Virgin Galactic gets one flight closer to spaceflight success
Looking more like a bizarre Siamese twin (or beer-goggle double) than a real plane, the WhiteKnightTwo launch “mothership” took its maiden flight yesterday, and moved the world a little closer to a future in which the wealthy can soar far, far away from our little problems here on the ground.
For those who aren’t familiar with Virgin Galactic or the startup building the craft, Scaled Composites, WhiteKnightTwo is only half the equation needed to put someone in space. The large airplane is intended to lift a smaller vessel, SpaceShipTwo, into the upper atmosphere, where the latter can then scoot itself up far enough to give tourists the classic “Earth from space” view.
Neither aircraft will enter orbit, but Virgin Galactic is convinced that the subsequent glide back to the surface will be enough to convince passengers to shell out $200,000 apiece.
We should know by next year whether the whole scheme works; SpaceShipTwo is in progress and will enter testing within several months, according to Wired. Some video footage of the WhiteKnightTwo flight is available on FlightGlobal, here and here.
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About the Author, Chris Morrison
Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.