Virgin Galactic had a suborbital test flight with a passenger.
SpaceShipTwo reached an apogee of:
55.87miles
295,007ft
89.9km
Virgin Galactic flew at three times the speed of sound.
Three people were on the test flight that flew to edge of space. There was a chief pilot, pilot and an astronaut instructor.
Congratulations to our Chief Astronaut Instructor, Beth Moses / @VGChiefTrainer. Today, you became the 571st human to travel into space. pic.twitter.com/0Zn7iTfOe9
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) February 22, 2019
SpaceShipTwo's rocket motor burn from today's space flight 🚀 pic.twitter.com/SC4hJSt33Z
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) February 22, 2019
Our Chief Astronaut Trainer, Beth Moses, experienced zero-g float time as SpaceShipTwo reached apogee today. Three new @virgingalactic Commercial Astronauts. pic.twitter.com/OrVSm1PAvE
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) February 22, 2019
Full confirmed stats from SpaceShipTwo's second trip to space pic.twitter.com/Av5iMCBoSt
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) February 22, 2019
SOURCES- Virgin Galactic, Twitter
Written By Brian Wang. Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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A balloon should be fairly cheap and accomplish the same thing as this flight.
But, absolutely, the Moon is 1000x cooler trip. And probably not any less dangerous. That thing already blew up once. $250,000. Pretty pricey for 90 minutes. The balloon ride is just $75,000: https://gearjunkie.com/helium-balloon-ride-to-space And I bet it is much longer.
First, if the rich keep making poor financial decisions, how did they become rich in the first place? Second…it’s THEIR money, not yours. They can do with it as they will. In this case, helping fund flight technology, rocket motor development, employing engineers and scientists, etc. Beats the heck out of just another large house and fighting public access to beaches.
I concur…ALL research pays off. Maybe not the way it is intended for.
Everyone is SO NEGATIVE.
C’mon guys. This is a private spaceship making it into space (by dodgy American standards). It’s a GOOD THING. No it isn’t everything we could have asked for. But it is something. And if Virgin can make it profitable (that is their plan, right??) then that means more space travel, and more tech development.
I thought they gave up on the hybrid rocket, because it didn’t scale even from the 1 man ship to this size, and that’s why they are a decade behind the original schedule.
Not to be interpreted as my disparaging the X15 in any way, and if anyone wants to give me one as a birthday present I will give you a big kiss.
While most of this planet consider 100 km to be the edge of space, the USA as usual has a different measurement system and 50 miles (80km) is their limit (probably so they could claim the X15 as a space ship).
It’s Richard Branson’s toy company. It will never make a profit. The hybrid rocket is garbage. The novel re-entry stabilizers are dangerous and already killed test pilots, not to mention the safety accidents where people were exploded by a NO2 tank falling down. One of the least respectable efforts.
No doubt it’s fun, and I don’t begrudge the people who want to ride in this thing their fun, but basically, it’s just a manned sounding rocket. It’s almost perfectly useless for anything actually space related, which to my mind makes it kind of lame at this point.
It would have been a big deal, and exciting, 50 years ago. Today it’s just lame.
Is the firmament above or below the Karman line?
Why buy one of these expensive tickets when (relatively soon) with the same money you can make a more life-changing trip to Mar? or at least the moon? Clearly, the rich need to be taxed more because of their poor financial decisions.
its a pity it doesn’t have enough velocity to stay in orbit… that would be cool if they could make something that small that could docket with space station…
Altitude of 89.9km is not space, but the top of mesosphere. Also it is well below Karman line (100km). Noctilucent clouds occur at altitude of up to 94km.
Smilie face