Virgin gears up for Galactic test flight
If the weather is right, Virgin Galactic today will fire up SpaceShipTwo and blast the six-passenger commercial spaceplane on a flight that will break the sound barrier.
If today’s test, and a few more along the way, go well, the maiden voyage into space should take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico in the first quarter of 2014.
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said he will be on it, briefly floating weightless and looking down at Planet Earth.
Tickets for future flights into space already are on sale, at $200,000 a seat, and more 500 have been sold.
Today "will be a historic day," Branson promised in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun. He was in Vegas kicking off Virgin America’s new Vegas service.
SpaceShipTwo’s predecessor, SpaceShipOne, soared 100 kilometers (62 miles) in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private-sector spaceflight. It is now in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.
The Virgin Galactic spaceline fleet will operate five spaceplanes. In addition to private passengers, the planes could carry scientific payloads for NASA and other organisations.
by Cheryl Rosen, Editor TravelMole US
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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