Virgin Galactic spaceliners are slated to roll out and begin test flights by early 2008 in Mojave, California, with future operational spaceflights to be staged from New Mexico's Spaceport America beginning in 2009.
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Out of this World Trip
For an initial ticket price of $200,000, Virgin Galactic passengers will buy a 2.5-hour flight aboard SpaceShipTwo and launch from an altitude of about 60,000 feet (18,288 meters), while buckled safely in seats that recline flat after reaching suborbital space.
The Flight and Activities
Your journey to space will be one of incredible contrast and sensory overload.
From the spaceport to 50,000ft, you will be in the spacecraft attached to the mother ship, a specially designed jet carrier aircraft. It will be a time of anticipation and perhaps contemplation of what?s ahead. You will know the rest of your crew and enjoy the confidence that has come from preparing with them and the highly trained pilots for the trip you are about to take together.
Then the countdown to release, a brief moment of quiet before a wave of unimaginable but controlled power, surges through the craft. You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye-watering acceleration which, as you watch the read-out, has you travelling in a matter of seconds, at almost 2500 mph, over 3 times the speed of sound.
As you hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere, the large windows show the cobalt blue sky turning to mauve and indigo and finally to black. You're on a high, this is really happening, you're loving it and coping well. You start to relax; but in an instant your senses are back on full alert, the world contained in your spaceship has completely transformed.
The rocket motor has been switched off and it is quiet. But it's not just quiet, it's QUIET. The silence of space is as awe inspiring as was the noise of the rocket just moments earlier. What's really getting your senses screaming now though, is that the gravity which has dominated every movement you've made since the day you were born is not there any more. There is no up and no down and you're out of your seat experiencing the freedom that even your dreams underestimated. After a graceful mid-space summersault you find yourself at a large window and what you see would make your hair stand on end if the zero gravity hadn't already achieved that effect.
Below you (or is it above you?) is a view that you've seen in countless images but the reality is so much more beautiful, so much more vivid and produces emotions that are strong but hard to define. The blue map, curving into the black distance is familiar but has none of the usual marked boundaries. Passengers will have several minutes of weightlessness during the spaceflight, and then have about 40 seconds to return to their seats.
There will be 3 days of pre-flight preparation, bonding and training onsite at the spaceport .
Future of Manned Space Travel
The goal is to end the exclusivity attached to manned space travel which means designing a vehicle which can fly almost anyone to space safely without the need for special expertise or exhaustive, time consuming training.
The journey starts from the moment you make a firm reservation and book your place amongst the first to go.
