Book your spaceflight: SpaceShipTwo almost ready

William Atkins
Thursday, 24 January 2008 21:57

Science - Space

On Wednesday, January 23, 2008, Burt Ratan and Sir Richard Branson displayed for the first time the design of their new suborbital spaceplane, SpaceShipTwo, at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York, U.S.A., Earth.              

The Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Ratan’s Scaled Composites and Branson’s Virgin Group, is a private spaceflight service that is expecting to begin actual commercial passenger flights in late 2009 or early 2010 under the direction of Virgin Galactic, although specific dates have not yet been confirmed.

About one hundred potential passengers of SpaceShipTwo attended the Manhattan press conference. About two hundred serious reservations have already been made by people—handing out a collective $30 million to secure their flights.

According to statements from officials at the AMNH press conference, WhiteKnightTwo is about 70 percent completed, while SpaceShipTwo is about 60% finished. Test flights could possibly commence as early as 2008.

A video of a simulated mission of the SpaceShipTwo is found at Space.com: Video of SpaceShipTwo.

Passenger ship SpaceShipTwo will be ferried to about 50,000 feet (15,200 meters), about eight miles, by mothership WhiteKnightTwo, a two-fuselage, four-engine plane. Two pilots will fly the SpaceShipTwo spaceplane carrying up to six paying passengers. They will be propelled with a single hybrid rocket motor up to about 68 miles (110 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.
 

This altitude is just over the start of outer space with respect to Earth according to Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, which targets it at 62 miles (100 kilometers). It will travel at speeds up to about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) per hour.

Commenting on the unveiling, Burt Rutan, CEO of Scaled Composites, said: "Virgin Galactic produced a demanding output specification for the world's first private human and payload space launch system. This required us to produce a safe but flexible design capable of multiple applications in new market sectors. I am confident that these vehicles, now in an advanced stage of construction, will achieve just that." [The Planetary Society: "Virgin Galactic Unveils Spaceship Design”]

Branson further commented, "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.” [The Planetary Society: "Virgin Galactic Unveils Spaceship Design”]

You can book your spaceflight at: http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/book.php. According to the website, “Tickets cost $200,000 and deposits start from $20,000.”