SCI FI PI

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has unveiled models of the new SpaceShipTwo, the craft that will take six passengers (at $USD 200,000 a pop) and two crew into space for five minutes at a time.

Test flights for the new craft are slated for this year.

The plan is simple – the whole kit and caboodle will fly to 15 kilometres up into the air. 747’s currently cruise at around 10 kilometres up. Then SpaceShipTwo will separate from Knight Two and blast off into space –just under the legal orbiting limit where it becomes hard to come back down without re-entry shields, retro rockets et al.


Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rests under the Knight Two before blasting into space.





Celebrities and rich people who are signed up for five minutes of sub-orbital mayhem include Stephen Hawking and designer Philippe Starck. Branson and his family are booked for the first flight.

Branson has stated that “within five years of launching, I would hope the price would come down fairly dramatically."

Flights will launch from New Mexico, where a new spaceport is being built for $250 million.

However, you don’t have to fly Virgin Galactic if you don’t want to – competition is fierce, with eight major companies vying for their piece of space.

Contenders include Rocketplane Global, offering space travel in a converted Lear jet. (Awesome). Or if you prefer, you can fly with Amazon founder Jim Bezios’ company, Blue Origin and climb aboard the New Shepard which is a VTOL craft, so with them you do in fact get 'blast off!'.

With all this competition, it seems that by about 2015 or so, space flight might be within reach of ordinary humans. So start saving your space pennies now!


The 'Father of Space Design', Burt Rutan, inside a mockup of SpaceShipTwo