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July 29, 2008
Finally! We're NOW Living in the Future!
When Virgin Atlantic opens a subsidiary, Virgin Galactic, we are there! Here? Well, you know what I mean!
The Virgin Galactic company today unveiled the WhiteKnightTwo, a new class of carrier airplane that will help loft space tourists beyond Earth's atmosphere.The first plane in the WhiteKnightTwo class was christened EVE in honor of Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson's mother, who performed the official naming ceremony this morning at the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California.
The sleek, white plane is a larger version of the one that helped SpaceShipOne win the U.S.-ten-million-dollar Ansari X Prize in 2004 by becoming the first privately built craft to carry a person on three round-trip voyages to space.
WhiteKnightTwo will ferry the not-yet-unveiled SpaceShipTwo crafts, six-passenger versions of the original SpaceShipOne, up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) above Earth.
The passenger ship is then launched from the underside of WhiteKnightTwo to continue its ascent to the very edge of space—about 65 miles (104 kilometers) above Earth—under its own power. SpaceShipTwo crafts make the return trip to Earth unaided.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at July 29, 2008 8:00 AM