VSS Enterprise's First Flight

Does anything more really need to be said?



Fun fact: this happened on 10/10/10. 101010 is the binary form of the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

Trip to Space

Progress: 6.47%  Flight Time: 0:09:42

Solar Array

Progress: 6.47%  Power: 65W

First Virgin Galactic Flight Booked

Virgin Galactic has announced the passengers of their first tourist spaceflight. And in a fit of irony, those first tourists are all Russians.

Owners of a Russian advertising firm, some of their family, and another Russian businessman and his wife have purchased the first Virgin Galactic tickets, and will be making their flight on the VSS Enterprise once public tourist flights start, currently expected in late 2009 or 2010. Note that this "first" designation does not count Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Galactic) and his family, who will be flying sometime prior to that, in part to emphasize the safety of the flights, and in part because it's really really cool and Mr. Branson is really really rich.

This news story comes with a few Virgin Galactic updates: around 250 people have now booked tickets for Virgin Galactic flights (including apparently 11 Russians). Last time I checked, 250 x $200,000 = fifty million freaking dollars. Just thought I'd mention that. Furthermore 85,000 others have applied, which would appear to imply that when I finally reach my goal, I may need to wait in line a while.

Also, it was mentioned (and I have not seen this explicitly stated until now) that the flights will include about 4 minutes of weightlessness, which is on par with what I expected.

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Potential First Picture of SpaceShipTwo

Well, it seems that FlightGlobal managed to take a picture of a structure that may be a piece of the first SpaceShipTwo, currently under construction at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California.

The structure in question is a piece of a nose section. This appears, at first glance, to be a piece of a WhiteKnightTwo aircraft (which has two similarly-structured nose sections), but key differences suggest that this may actually be the first-seen piece of the VSS Enterprise, the first SpaceShipTwo.

For one thing, the picture shows a nose section as one complete, seamless piece, whereas the officially-released WhiteKnightTwo construction pictures show that its fuselage, including the nose section, is made of two distinct pieces.

Also, there is a prominent structure close to the bottom of the imaged nose section that is not present in WhiteKnightTwo's structure.

Oh, and I guess you'll want to see the picture. Credit FlightGlobal.

Progress: 3.73%  Flight Time: 0:05:35

SpaceShipTwo May Fly by the End of 2008

Sir Richard Branson, founder and CEO of Virgin Galactic, suggested this week on the Indian television network NDTV that the first SpaceShipTwo craft (the VSS Enterprise) will be ready for flight tests by the end of the year. And that isn't the only thing he mentioned. He also suggested that the flight testing will take about nine months, after which he hopes that he and his family will be on the first flight. Notably, he said that he won't put the family on the spacecraft until he is sure that is safe, perhaps in an attempt to reassure others that if they want to go up on SpaceShipTwo, they will come back down! You can read a mediocre translation of the interview here. The interview was mostly about India's economy and the Virgin group's plans for expansion in Indian markets, but on space tourism, Branson mentions these and a few other things that are too poorly translated in this transcript to understand. I prefer not to speculate on those, so I recommend reading it for yourself.

This is exciting stuff, though! Before the year is out, we may very well see the Enterprise launched toward space for the first time! And I imagine before then, we'll see Eve (the first WhiteKnightTwo) perform various flight tests. It's shaping up to be a very exciting year!

Progress: 3.89%  Flight Time: 0:05:50