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Posted on 01/27/2008 9:09:23 AM PST by jmcenanly
Virgin Galactic today unveiled the design of its new space launch system based on SpaceShipOne, which successfully flew into space for the third time in October 2004 and won the $10m Ansari X Prize.
The construction of the White Knight Two (WK2) mothership, or carrier aircraft, is now very close to completion at Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA and is expected to begin flight testing in the summer of 2008. White Knight Two will be the world's largest, all carbon composite aircraft. It is designed to have the capability of launching SpaceShipTwo -- carrying six passengers and two pilots -- into sub-orbital space flight
(Excerpt) Read more at planetary.org ...
The real prize should go to someone who can fly a 100 ton cargo load into orbit. Right now, this can only be done on a rocket. But it is essential if you want to construct a much larger platform or vessel in space, using modular parts.
The idea is to build in space what is too large to launch from Earth. This means space stations, interplanetary shuttle engines for carrying smaller spaceships, or even spaceships large enough to leave the solar system.
They never mention the accident no matter how many threads are posted. $40 million advance reservations will have that effect.
The idea is mining and manufacturing in space, but first dump the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty because until that is done nothing will be done, which is the intent.
At $200,000 a pop they've got a long way to go before I can afford a ticket. Even if I can't go personally, I can still dream the dream just like Burt.
Regards,
GtG
It also means a permanent manned base on the Lunar surface. Solar power stations, mining and refining, and a mass driver to launch material to the L5 Lagrangian point.
Then we can say that we are truly on our way to the stars.
Regards,
GtG
And go where?
Not to rain on that parade, but for humans to travel however far a hospitable system might be, they may as well stay there as for how well they'd even be remembered, if they ever returned.
Maybe these days it is hard to see anymore, but we are already in the middle of a hundred billion stars and going places at a high rate of speed. IOW we're there now.
Virgin Galactic Unveils Spaceship Designs
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what will they call themselves after everyone visits outer space for the first time?
Not Tonight, Dear, I Have A Headache Galactic
Better?
Regards,
GtG
A Marine I know says paratroopers are certifiably insane. You’d have to be to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
I didn’t say manned spaceships. In truth, the purpose of leaving the solar system is the journey, not the destination.
To start with, it is an endurance contest for engines, most likely ion drive, which would launch in space, not from Earth, and begin to slowly accelerate the further it went. It would reach speeds far greater than from a chemical reaction drive. A fusion drive is also a possibility.
The “edge” of the solar system, where the solar wind meets deep space, is a relatively violent place of great scientific interest. Passing through that area would be the first major test of its detection equipment.
Finally passing into deep space, away from the complex gravitational, energetic and particulate dense solar system would be our first real glimpse at deep space, where a lot of theories could finally be tested.
At this distance, the spaceship also becomes much like the Hubble telescope, and it can act in concert with other Earth and space-based telescopes in several ways. It inherently performs several experiments, just based on its location, such as testing relativistic laws.
One of the more intriguing possibilities will be to test if some quantum phenomena can defy causality, which is unlikely, of if they can be used to transmit data, which might be possible, but difficult.
Best....
The one Sir Richard is not mentioning.
The Islamic astronauts dream of 70 Galactic Virgins.....
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