Jul 28
Filed under: Transportation
It looks like the Mojave Desert is once again the center of the private space industry, with Richard Branson and crew on hand to unveil Virgin Galactic’s
WhiteKnightTwo spaceship carrier
as promised. This craft (only the first of more that are promised) has been named EVE (after Branson’s mother) and, with a 140-foot wingspan, it’s apparently now officially the largest all carbon-composite aircraft ever made. Eventually, it’ll be used to help carry the the yet-to-be-completed
SpaceShipTwo craft in orbit although, as Burt Rutan himself tells Space.com, that’s still a little ways off, with him saying that while could be ready to go after just 40 tests flights, they’ll likely do a few more than that for good measure. Head on past the break for a few more pics.
Read - Space.com, “Virgin Galactic Unveils Space Liner Mothership “
Read - Wired Science, “First Look at Virgin Galactic’s New Mothership, WhiteKnightTwo”
Continue reading Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo spaceship carrier gets unveiled
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Source: Donald Melanson
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Jan 23
burt ruttan, WhiteKnightTwo, BurtRuttan, space travel, SpaceTravel, white knight two, SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic, ScaledComposites, VirginGalactic, sir richard branson, SirRichardBranson, Scaled Composites
Filed under: Transportation
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/space/SpaceShipTwo_White_Knight_Two_designs_unveiled’;As expected, Sir Richard Branson has just unveiled the final designs of SpaceShipTwo and White Knight Two, Virgin Galactic’s planned commercial “spaceliner” and its corresponding carrier plane. At today’s American Museum of Natural History launch event, Branson once again reiterated his lofty expectations for space tech in general and the six-passenger vehicle in particular, promising to promote privatization and more widespread research by offering outside organizations access to its launch system schematics. So far, Virgin has reportedly signed up 200 committed passengers willing to pay $200,000 for a 2010-or-later suborbital flight, but for now, all they can do is look at the pretty pictures in the gallery below.
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Source: Evan Blass
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Jul 27
ScaledComposites, Scaled Composites, rocket, RichardBranson, spacecraft, spaceport, VirginGalactic, Virgin Galactic, virgin, richard branson, kills, burt rutan, airport, aerospace, BurtRutan, death, killed, kill, explosion, blast
Filed under: Transportation
This week is quickly becoming a tough one for the aerospace industry, as just a day after NASA reported tampering on an ISS bound computer, an explosion at the Mojave Air and Space Port has claimed two lives and seriously injured four others. The blast reportedly occurred during a “test of a new rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo — a spaceship being built for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space tourism company.” According to a spokeswoman for the spaceport, the blast was “on a remote pad” at an airport home to Scaled Composite (which is the builder of the first private manned rocket to reach space), but the firm’s founder Burt Rutan wasn’t in attendance when the “cold fire test” went awry.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Source: Darren Murph
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