google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);


Imagine standing in the desert, with only a light breeze to cool the
hot air and ground beneath your feet. Then, suddenly, you hear it – it
sounds like the rumbling start of an earthquake, but realize it’s not –
you look up and see a fiery dust ball blowing across the desert sand.
That’s pretty much what it must have been like being at the testing
site of Virgin Galactic’s new hybrid nitrous oxide motor on May 28th,
2009.
The new motor, designed by Scaled Composites and a subcontractor,
completed a successful test and is the largest of its kind in the
world.
The motor offers safety features such as the ability to be turned
off in mid-flight, should something go wrong, which would allow the
spacecraft to safely glide down to earth, and land on a normal aircraft
runway.
SpaceShipTwo is Virgin Galactic’s highly innovative new spacecraft
design by Scaled Composites, built with space tourism in mind. The
Spaceship redefines the conventional way of lift off as we know it.
Using a ‘mother ship’ (called ‘Eve’), the spacecraft is “carried” into
the upper atmosphere, at which time it detaches from the mother ship,
igniting the hybrid rocket motor and then accelerates into space,
reaching a cruising altitude of about 65 miles, or 104km above the
earth at speeds of approximately 2500mph (4,023km/h). The Virgin
Spaceship will be able to carry 2 pilots, and up to 6 additional
passengers on the craft, bringing it to a total number of 8 persons per
trip.
Testing of SpaceShipTwo will begin in the second half of 2009.
The concept ‘took flight’ in 2004, when the Virgin group’s Sir
Richard Branson announced the group was to license the technology to
develop the world’s first commercially viable spaceships, and so Virgin
Galactic (‘V.G.’) was born.
There are already in the region of about 300 space tourists on the
waiting list, and tickets are expected to sell in the region of about
$200,000 per passenger. This price is likely to come down over time.
Virgin Galactic has reportedly signed up and authorized five Nordic
travel agencies to sell tickets for US and Swedish launches.
First launches are expected to originate from New Mexico in the
United States around 2011, with the first Swedish launch expected a
year later, in 2012. It is speculated by some that a little town called
Kiruna, located approximately 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of the
Arctic Circle, may become the launch center for Europe. Kiruna has been
home to the Esrange Space Centre since 1966.
See video of Virgin Galactic’s hybrid nitrous oxide motor testing.
(Video opens in new window)
See also Scaled Composites LLC
Virgin Galactic