Category: Space Tourism

Your trip to space is just around the corner now. In the next step in its goal of sending regular folk to space, Virgin Galactic today unveiled the vehicle that’s going to take them there: SpaceShipTwo. The announcement was made today at a press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Actually, there were two vehicles revealed today: SpaceShipTwo, which will carry passengers on a suborbital trip into space, and the WhiteKnightTwo carrier.

The design, of course, is based on Scaled Composite’s SpaceShipOne vehicle, which won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize in October 2004.

According to Virgin Galactic, the WhiteKnightTwo mothership is almost complete, and should be ready for testing in summer, 2008. Once completed, it should be the world’s largest all carbon composite aircraft, capable of lifting SpaceShipTwo to high altitude.

Unlike SpaceShipOne, which had room for the pilot and two passengers, SpaceShipTwo will have room for eight paying passengers. Currently, the spacecraft is about 60% complete. Passengers will spent about 2.5 hours in the air, with about 5 minutes of actual weightlessness.

There are some more differences. WhiteKnightTwo has an extra crew cabin; a recreation of the one inside SpaceShipTwo. This will give passengers a chance to experience a little taste of what the complete trip will be like. As part of its flight plan, WhiteKnightTwo spend some time taking a parabolic flight path – like NASA’s vomit comet – to give those passengers a little bit of weightlessness too.

The company says it’s already booked 200 people, with another 85,000 registrations of interest to fly. In fact, 80 of SpaceShipTwo’s potential passengers have already been through medical assessment and centrifuge training at a special facility in Philadelphia.

Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Galactic, was, of course, bubbling and enthusiastic in the press release: “The designs of both the mothership and the new spaceship are absolutely beautiful and surpass any expectations for the future of commercial spaceflight that we had when first registering the name Virgin Galactic in 1999. Burt and his team have done a fantastic job and I am also delighted with the wonderful vision that Foster and Partners, working with URS, have shown in the final designs for Spaceport America in New Mexico. Finally, we are all very excited about the prospect of being able to develop a bio-fuel solution for the space launch system and we are looking forward to working with Pratt and Whitney and Virgin Fuels to trial an appropriate bio mix for the PW308A engines that will be powering our new carrier aircraft.”

If all goes well, the first passengers will blast off on their suborbital journey in 2009.

Here’s a special treat. You can access all the press images if you like, to see all the different photographs released today.

Original Source: Virgin Galactic

Things are moving quickly for Virgin Galactic. The world’s first commercial space tourism company has gone from strength to strength since developing Scaled Composite’s X-Prize-winning space ship design into Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. Now, as Virgin Galactic is well on its way to building the world’s first space port in the New Mexico desert, Richard Branson discusses his vision the company’s direction and very exciting future.

In a video interview by the Telegraph Online, Richard Branson shows why he’s best guy to be at the helm of Virgin Galactic: he has a vision. So far, the development of Virgin Galactic has been astonishing, but then again, having an international company as successful as Virgin supporting it, there is room for huge aspirations.

Among the first space tourists to fly Virgin Galactic will be Richard himself, his 90 year old parents and two kids. In successive flights, big names such as Stephen Hawking have been sent their £100,000 ($200,000) tickets. Hawking has already been taken up in a parabolic flight (the “vomit comet” as used for astronaut zero-gravity training), and according to Branson, Hawking passed with flying colors.

In his interview, Branson discusses his hopes for the future. In one plan he hopes Virgin will establish a space hotel where people can use as a base and take tours on automated spacecraft to the Moon and back. The additional possibility of using the SpaceShipTwo concept as a means to transport passengers around the globe is especially interesting. The flight from London to Sydney would only take 30 minutes for a vehicle traveling into a low-Earth orbit, and emissions from such a plan would be at a minimum (almost nil when compared with the current long-haul jet flights that burn tons of fuel).

Interestingly the Virgin boss briefly mentions colonization (but stops at where he was thinking about colonizing), citing the ever present threat of a global catastrophe as reason enough to live beyond the Earth. So, will the first commercial Mars colonial spaceships be red and branded “Virgin Galactic“? Watch this space…

Watch the full interview.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Safety inspectors in California have cited Scaled Composites for being at fault for the explosion that killed three employees at their Mojave Air and Space Port. The explosion occurred in July 2007 and stunned the X-Prize winning company. They now face a maximum fine of $25,310.

Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composite company has been going from strength to strength in recent years. In 2004 the company was successful at launching their SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 114km, claiming the $10 million Ansari X-Prize in 2004. Since this historic win, Rutan has formed a powerful alliance with British businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. Branson is currently heading the construction of the world’s first Space Port in the New Mexico desert, using SpaceShipOne’s successor, the larger SpaceShipTwo, as the principal craft to take 6 people into space. Stowed under a WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, SpaceShipTwo is designed for a conventional take-off until the pair are at approximately 15 km in altitude. At this point, the pair separate, allowing SpaceShipTwo to accelerate to 2500 mph by firing its single hybrid rocket engine. Weightlessness will be achieved, giving space tourists an idea of what it feels like to be in a low Earth orbit.

Tragically, three personnel working on the Scaled Composites site in the Mojave Desert last July were killed in an accident during tests involving a rocket propellant. The report from safety officials state that the company failed to provide “effective information and training of the health and physical hazards associated with nitrous oxide,” the fuel used to power the rockets. Since the incident safety measures have been stepped up and it is hoped that this sad event won’t delay the 2009 launch of the first space tourism flights by Virgin Galactic.

Source: Space.com

Space tourism company Space Adventures has announced their next orbit-bound customer. This time it’s going to be video game legend Richard Garriott. All you Ultima fans might know him as Lord British. If all goes well, Garriott will ride to the International Space Station in October 2008. And here’s the cool thing: his father, Owen Garriott was an astronaut for NASA, and spent time in orbit aboard Skylab and Spacelab-1. Like father, like son.

The news of this latest astro-tourist was announced on September 28, 2007 by Space Adventures. This is the Vienna, Virginia-based organization that has already arranged the passage of Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari and Charles Simonyi to the space station. They’ve also got an office in Moscow.

Richard is best known for his work in the video game industry. He developed the original Ultima series, founded Origin Systems, and eventually created Ultima-online; the predecessor to popular massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. Let’s just say I’ve spent a lot of time with his video games.

Here’s a really cool coincidence of the whole story. If he does make it to space, Garriott will be the first second-generation US astronaut. At the same time, second-generation Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will be aboard the International Space Station. And the two will return to Earth together.

Garriott won’t just be spending his time in space gazing out the porthole (although I’m sure that’ll take up a lot of his day), he’s going to have some work to do. Space Adventures has announced that this flight will have plenty of commercial partners, looking to have science experiments and educational outreach done in the microgravity of orbit. ExtremoZyme Inc, a biotechnology company co-founded by Owen Garriott has already signed up to perform crystallization experiments in orbit.

Since he’s a pretty Internet savvy guy, Richard Garriott has even got a website detailing his upcoming flight, with a countdown clock ticking away the days until he reaches orbit. Only 408 days to go…

Original Source: Space Adventures News Release

In case you haven’t heard, one of the premier adventurers of our time, Steve Fossett went missing about 4 days ago. The 63-year pilot was supposed to be making a short flight around the Nevada desert, but he never returned, and hasn’t been seen since. Searchers have now mobilized, and are scouring the rugged area for any sign of Fossett, or his airplane.

Fossett is best known for his solo nonstop airplane flight around the world in 2005, but he’s also made many other achievements in balloon flight, sailing, gliding, skiing, and even running.

On 8:45 am, Monday, September 3, 2007, Fossett took off from a private airstrip in Nevada known as the Flying-M Ranch. He was apparently searching for a nearby lake bed that could serve as a flat surface for an upcoming world land speed record. He was supposed to only be out a few hours, but he never returned.

When he didn’t return on time, searchers started looking for Fossett about 6 hours later. Although Fossett’s plane is equipped with an emergency locater radio beacon, it hasn’t been heard from yet. He didn’t file a flight plan, and apparently wasn’t required to do so.

On Tuesday night, several teams of aircraft went searching for Fossett, scouring the rough Nevada countryside for any evidence of Fossett’s crashed plane. Nothing turned up.

Now the fourth day into the search, 10 airplanes and helicopters headed out again just after dawn. The weather is cooperating nicely, giving searchers clear skies. They were originally scouring 1,500 square km (600 square miles) but have now expanded the search to 4,400 square km (1,700 square miles). Sonar equipped boats will also be looking beneath the surface of nearby lake, which could explain why the emergency beacon isn’t functioning.

Original Source: Steve Fossett website