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Start saving your pennies so you can fly aboard Richard Branson's "Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two". It made a successful test flight this week in the Mojave Desert. It plans to start flying passengers in 2011 for the measly sum of only $200,000. It is basically a flight to nowhere as you would probably land where you started. You would get the sensation of space travel. And we thought a Concorde flight was expensive!
Good for him.
BA, AF and Airbus said no when he asked for Concorde, now he has some thing much faster which travels almost at mach 22.
Shows he does put his money where his mouth is.
How is it possible for the average human to travel on this air/space craft? It seems we would need to go through some sort of G-Force training to be able to handle this.
You're only weightless for about six minutes. The fact that they're selling these as "space flights" is borderline misleading. Max altitude is around 70,000 feet, approximately the same as a U-2 spy plane, which is technically "space" but not high enough to orbit the earth.Quote:
Originally Posted by JetBlueAirwaysFan
Where do you get this info? I do not see Mach 22 anyware. Mach 22 is for obital and this is not an orbital flight, If I have it right, this is a space shot straight up, go up, start falling immediately and get some weightlessness. Maby Mach 2 but no where near 22!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetinder
Edit, update... I found this "SpaceShipTwo will reach a speed of roughly 4000 km/h (2500 mph)"
Quote:
Originally Posted by GothamSpotter
This statement above about 70K is incorrect "A privately built manned spacecraft has reached a record altitude of 211,000ft (64km) over California on one of its final tests before officially entering space." and that was not the space shot! SpaceShip2 is suppose to go much higher. If they wanted to go into "SPACE" they would have to go to at least 90k as that is what the Airforce gives space wings out at before NASA was started. Things may have changed a bit since then.
Not sure what all the debate is, I think this is pretty f#$King cool! A good many of us in 15 to 20 years time will have a pretty good affordable chance of being able to leave this Earth and experience a view only a few have had.
This is the future of space travel where private for profit companies begin to use space as a revenue stream. When that happens you'll really start to see things progress.
I got it from = http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1062112AACJWaVQuote:
Originally Posted by Derf
So i assumed to do a sub orbital flight you needed to fly at or close to mach 22.
If I am wrong then I apologise :) and i stand corrected :)
This may be the starter seed of what Pres. Reagan proposed over twenty years ago. A sub-orbital to orbital aircraft that can go from (just an example) JFK to SYD in an hour. I'm wondering if Branson and Rutan are working on a point-to-point schedule for the Galactic or future crafts.