Entrepreneur Richard Branson on Wednesday unveiled a model of the spaceship he hopes will be the first to take paying passengers into space on a regular basis.
SpaceShipTwo, and its launch aircraft White Knight Two, also unveiled on Wednesday, were designed by Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne collected the Ansari X Prize for privately funded space flight in 2004.
Advertisement
The main spacecraft, made entirely of carbon composite materials, will be about 18 metres long, with large, movable feather-shaped vertical fins at the back, which will make re-entry into the earth鈥檚 atmosphere safer, Rutan said. The ship, which will carry six passengers and two pilots, is 60% complete, Virgin said.
The spaceship, dubbed 鈥淓ve鈥� after Branson鈥檚 mother, will have a cabin about the size of a big business jet鈥檚 cabin but with more headroom, Rutan said. It will have 0.5-metre-diameter windows on every side for better views of the Earth.
The launch plane, White Knight Two, will be a two-fuselage aircraft with a wingspan of about 43 metres which will carry SpaceShipTwo under the centre of its wing, between the two hulls. The plan is for the aircraft to free the spaceship at around 15 km, from where it will rocket upward into space. White Knight Two, to be powered by four Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308 engines, is more than 80% complete, Virgin said.
Test flights
The $200,000 space trips will launch from a spaceport to be built in New Mexico, US, and test flights are to begin later in 2008.
鈥淲e really do want to have a situation where hundreds of thousands of people who want to experience space travel are able to do so,鈥� said Branson at a media event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, US.
鈥淓ven though the dollar isn鈥檛 worth much anymore, $200,000 is still too expensive for the majority of people,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ithin five years of launching, I would hope the price would come down fairly dramatically.鈥�
Vision of the future
Virgin Galactic now has more than 200 people signed up for the ultimate sightseeing trip, stumping up more than $30 million in deposits. Passengers getting ready for the suborbital trip include physicist Stephen Hawking, former soap star Victoria Principal and designer Philippe Starck.
About 100 of Virgin鈥檚 reserved passengers attended Wednesday鈥檚 unveiling, to get the first glimpse of the spacecraft鈥檚 design.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like something out of Thunderbirds,鈥� said Trevor Beattie, a British advertising executive, referring to the 1960s TV series. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what we as kids in the 1960s thought the future would be like.鈥� Beattie, who co-runs the Beattie McGuinness Bungay advertising firm in London, UK, said he bought the flight instead of splurging on a Ferrari, as he can鈥檛 drive.
Richard 鈥淏 J鈥� Bjorklund, a portfolio manager for Citigroup鈥檚 Smith Barney unit in Dallas, Texas, US, said the trip would be his only chance of experiencing space travel after failing to get into the US Air Force鈥檚 astronaut program years ago.
Satellite launches
鈥淚 figured I would never have a chance to go into space again,鈥� said Bjorklund. 鈥淚鈥檓 thinking somewhere toward the end of 2009 (for launch). But I want them to be safe, so I鈥檓 ready to go whenever they say it鈥檚 time to go.鈥�
Virgin Galactic says White Knight Two, the world鈥檚 largest carbon composite aircraft, might be used for unmanned launches, as well. It could potentially carry rockets into the atmosphere, where they could then ignite and loft satellites into orbit while using less fuel than they would have if they had launched from the ground.
Work on SpaceShipTwo鈥檚 engine was delayed last year by an explosion that killed three people during a test. Rutan鈥檚 company, Scaled Composites, was cited and fined for safety violations last week.
Virgin Galactic is only one of several high-profile contenders in the new commercial space race. Others include Europe鈥檚 EADS Astrium; Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos; Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), created by PayPal founder Elon Musk; Rocketplane Kistler, and hotelier Robert Bigelow.
