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Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane was set loose for its first gliding flight today, about 45,000 feet above California's Mojave Desert — and landed to a chorus of cheers minutes later. That's one small step for gliders, but one giant leap for SpaceShipTwo and the future of suborbital space tourism.
The free-flying test was chronicled as it happened by Popular Mechanics' Joe Bargmann from the Mojave Air and Space Port, where the spaceship's builder, Scaled Composites, has its headquarters. Scaled has been working on the craft for years as a commercial follow-up to the history-making, prize-winning spaceflights of SpaceShipOne in 2004. The $100 million-plus development effort is being bankrolled by Virgin's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, who was among the crowd watching today's flight.
More than 300 would-be passengers have already put down more than $45 million in deposits for $200,000-a-seat rides on the plane. The experience will include a roller-coaster rocket ride to a spaceworthy altitude of more than 65 miles, several minutes of weightlessness, a picture-window view of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space ... and spaceflight bragging rights for years afterward.
Eventually, the price is expected to work its way down to mere tens of thousands of dollars, particularly as competitors such as Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin and XCOR Aerospace join the market.
Clay Observatory via Virgin Galactic
SpaceShipTwo separates from its White Knight Two mothership to begin its first free-flying glide test.
Today's test flight began with SpaceShipTwo hooked to its White Knight Two mothership for takeoff. Once the two linked-up planes reached 45,000 feet, the crews prepared to unhook the smaller craft for its glide. "We are armed," the cockpit crew radioed, according to Popular Mechanics' account. "Four, three, two, one, release release release!"
SpaceShipTwo glided through the air for 11 minutes and landed back at the Mojave airstrip, with White Knight Two touching down soon afterward. In a Twitter update, Virgin Galactic reported that SpaceShipTwo, also known as the VSS Enterprise, completed "her first solo glide flight successfully."
The glide test, piloted by Scaled Composites engineer Pete Siebold with Mike Alsbury as co-pilot, marked another milestone for SpaceShipTwo's test program. It came less than a year after the plane was rolled out for its first public viewing, and less than seven months after its first "captive-carry" flight.
"This was one of the most exciting days in the whole history of Virgin," Branson said in a statement released after the test. "For the first time since we seriously began the project in 2004, I watched the world's first manned commercial spaceship landing on the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port, and it was a great moment. Now, the sky is no longer the limit and we will begin the process of pushing beyond to the final frontier of space itself over the next year."
The Mojave Air and Space Port's general manager, Stuart Witt, hailed today's test in a statement released by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation: "First flight days are always extraordinary," Witt said. "This team effort by so many has been punctuated by a successful first test flight, and now everyone seeking a ride to space is a giant step closer."
More glides will follow in the months ahead to fine-tune the plane's aerodynamics. SpaceShipTwo's first powered tests, which will involve actually lighting up the plane's hybrid rocket engine, are expected to begin next year. The rocket ship's designer, Burt Rutan, has said he'd like to fly 50 to 100 tests before SpaceShipTwo begins commercial service — which would likely mean the first paying passengers could step aboard in 2012 or 2013.
The National Geographic Channel is scheduled to air a documentary about the making of SpaceShipTwo on Oct. 18. Here's a press preview:
More about commercial spaceflight:
- Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo
- Boeing aims for orbital space tours by 2015
- Private space stations edge closer to reality
Visit the brand-spanking-new Cosmic Log page on Facebook and hit the "Like" button. You can also follow @boyle on Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."
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um, anybody got a few bucks i could borrow???
Great job folks, looking forward to more of your "firsts" to come!
How much will they charge to take a peak at a snapshot from those gliders?
This is fantastic. What I look forward to even more than flying in space is this leading to being able to fly to other parts of the world in extremely short time. It would be great to be able to fly to Australia from the US west coast and an hour or two instead of 14.5 hours (if you get a direct flight). Sure, going into space would be a great experience, but I look to the more practical uses of the technology they are developing since that is what will lead to the effective commercialization. Of course maybe this could eventually lead to the development of resort hotels in orbit once the commercial craft make that next step forward to orbital flight.
I have always believed that the future of space travel, was with companies, Not a government ran administration! This is the shape of things to come!
The first generations of new technology are always out of the price range of us mere mortals.
But they only get cheaper. :D
Exactly :-D The huge amounts of money these 'early adopters' pay will help go to research to streamline processes and make things cheaper without compromising safety. Looking forward to the day when we'll be complaining 'sorry honey, my space flights delayed a bit, too much traffic right now'
As more and more of the wealthy put their money into it, then they can innovate and make it cheaper so the masses can pour their money into an (pun coming!) out-of-this-world experience. Its still all about the money. With that being said, I hope someday this is affordable, preferably in my lifetime.
Don't hold your breath. Your real income will continue dropping at a faster rate than the cost of spaceflight.
@Clark.
Unfortunately, i dont actually disagree with you. :(
But we can dream, can't we?
Sean - I think you'll find that this is something many of us "common folk" will be saving up for as a once in a lifetime experience. If the ticket price approaches even the $50,000 mark, there will be tons of people finding ways to pay it. I certainly will :-D
That is cool, here is a COMPANY that does and hope want space. I do and really hope we be and in space someday, not never. :( I like the model/design of Space Ship 2.
"The U.S Shuttles and now this SpaceShipTwo are among the very wonderful inventions in this century and beyond!"
A great progress for commercial space program in the wonderful land of progresses the USA! All the best to the future of this business to continue to keep the USA up front in technological advancements! All The best to mr. Branson the father of this business and his great deed! (BellaVista an aggressive inventor with about a thousand inventions in his lonely hands)
This is where America leads. The future is ours if only we grasp it. Carpe spaceum. Or something like that.
But USA is #1 in confidence. We have no clue of how to do anything other than to clean everyone elses pockets, but we are confident we are right.
jaymzz.
Yes I know. Richard Branson, Virgin Airlines, he's the pocket, but Rutan is ours.
Scaled Composites, the company founded by Burt Rutan to build Spaceship one/two and White Knight one/two, is an American company that was bought by Northrop Gruman an American company. Virgin Galactic is a British company that has contracted scaled composites to build spaceship two and white knight two.
Wait a minute. The article says "suborbital space tourism". What gives. I thought Obama said private industry was to replace the shuttle. This doesn't even come close.
Right. Commercial flight of humans and cargo to orbit are what SpaceX, Boeing, ULA and others are starting to be about.
No one said 'replacing the Shuttle' (whose cancellation was decided in 2004 under Bush) meant another re-usable vehicle, winged or otherwise (unfortunately).
This is a whole other activity, though later generations of commercial 'suborbital' vehicles may end up as orbit-capable...
Gotta start somwhere...What did you expect, just all of a sudden private companies would foot the whole tab...?
Jim, this whole thing has been happening much longer than Obama's been president. Bush put his stamp on the "shuttle replacement" and it's not a winged craft, it's called Orion. But you can rest assured that with so many companies taking the reigns there will be many types space craft doing many types of missions. Virgin Galactic is only taking people to "sub-orbit". If you have $100 million dollars you can actually buy a trip to orbit the moon if you want to, the Virgian-based company Space Adventures has a "lunar mission". I've actually emailed them about it (even though I'm poor) and they actually we kind enough to return my emails and send me brochures. Sadly they don't have a brochure for the "lunar mission" but to anyone with a realistic wish to do it and pantload of money, they WILL fly you to the moon.
He probably didn't mention WHEN it would replace the shuttle. =/
Thanks Dust4.
Still American proud.
I would love to go into space and experience true weightlessness.
Mhhh, guess I'd rather save another $20 mil and ride with the Russians.
Good luck with that...
People say "ride with the Russians" but they don't actually know what they are talking about. Space Adventures is the company that puts it all together, they are based in Virgina. They pay Russia to put people up in the Soyuz' "extra seats". You do go to Russia and train and launch. You get to stay on the ISS. Look it up, it's actually pretty interesting. http://www.spaceadventures.com/
What do you mean First rocket plane...... This is like the seventh.....
I have seen other airplane designs from the Rutan Brothers and they are cool. These guys are good!
Give them 3-5 years folks and they will be orbital, not just sub-orbital.
with all the pictures of earth available online, I will wait until it's $1.00 ticket.:):)
That's a good attitude! Treat it like a movie or a video game. It only takes 3-5 months for it to get down to "affordable" in my standards....In this case however, Im gonna have to say 300 years before it's a dollar :p idk...might be all these damn video games I play saying that tho.. :(
I am interested in launching commercial, and the target price for round trip moon orbital is $350.00 usd. I like my idea but gaurd it against the commieindustrialagnewmiltarycomplexauthoriaties...lets face it, intel manufactures chips IN china that it can't legally ship TO china....what damn dod dept signed off on THAT!!...anyways, I am wathcing the developments carefully, note that today yet another small island nation assigned themselves as a spaceport, also note that most spaceports got in on this as a big ripoff, at this point the fees at any given us spaceport would be greater than 350.00 per head. I don't want bilk the public, I want my own idea to be mine and not sold by google research to some japanese research organization who reasssembles it based on google clue words and then resells it to the highest bidder, you know, the way it has worked for centuries on this planet. Bing has been a bit of help but google research even sells bings search data!!...go figure...by the way google, that last superconductor idea was a harbinger to throw you off track...and it worked...hats off to the britts, I don't like the looks of the machine but it is surely helping to blaze a path we all know is there. Keep it up and watch the safety issue, the control freaks are just hoping something will happen so they can jump in and call the shots....
Huh....?
Which brings me to my first point...don't do drugs kids!
don't listen to him, note the majority of his posts are rants at the individual, if drugs make you less like him kids, you might possibly be better off with drugs, sad but very obvious once you read his attacks on other posters...sorry dude, but you had that coming, at least the 14-1 simply stated he had no idea what I said...get a new hobby bro, call it "being cool realizing you don't know half of anything"....I would rather learn from those around me than trounce them but it's just another normal day here on the internet backhanding NWBFWTWTS...now would you rather talk about spaceship designs and technology transfer then?
If this is going to be tourism at moon, they need to build the hotel or cheaper one motel before they go up there. And, what are the purposes they are going up there?
They want to have the experience to go up to the moon. In the moon, people bounce around except the station(hotel), which is heavy enough to be settled on the ground. The ground has a lot of pot holes and it is not going to be a smooth ride. It has no ozone layer and it has no protection like earth,. If sonar storm hits it. it is going to have a pot hole somewhere. And, that is also the reason the moon got burned without green.
They can not breathe unless with all equipments for O2 and CO2 circulation. The earth has air that we can breathe in and out without wearing any equipments, which is normally speaking. Do they know why they need to wear those heavy gear at moon to help them breathe?
They have weighless feeling for only the earth has magnetic force down on the earth and as a result, the earth has gravity and we don't bounce around like any other planets. The magnetic force is also protect us from solar storm or other radiation... The moon does not have it. Do they know why the moon looks so ugly and the earth looks so nice with green and blue from out of space when there is no storm.
The reason is when they go up there in the future and come down from moon, they think about how they can save the earth for there is no other place for us, human beings to live. Perhaps, they may think how to help the earth going green.
You should probably look into your "facts" a bit more before posting. Much of your post is incorrect in one way or another.
Including, but not limited to grammer. ;-)
It's difficult to make sense of what you are attempting to say here Billie. Your grammar is awful. Was that written in some other language and then translated using lousy translation software?
"If this is going to be tourism at moon, they need to build the hotel or cheaper one motel before they go up there. And, what are the purposes they are going up there?"
First of all the idea of a motel on the moon just makes me smile. As if there would be a few hotel chains up there and to cater to the cheaper crowd someone established a motel chain on the moon. Oh that's funny, I love it.
Just speaking for myself I don't think a hotel will be built on the moon for quite some time. There will most likely be a moon base for scientific or military purposes for a long time with no commercial operations going on apart from that moon base. Note that I said "apart". I feel there will definitely be commercial ventures within the first moon base (to some extent). And since the easiest way to shield from radiation is to build it underground sightseeing will be on a exterior tour basis. (these are all just my guesses).
"Do they know why the moon looks so ugly and the earth looks so nice with green and blue from out of space when there is no storm." - This comment made me smile because it's so naive. Ugly is just your opinion of the moon Billie. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
"The reason is when they go up there in the future and come down from moon, they think about how they can save the earth for there is no other place for us, human beings to live. Perhaps, they may think how to help the earth going green." - This must be what "they" think about. it just has to be. LOL ;-P ohhhh for all this comments problems it sure made me smile a lot.
Pardon Me -
I am almost falling out of my chair reading most of these posts (from laughter), I did vote for Post #16 it seemed down to earth to me, excuse me again I have to gather my composure. This is of great laughter to me, I could not care less for this frivolity of man. No, I have in my mind, better and more important matters to attend to and this is at the bottom of the list. I appreciate the enthusiasts and I am not mocking them. I am just cut from a different cloth and right now I am enjoying the howling laughter I have from reading most of the posts. Good luck to all on your flight I hope you all can enjoy your aspirations of some day flying high in space. In the mean while try some good herb, ha ha ha he he he he........good luck
Persevere
Persevere, if people didn't dream, and then act on their dreams, the Native American would still own the country known as the United States, I would be running around somewhere in Senegal or the Congo, and Irish potato farms would probably be growing barley 9since potatoes came from the Americas).
It definitely will not happen in our lifetimes, but it will eventually happen.
ahem, and your "better and more important matter to attend to are"?? I could use a laugh.
Mob_barely -
in a word.............WORK.................enjoy your laugh sounds like you need one
Taking a trip without leaving the farm....?
Everyone complaining about the price, well when the wealthy board this thing and it wipes out, I'm sure you'll be glad your broke, then the price will come down after the round of wealthy guinea pigs have ceased to be interested. on another side of the pic. thing would make a serious fighter, no other tech around would be able to catch this thing due to its altitude not being a limit, hey iran look what we got,lmao
Hmmm...your post got me to thinking about the Titanic and all those millionaires on board who died.
Hmmmm.....
Thanks for the shout out for the Rutan family. They're my husband's cousins, and are a really sharp and inventive family.
From a company that started building ultralights (one that you had to lift the front to put the nosegear down), Rutan has taken his company to the very top. He's probably the best image of innovation and business acumen there is.
I'm curious why, at 45,000ft, the landing gear on the mother ship are down. Seems a trifle odd.
Bajan Perhaps to slow it down with some drag prepatory for the release? Just guessing.
Bajan, nice catch. That is very odd indeed.
spaceship two flies thanx... www.sohbetarkadaslik.com