I find the following story very interesting. We are certainly living in modern times. What do you think about it?
Virgin Unveils Spaceship Model
By DAVID B. CARUSO, AP
Posted: 2008-01-23 21:32:35
Filed Under: Science News
NEW YORK (Jan. 23) – A select group of rich tourists may be blasting into space within a few years in a craft that looks like a cross between a corporate jet and something out of science fiction.
British billionaire Richard Branson and the aerospace designer Burt Rutan unveiled a model Wednesday of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle they hope will be able to take passengers about 62 miles above Earth for the fun of it, with test flights possibly beginning this year.
“Breathtakingly beautiful,” was Branson’s assessment of the ship, now under construction at a hangar in the Mojave Desert.
Speaking to reporters at the American Museum of Natural History, the pair also showed off a model of the big, four-engine jet that will help launch the craft into space.
The twin-fuselage airplane, called the White Knight Two, will carry SpaceShipTwo high into the sky beneath a single 140-foot wing.
The spacecraft, with short wings, a pair of rotating tails and plenty of 18-inch portholes, would then separate from the plane and rocket into space — where as many as six passengers and two crew members could unbuckle themselves for a little while and experience weightlessness and an unparalleled view before gliding back to Earth.
Passengers would get about 4 1/2 minutes of zero-gravity time, floating about a cabin roughly the size of a private jet with the floor removed, before buckling themselves back in for the descent. The seats in the craft will lay passengers nearly flat to put less stress on their bodies and give them more room to float while they are in space.
Will Whitehorn, president of Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, said construction on the White Knight Two is already more than 70 percent complete.
SpaceShipTwo is about 60 percent complete, and the company and Rutan’s aerospace outfit, Scaled Composites LLC, hopes to begin test flights this summer.
About 200 prospective passengers from 30 countries have made reservations, shelling out $200,000 apiece. Many were in attendance for Wednesday’s presentation, including Ken Baxter, 58, of Las Vegas.
Here is the full story.
Next they’ll go to Mars. Chess players can’t afford to pay $200K for sure.
If I win the lottery, I’ll go 🙂
They would have to pay me to ride on that glorified vomit comet.
I’d pay 2000 $ max.
I don’t see the point. The price tag is so high that only multi-millionaires would want to take up such an offer. But if you were a multi-millionaire to begin with, why would take such a huge risk with your life for a few moments of fun, when you can remain alive on Earth and enjoy your money for several years to come…
I’ve got ticket #212. Should I be concerned that is also the temperature of boiling water?
The question should be: how much would you pay to send SOMEONE ELSE on a one way trip into space? I’m sure Susan and Paul would pay a lot of money to send Sam Sloan on that trip!
The way the dollar is plummeting, I’ll be making $200K an hour. A loaf of bread will cost $100K.
Outerspace for 2 loaves of bread, sure, I’ll do it.
This is a much over-glorified “space” trip. 62 miles is barely outside of the “official space” which is loosely defined anyway. Considering the the Moon is a measly 238,000 miles away, the ISS is 183 miles away, the 62 miles above the earth is…well….a high flying airplane. Space? Officially it is. Barely. Out of all this 4.5 minute of weightlessness? By the time the surprise and the nausea subsides, it is long over.
I am a high-tech and space junkie, so to speak, but this is nothing else but the world’s most expensive amusment park ride. I am not planning to participate.
Gabor
I would pay nothing surely, because already I am in “Space” going out of the Earth is nothing else than changing your coordinates in the same space 😉