Whitehorn predicts point to point space flights

Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn has been making predictions about the future of travel this week. Doug Messier has the report at ParabolicArc

Glenys's $280,000 space flight

Sydney Morning Herald - Arjun Ramachandran

To celebrate her 60th birthday, neither a European holiday nor an African safari was exciting enough for Glenys Ambe.

Instead, she's booked to go to space.

Ms Ambe, 53, is the first Australian to buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic - Richard Branson's commercial space travel project - through a travel agent.

"I have always wanted to go up in space," she said. "The only day I wagged school in my whole life was when my father gave me permission ... the day they walked on the moon.

"I never thought [being able to go to space] would happen in my lifetime ... it's a dream and now I've got this dream that's coming true."

The "dream" cost Ms Ambe, who owns two fashion stores in Queensland, $US200,000 ($281,000).

But for those without the money, her experience will be as follows:

At a custom-built spaceport in New Mexico, Ms Ambe will be strapped into her seat on spacecraft SpaceShipTwo, which is attached to a specially-designed jet aircraft carrier.

The aircraft carrier will take off and in 45 minutes rise to 15,000 metres, when it will release the spacecraft.

In an instant, Ms Ambe will endure six G-forces for 90 seconds, as rockets propel the spacecraft vertically through the Earth's atmosphere.

"You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and eye-watering acceleration," Virgin Galactic says on its website.

The sky, visible through large windows, will quickly change from blue, to mauve, indigo and finally black, and then there will be silence, as the rocket motors are switched off.

At a peak altitude of 110 kilometres, Ms Ambe will now experience weightlessness. She will be free to unbuckle her seatbelt, float about the craft and and view the Earth and outer space from a window.

After four minutes Ms Ambe will return to her seat, and will soon feel the G-forces again as the craft re-enters the atmosphere, and then glides 45 minutes to land at the spaceport again.

The entire trip will be about two hours

Read the Article HERE.

Mojave: Where the Old Frontier Meets the Space Frontier

By Mark Madler

San Fernando Valley Business Journal

"It’s where civilians learn to fly at the National Test Pilot School and where the WhiteKnightTwo makes its test flights in anticipation of the day it takes paying customers of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo into space.

“What you get in Mojave is a group of dreamers who take their destiny into their own hands,” observed Rick Tumlinson, founder of Orbital Outfitters, a North Hollywood firm developing and making spacesuits for the NewSpace market.

"The airport is comparable in size to LAX and has runways long enough to handle the passenger jets flown in for temporary storage or put up on blocks and stripped for their parts. More than 40 businesses call it home, some mundane as a car rental agency or UPS facility.

"In the aerospace arena, rocket developers and aircraft storage and maintenance are found alongside advanced avionics companies and compositors who can turn materials into aircraft wings or windmill blades. Global defense contractors BAE Systems Inc. and Northrop Grumman share the airport with fledgling startups funded by savings accounts and credit cards."

Read the Article HERE.

SpaceShipTwo: Behind the Scenes

POPULAR MECHANICS
May 2008

By Joe Pappalardo

In a nondescript hangar in California’s Mojave Desert, workers at Scaled Composites are assembling SpaceShipTwo, the first spacecraft expressly designed for tourists. The company, which is owned by engineer Burt Rutan, is also building the four-engine plane that will ferry the spaceship to 50,000 ft. After SpaceShipTwo is released from the mother ship, the six passengers will be treated to a Mach 3 burn, straight up, propelled by a mix of nitrous oxide and solid fuel. Then, once the ship crests at 361,000 ft., passengers can float to the windows and gawk for a few minutes before returning to Earth. Spaceship test flights may start in 2009.

See more HERE.