There have been some conflicting statements in the media recently about when Virgin Galactic would begin passenger service. Flight International reported this week that the company is “still a few years away from operations”, in the words of company COO Alex Tai, who spoke a Royal Aeronautical Society event in London last week on the […]
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The public right now has only a right idea of what SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, will look like, based primarily on the promotional animations and images released by Virgin Galactic. Flightglobal.com took the interesting step of using those images and modifying them based on comments on the design made by Burt […] Most people concluded that last month’s Scaled Composites accident would delay Virgin Galactic’s plans to begin suborbital space tourism services; even Burt Rutan admitted last weekend that the accident would delay plans for rocket-powered test flights (without saying exactly what that schedule was.) Richard Branson, though, doesn’t seem to have factored any delay into his […] Burt Rutan is scheduled to be a keynote speaker tomorrow at the Blackburn Institute 2007 Academic Symposium at the University of Alabama, part of an event titled “Responsibility for the Future Exploration and Development of Space”. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be that newsworthy of an event, but it will be one of the fist public speaking […] It shouldn’t be surprising that an event like last week’s explosion in Mojave has resulted in its share of both good and bad reporting. However, an article in ArabianBusiness.com is a particularly egregious example of poor reporting on this topic. The article argues that Richard Branson’s “entire commercial space tourism dream is in tatters” because […] Yesterday’s issue of The Globe and Mail, a national Canadian newspaper, profiles businessman John Criswick, one of four Canadians who have signed up with Virgin Galactic for suborbital spaceflights. Criswick, the CEO of a mobile software company, has had a long interest in space, and even applied to join the Canadian astronauts corps but didn’t […] Pratt & Whitney Canada announced today that Virgin Galactic has picked its PW308 engine for use on the White Knight 2 aircraft that will be the carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo. The engine, which generated up to 30,700 newtons (6,900 pounds) of thrust, has been used on a number of bizjets; the press release doesn’t indicate […] As a followup to Benson Space’s announcement of its “low-G” reentry plan, Brian Binnie of Scaled Composites talked a bit about the planned reentry experience for SpaceShipTwo during a talk Saturday at the Heinlein Centennial in Kansas City. According to Binnie, the peak G forces on reentry will be about 7 Gs. However, in a […] Evidently being executive director of the National Space Society isn’t keeping George Whitesides busy enough (hard to believe, given all the energy he puts into NSS activities): he has signed on to be a “senior advisor” to Virgin Galactic, according to a report by Space News (subscription required). He’ll work with Virgin on government and […] An article in the Sunday Times of London reports that EADS Astrium will announce this week plans to provide suborbital space tourism services. The article is short on details, although EADS is apparently looking at a suborbital vehicle that would reach 100 kilometers altitude, with a per-ticket cost similar to Virgin Galactic’s going rate of […] |
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