Posted on 10/20/2020 6:12:19 PM PDT by BeauBo
The window for the final round of testing of Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered spacecraft opens later this week as the company inches toward commercial flights.
Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses updated New Mexico lawmakers on the progress during a meeting Monday. He said the space tourism company already has done nine flights from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico, including two glide flights by the spaceship.
While the exact date has yet to be determined, the upcoming test will mark the third space flight for Virgin Galactic and the first from New Mexico. Moses called it a big milestone for an idea that was first pitched decades ago.
“New Mexico will join California and Florida as only the third state in the U.S. to host human space flight missions and send people into space,” Moses said...
The idea to build the spaceport in the New Mexico desert was first hatched years ago by British billionaire Richard Branson and former Gov. Bill Richardson. Branson will be among the first passengers sometime in the first quarter next year...
That experience will involve about an hour of climbing to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15 kilometers), with the spacecraft attached to a special jet-powered plane. The craft will then be released and light its rocket engine.
“We climb up to space altitude but gravity wins and pulls us right back down again,” Moses explained.
“We don’t have nearly enough speed to stay in orbit so we just go up and right back down again — about a minute of rocket motor burn, about four minutes of weightlessness and then about 15 minutes to come back and land.”...
Spaceport America is located in Upham, New Mexico, roughly 90 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
(Excerpt) Read more at borderreport.com ...
I think that the windows should be closed on space tourist flights. Might get windy.
“Rocket-powered spacecraft”????
Is there any other kind? They stopped using steam back in the 60s.
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