling being in orbit without going somewhere “space flight”. Flying to what has been agreed to as the edge of space in a machine that could never even stay there is not space flight. Not even if you put the word Galactic on it.