Posted on 07/30/2008 6:26:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin
MOJAVE - Nearly four years after British mogul Sir Richard Branson announced he intended to fly paying passengers into space, the first step in a new era of commercial space travel was unveiled Monday at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
WhiteKnightTwo, the prototype mothership for Virgin Galactic commercial passenger spaceline, was revealed before international media, aerospace enthusiasts and assorted dignitaries.
"This is quite something, isn't it?" Branson, the Virgin Group founder, asked those gathered, calling WhiteKnightTwo "one of the most beautiful and extraordinary aviation vehicles ever developed."
Designed and built by Scaled Composites, the Mojave firm founded by aviation designer Burt Rutan, WhiteKnightTwo builds on the success of the Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded craft to carry a man into space.
SpaceShipOne rocketed into aerospace history in 2004 with three flights to 62 miles above the Earth, making its pilots the first two civilian astronauts.
That success led to the agreement with Virgin Galactic to develop a system capable of carrying paying passengers to suborbital space, where they may experience a few minutes of weightlessness and witness the black sky of space and the curvature of the Earth below.
"Most people still think of spaceflight as going up on a Saturn V rocket or the space shuttle," said Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic president. "To my mind, the government-focused space agency has been getting a bit stuck with the thinking these are the only ways to get into space."
Off to one side of the Scaled Composites hangar during Monday's rollout ceremony, shrouded in black but with its shape clearly visible, was SpaceShipTwo.
In a nod to the hidden contents, the black drapery bore a sticker reading "Coming Soon to a Spaceport Near You."
SpaceShipTwo is approximately 60% complete... and could be ready for ... testing next year.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
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