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Stefano Paltera/AP
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, left, and Scaled Composites LLC founder Burt
Rutan wave from the mothership aircraft White Knight Two "Eve" during an unveiling
ceremony at Scaled Composites hangar in Mojave, Calif. (AP)
Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, left, and Scaled Composites LLC founder Burt
Rutan wave from the mothership aircraft White Knight Two "Eve" during an unveiling
ceremony at Scaled Composites hangar in Mojave, Calif. (AP)
Is Space Tourism Really on the Horizon?
British tycoon Richard Branson has uncloaked a spacecraft carrier targeted for launch in late 2009. But that doesn’t mean commercial space travel is within reach.
30-Second Summary
On July 28, Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of the megabrand Virgin, and aerospace engineer Burt Rutan revealed a spacecraft carrier called the WhiteKnightTwo. The big reveal marked the start of the flight-test program. The aircraft it is designed to carry and “air-launch,” dubbed the SpaceShipTwo, is reportedly 70 percent complete.
Up to 250 passengers paying $200,000 each are waiting for their six minutes of weightlessness, which the trip promises. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, described the trip to the Independent: “You get on board … in your entirely carbon-composite spaceship. You’re lifted to 50,000ft. You’re then dropped, a rocket fires, and within six seconds you’re doing the speed of sound, within about 20 seconds you’re at nearly 3,000mph, and you climb up into space and you get up to about 70 miles above the earth.”
In 2004, Rutan and a team, backed by Microsoft’s Paul Allen, launched SpaceShipOne into space and were awarded the $10 million X Prize.
Developing the second passenger spacecraft has not been easy. On July 26, 2007, three people died and three were injured while testing the SpaceShipTwo. Rutan said he wasn’t sure what caused the accident as nitrous oxide—a gas used in the testing—“is not considered a hazardous material.”
Many observers, including celebrities like Madonna and Paris Hilton, have said they’re excited by the thought of space travel. Mike Peathe of the Times of London, however, believes the trip will be “a massive disappointment.”
Up to 250 passengers paying $200,000 each are waiting for their six minutes of weightlessness, which the trip promises. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, described the trip to the Independent: “You get on board … in your entirely carbon-composite spaceship. You’re lifted to 50,000ft. You’re then dropped, a rocket fires, and within six seconds you’re doing the speed of sound, within about 20 seconds you’re at nearly 3,000mph, and you climb up into space and you get up to about 70 miles above the earth.”
In 2004, Rutan and a team, backed by Microsoft’s Paul Allen, launched SpaceShipOne into space and were awarded the $10 million X Prize.
Developing the second passenger spacecraft has not been easy. On July 26, 2007, three people died and three were injured while testing the SpaceShipTwo. Rutan said he wasn’t sure what caused the accident as nitrous oxide—a gas used in the testing—“is not considered a hazardous material.”
Many observers, including celebrities like Madonna and Paris Hilton, have said they’re excited by the thought of space travel. Mike Peathe of the Times of London, however, believes the trip will be “a massive disappointment.”
Headline Link: The upcoming launch
According to USA Today, Branson and his family will take “the maiden voyage” on SpaceShipTwo. The launch is slated to occur after all flight tests have been completed, which Whitehorn believes could be late in 2009 or 2010.
Source: USA Today
Background: The ups and downs of private space travel
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum writes that, on June 21, 2004, “SpaceShipOne left Earth’s atmosphere and entered the weightlessness of space by traveling just above the 62-mile boundary mark (100 km) on an arced, suborbital flight that began with launch from its airplane mothership.”
Source: National Air and Space Museum
On July 26, 2007, Burt Rutan told reporters he didn’t know what caused the SpaceShipTwo explosion that killed three and injured three, but said it didn’t happen while firing the rocket. Tony Diffenbaugh, Kern County Fire spokesman said: “Our units arrived on the scene at a remote test site in the northeast portion of the airport. What they found was six victims of an apparent explosion with various traumatic and burn injuries.”
Source: New Scientist.com
In an interview with Britain's The Independent, Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, describes a flight aboard the spacecraft and drops a few names of potential space tourists: “They are people like Philippe Starck the designer and Victoria Principal, the actress from Dallas days who’s now a successful entrepreneur in the U.S. Professor Stephen Hawking is certainly doing his damnedest to prove to us that we can carry him.”
Source: The Independent
Opinion & Analysis: ‘$200,000 trip to nowhere’
Mike Peathe of the Times of London said that “What Branson is selling is actually a $200,000 trip to nowhere. … No sun, no sangria and zero chance of a dance with a drunken American backpacker—and you don’t get to bring home any mementos, apart from some digital snaps of you being all weightless, which quite frankly a 12-year-old could knock up in Photoshop.”
Source: The Times of London
Key Player: Sir Richard Branson
Chris Anderson of TED.com spoke to British business mogul Richard Branson, who has “ballooned across the Atlantic, floated down the Thames with the Sex Pistols, and been knighted by the Queen.” Anderson discusses “the space thing,” as well as Branson’s philanthropy efforts and his inspiration. The interview includes animated footage of the interior of SpaceshipTwo. (Begin video at 8:45.)
Source: TED.com
Related Topic: Extraterrestrial ownership
In May, Drake Bennett of The Boston Globe wrote about the Outerspace Treaty of 1967 and discussed different models of extraterrestrial property ownership. Robert Merges, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, suggests a “first-come first-serve basis” with “a portion of the total available property … set aside for a period of time to give developing nations a chance to catch up and to bid once they’d reached the point at which they were technologically and financially able.”
Source: The Boston Globe (free registration may be required)
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