"Rollout of Scaled Composites' mega-mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, is anticipated late July in Mojave, California — the first phase of a project to create a private space travel business — SPACE.com has learned in an exclusive interview.

WhiteKnightTwo is a specially designed jet carrier aircraft, built to haul the passenger and crew-filled SpaceShipTwo to release altitude of roughly 50,000 feet.

Once on its own, SpaceShipTwo guns itself on a suborbital trek to over 68 miles (109 kilometers) high, reaching a speed of just over three times the speed of sound, and then returns its six rubber-necking tourists and two pilots back to Earth.

And even in space, yes, you can hear cash registers ringing up sales.

That's the word from Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, the company owned and established by British businessman and billionaire, Richard Branson and his Virgin Group, to fashion the world's first commercial spaceline.

"I think we are above the plan we originally had in terms of the number of tickets we sold before we started flying," Whitehorn told SPACE.com in an exclusive May 29 interview here during the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference.

Priority seating

Some 254 people have plopped down cash to earn priority seating onboard SpaceShipTwo in the first couple of years of suborbital flying, Whitehorn explained. "They've paid up-front between $20,000 and $200,000 ... and we've got about $36 million, as of today, in the bank."

Whitehorn said Virgin Galactic's ambition since day one has been to sell the first year's operations before firing the starting gun on ticketed runs to space. While that date is still to be determined, he said that the firm would want to sell about 500 or 600 tickets before then.

"We see ourselves carrying that many people in the first year," Whitehorn said. "Virgin isn't going to fund a business that isn't a real business."

But the true foundation for closing Virgin Galactic's public space travel business case is test, test and then test some more.

Extensive flight testing

"We've designed a test program at the moment which is incredibly conservative," Whitehorn advised — a program that he thinks might be shortened. "We're into sort of a 130 to 150 flight category program, which is extensive."

That test program starts with rollout of the huge WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane, now targeted for the end of July. The aircraft will be ground tested for days or weeks at the Mojave Air and Space Port, depending on the opinion of Scaled Composites experts, Whitehorn emphasized, but the hope is to have the plane airborne by September.

...

Virgin Galactic officials — including its cadre of sales agents — have proven that there is a suborbital market that could justify building the WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo system. That fact was not known at start of construction, Whitehorn admitted.

Still, there's more business oomph in WhiteKnightTwo than handling passenger traffic on suborbital jaunts.

"WhiteKnightTwo is the world's most advanced payload carrier. It has the best fuel efficiency of any aircraft ever built in history. It is the world's first 100 percent carbon composite aircraft ... 100 percent minus the blades and undercarriage," Whitehorn pointed out. "Even the control wires are carbon composite ... a first in aviation ... and a patented technology."

Full/photos:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/08...gin-mother.html

Perhaps we can send the Bush administration on a one-way trip!

Ok, but they have to pay for their own gas and meals.

It will be cool to see the pics the tourists take of the UFO's that follow them. Ever since that shuttle mission, they wont show us the live pics anymore unless they are closeups.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c8a_1210199691

Flash player/HTML version for info that is absolutely incredible provided below.

2 friends have made reservations and I'm considering making one myself. My bf is not amused at my decision...

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

There's a timid report we've heard that the Pope (!) may consider having sex in outer space to be deemed "un-natural."

70 Galactic virgins?







I should stop posting when I'm on Valium.