Showing posts with label SpaceShipTwo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SpaceShipTwo. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
"In 2010, Commericial Space takes off"
SpaceShipTwo - still being roughed out last September. Though tricked-out for a suborbital ballistic flight it would have been worthy of Admiral Alan Shepard (offering more than all the experience the first American in Space enjoyed in 1961 before commanding Apollo 14 a decade later). It is to be the world's first commercial spacecraft. Roll out for public unveiling is scheduled this coming week at Mojave.Sam Howe Verhovek
POPSCI.com
For a traveler heading up the highway toward the Mojave Air and Space Port, in the desert 70 miles north of Los Angeles, the surroundings are ghostly. Silent 747s and DC-10 jumbo jets from defunct airlines, along with smaller 727s and DC-9s, some cut up or resting on pylons, are visible from miles away, looking frozen and forlorn. Parked along the road at the airport entrance is a 1962 Convair 990, which began its life as an American Airlines jet airliner. Now the wind whistles through its nacelles and birds nest in its wheel wells.
Mojave is a boneyard, a place where commercial airliners go to die. Yet on the day I visited last October, there was life in the wide blue sky overhead, and it was more striking than the sight of even the most modern airliner. I saw a kind of flying catamaran streaking from west to east. As it came into view, it looked like two business jets flying in formation and high-fiving each other. Closer, I saw twin fuselages joined by large, slightly tilted overhead wings, each with two quiet jet engines on the far side. I was watching the VMS Eve, the airborne launching pad for the smaller rocket ships that in the next few years, Virgin Galactic says, will begin taking paying passengers to space.
POPSCI.com
For a traveler heading up the highway toward the Mojave Air and Space Port, in the desert 70 miles north of Los Angeles, the surroundings are ghostly. Silent 747s and DC-10 jumbo jets from defunct airlines, along with smaller 727s and DC-9s, some cut up or resting on pylons, are visible from miles away, looking frozen and forlorn. Parked along the road at the airport entrance is a 1962 Convair 990, which began its life as an American Airlines jet airliner. Now the wind whistles through its nacelles and birds nest in its wheel wells.
Mojave is a boneyard, a place where commercial airliners go to die. Yet on the day I visited last October, there was life in the wide blue sky overhead, and it was more striking than the sight of even the most modern airliner. I saw a kind of flying catamaran streaking from west to east. As it came into view, it looked like two business jets flying in formation and high-fiving each other. Closer, I saw twin fuselages joined by large, slightly tilted overhead wings, each with two quiet jet engines on the far side. I was watching the VMS Eve, the airborne launching pad for the smaller rocket ships that in the next few years, Virgin Galactic says, will begin taking paying passengers to space.
Ottawa space reservation
Peter RakobowchukThe Canadian Press
"After studying space physics and learning how to fly, John Criswick's childhood dream of becoming an astronaut was shattered in 1992 when he did not get selected by the Canadian Space Agency."
"Criswick was the first Canadian among the 300 astronauts who have already made reservations for a trip into sub-orbital space on board SpaceShipTwo."
Monday, November 30, 2009
SpaceShipTwo rollout
To create SpaceShipTwo, Burt Rutan translated the technical advances of SpaceShipOne into a craft designed for passenger comfort and everyday reliability.An overview by Carl Hoffman in December's WIRED, ahead of this week's scheduled rollout of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
LauncherOne: Virgin Galactic aiming for the unmanned launch business, with Surrey Satellite Technologies
Johnathan AmosSpaceman Blog
BBC NEWS
You are going to hear a lot in the next few weeks about Virgin Galactic, not least because on 7 December the company will unveil SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave Desert, California.
I want to concentrate on another Galactic project which is now gathering pace - the LauncherOne satellite system.
Back in January, I reported on early discussions between the Branson outfit and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford.
SSTL is a world leader in the production of low-cost small satellites, and it was keen to explore the possibility of working with Virgin Galactic on a way to get these spacecraft into orbit much more cheaply than is currently possible.
The concept would be somewhat similar to the US Pegasus system, which uses a former airliner to lift a booster to 40,000ft, before releasing it to make its own way into space.
Virgin Galactic's aim is to provide an air-launched system which is faster, cheaper, and more flexible.
It would use SpaceShipTwo's mothership, "Eve", as the launch platform.
Read the Post, HERE.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Grumbling over sub-orbital tourism delays
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| From Lunar Pioneer |
Heath Haussamen
New Mexico Independent
It’s been five years since SpaceShipOne won the first Ansari X Prize and proved that commercial vehicles have a future in outer space. But the move to actually commercialize space hasn’t been as quick as those trying to make it happen predicted.
The Associated Press takes a look at that reality in a new article featuring “daredevil venture capitalist” Alan Walton who says he’s about ready to ask for his money back if there’s no set launch date by next April, when he turns 74.
“This was going to be the highlight of my old age,” the AP quoted Walton, one of hundreds of people who “plunked down” the $200,000 to be among the first space tourists on a Virgin Galactic spaceship.
When Virgin officials and the state of New Mexico came together to announce a partnership to turn the commercial space industry into a reality, they estimated commercial flights beginning in 2007 in California and moving to Spaceport America as soon as the New Mexico facility was ready in 2008.
Clearly, that hasn’t happened. Commercial flights in California haven’t started yet, as Virgin has experienced as many delays in building its craft as New Mexico officials have had in building the spaceport.
New Mexico Independent
It’s been five years since SpaceShipOne won the first Ansari X Prize and proved that commercial vehicles have a future in outer space. But the move to actually commercialize space hasn’t been as quick as those trying to make it happen predicted.
The Associated Press takes a look at that reality in a new article featuring “daredevil venture capitalist” Alan Walton who says he’s about ready to ask for his money back if there’s no set launch date by next April, when he turns 74.
“This was going to be the highlight of my old age,” the AP quoted Walton, one of hundreds of people who “plunked down” the $200,000 to be among the first space tourists on a Virgin Galactic spaceship.
When Virgin officials and the state of New Mexico came together to announce a partnership to turn the commercial space industry into a reality, they estimated commercial flights beginning in 2007 in California and moving to Spaceport America as soon as the New Mexico facility was ready in 2008.
Clearly, that hasn’t happened. Commercial flights in California haven’t started yet, as Virgin has experienced as many delays in building its craft as New Mexico officials have had in building the spaceport.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Virgin Galactic announces engine tests
Heads-Up to the essential Jeff Foust
Personal Spaceflight
Personal Spaceflight
"Virgin Galactic announced this morning that the company has successfully carried out its first full-scale engine tests for SpaceShipTwo. Virgin released a video featuring the tests along with a press release:"
"Neither the video nor the press release provide much in the way of technical details about the engine tests, other than the engine is the largest hybrid engine of its type ever. Both do play up the “low environmental impact” of this propulsion system, and the potential applications beyond space tourism for future space transportation systems using such technology. (Server farms in space?)"
"Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn is scheduled to speak later this morning at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando. I’ll be there and report on any other announcements or developments he provides there."
Personal Spaceflight Article HERE.
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