Virgin Galactic unveils mirror-coated space plane, Spaceship III
By: Jackie Wattles (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Virgin Galactic, the space tourism firm that hopes to send its first customers to space next year, unveiled a new spacecraft design on Tuesday. The sleek new space plane has a reflective coating that the company calls "mirror-like," and says will add to space tourists' experience.
© Virgin Galactic VSS Imagine, the first SpaceShip III in the Virgin Galactic fleet.
Flight tests of the new vehicle are expected to begin this summer, the company said in a press release.
Visually, the SpaceShip III closely resembles SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that Virgin Galactic has been testing for more than a decade. But the updated space plane is designed to be more easily manufactured, and to be durable enough to help the company achieve its goal of flying 400 trips to suborbital space each year.
The company is, however, also still continuing to test its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, called VSS Unity. The next trial run for it is slated for May, and it will follow up two prior test flights that were successful and one that was prematurely scrapped in December.
After nearly two decades in the development phase and years of missed deadlines, Virgin Galactic now says it expects to fly its founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, to space later this year before beginning full commercial operations in 2021. The company's home base is in New Mexico, where a glitzy spaceport paid for with more than $200 million in mostly taxpayer money had been waiting for nearly a decade for Virgin Galactic to move in and open for business.
The company's development program has endured years of delays for a variety of reasons, including a fatal 2014 crash that killed a test pilot, technology hangups, and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic.
December's planned test flight was halted when VSS Unity's onboard rocket motor computer lost connection, the company said. And last month the Washington Post, citing an upcoming book from New Yorker staff writer Nicholas Schmidle, revealed that in Virgin Galactic encountered a potentially serious safety hazard during a test flight in 2019. A safety probe was ordered to investigate why a seal on its space plane's wing had come undone, risking loss of the vehicle and the lives of the three crew members on board, according to the Post. No one was harmed in the test flight, which was publicly deemed a success.
Virgin Galactic moved into the New Mexico facility in May 2019. The company refurbished the building to include a lounge and other amenities that ticket holders — who so far have forked over between $200,000 to $250,000 each to reserve seats — will be able to use before their brief journey to the edge of space.
Virgin Galactic says it has about 600 customers so far, and the company is expecting to reopen ticket sales soon. New tickets, however, are expected to be priced higher than $250,000 — which is already more than the median home price in the United States — when that happens.
© Virgin Galactic VSS Imagine, the first SpaceShip III in the Virgin Galactic fleet.
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Believe it or not, New Mexico already built a spaceport. I found this document linked to the seed, simply fascinating in details
and projections. It's the State's equivalent of an annual report from 2014.
NMFA 102014 Item 1 NMFA Spaceport Authority - Past, Present, and Future.pdf (nmlegis.gov)
and their present website
Spaceport America-The World's First Purpose-Built Commercial Spaceport
I suppose a few flight attendants in absolute weightless conditions would be too much to hope for.
Competitor SpaceX currently has the SpaceX Dragon docked to the international space station.
When it brings back our NASA crew SpaceX intends to remove the docking device and install a clear dome.
A viewing dome will replace the docking collar for paying passengers to take pictures or gaze at space...
The SpaceX Dragon will basically be converted to a tourist ride.
Not unless I get a tuggy with the price of that ticket.
Or win the Powerball!
This is a whole other universe of money from the one I live in.
I think that applies to most of us
What does this thing use for fuel?
coal, it's coming back...
smarty pants
slow pitches always go over the outfield fence.
The tears of orphans.
Another smarty pants.
But all good answers
I figure if you’re charging a quarter of a million bucks for a seat, it better run on something precious.
A very large rubber band slingshot!
lol
Excellent question...
excellent pics
I guess they can't go very far until they figure out how to mine dilithium crystals
Does this fancy plane actually go anywhere (like Point A and Point B) or does it just go high and come back?
Pretty much goes high and comes back down as it is strictly sub orbital and only touches the lower edge of space.
Even if I had $250K to spend on this, I would still buy more tokens for Candy Crush.
I mean...it doesn't even go to the Space Station?
Bottom line is the technology for tourist travel to space is still in it's infancy. The R&D costs are still prohibitive and only the entitled rich elite can afford it. I do not see that changing any in our lifetimes. Maybe our grandhid's time but not ours.
where would it go? it's a fucking balloon ride for people with more money than sense.
Yep.
I don't know if I want to sit that close to a hybrid engine capable of pushing the "aircraft" at three times the speed of sound into a sub orbit
after being carried to a launch altitude by this contraption dubbed the White Knight .