Have you ever dreamed of taking a ride around in a space ship? Being able to see the entire earth from space? Well, until now you had to be a trained astronaut to do that. You had to join the Air Force (or be an extremely smart scientist), take difficult exams about science and math, and possibly be selected to go on a once in 5 year space mission. The odds were definitely against you. Yet now, for the meager sum of 121,000 pounds, you can take a two and a half hour space ride. And have around five minutes of zero gravity. How is this possible? Well, the innovative Sir Richard Branson has done it. His company, Virgin, has now created a branch called Virgin Galactic. The prototype was unveiled yesterday in the Mojave desert by Branson and the California governor, Arnold Schwarzenager. A small, sixe seater space craft will be attached to a bi cockpit airplane, with the space craft attached in the middle. The airplane will carry the spacecraft to around 50,000 feet above the earth, then it will release the spacecraft. The spacecraft will then turn on its turbo engines which will propel the spacecraft into space, 100 miles away. The spacecraft will then travel for a while, then come back into the atmosphere and land as a normal aircraft would. The first international spaceport is being set up in the desert in New Mexico, and Virgin Galactic is spending 400 million dollars on a fleet of six planes. There is already a long list of bookings especially by famous Hollywood actors. This is definitely the way of the future. Though it may seem strange now, and expensive, this could be our generations airplanes. Just like our grandparents, we think of this as weird, but I'm sure this will be the norm in a short while.
that is definatley a cool concept but there doesn't seem to be much insentive it is was to become the norm. unless it would mean faster air travel, which it may, then i don't see the every day consumer using this.
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