Posted on 08/14/2010 1:42:37 PM PDT by GWConservative
Suborbital, private joyrides will cost $200,000 a ticket A private spaceship built to launch space tourists on suborbital joyrides could by flying on its own by this fall, Space.com has learned. The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft VSS Enterprise, which the space tourism company Virgin Galactic has been flying on test flights attached to a huge mothership, could make its first drop flights over California's Mojave Desert for glide and landing tests. "There's a reasonable possibility that we could see the first drop flight in the fall, but as always, everything is predicated on thoroughness and safety," Virgin Galactic's commercial director Stephen Attenborough told Space.com in an e-mail. "No corners will be cut in order to achieve arbitrary deadlines." Founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic is developing a fleet of SpaceShipTwo spaceliners to launch paying thrillseekers on suborbital hops into space. ( Photos of SpaceShipTwo in flight.) SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry eight people (six passengers and two pilots) on suborbital flights that would reach outer space for a few minutes before returning back to Earth. The spacecraft is designed to drop from a mothership, called WhiteKnightTwo, from an altitude above 50,000 feet and fire a hybrid rocket motor to launch into suborbital space. At $200,000 a ticket, paying passengers on SpaceShipTwo will experience weightlessness and glimpse the darkness of space and the view of Earth below. SpaceShipTwo is one of several private spaceships under development for space tourism or other commercial uses. The upcoming drop test will follow a series of test flights with SpaceShipTwo safely attached to its WhiteKnightTwo mothership, the most recent of which occurred last week. That test flight marked the first crewed SpaceShipTwo flight.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
http://www.adbirds.com/AboutAdbirds/?Travel+Incentives
If you mean take the money or take the trip, that would be a tough one. I’d have to see if all the needs of my family were already provided for. If so...to space I’d go! It’s a (for most of us anyway) once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
This could be a new vacation trip for the Obamas…at our expense of course.
I wonder if Michelle Obama has already reserved seats for herself, and around 60 friends?
You are just too darn fast!
: )
LOL!!! Not really, I was too darn slow. I couldn’t get my keyboard to kick in.
I do like your comment much, much better than mine.
I just now noticed we signed up to FR a few days apart. You beat me by a couple of weeks.
Here’s an interesting SpaceX story with video...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/01/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-mars
What if it was a decision about $10 Million cash-to-forfiet v. the LEO space trip, or the deal on the lunar trip valued at $50M?
They would be eBay big by then and could do it.
Ok, Noob.
: )
Couldn’t be more expensive than the field trip to Spain.
The story doesn’t support the headline. It says nothing about going into space this fall. It’s just drop tests. The copy editor screwed up.
LOL!!!
Thank you for the good laugh. :)
It’ll be our little ‘inside joke’.
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