Tag Archives: SpaceTourism

Richard Branson confirms Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism flight will launch next year with him on board

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Richard Branson has long said that he'd be on board Virgin Galactic's first commercial space tourism flight, and he's now confirmed that will take place sometime next year with his two adult children along for the ride (a bit of a delay from the company's original 2011 target). That trip will of course be made with the company's SpaceShipTwo craft, which has already completed a number of test flights, and which is capable of flying 100 kilometers (or just over 60 miles) above the Earth for a planned two and a half hour flight with five minutes of weightlessness. As the AP notes, some 529 people have already signed up for the $200,000 per person rides into space, each of whom will have to take part in a week of training prior to their trip. Bookings can still be made on Virgin Galactic's website.

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Richard Branson confirms Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight will launch next year with him on board originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Verge  |  sourceAP (Yahoo News), Virgin Galactic  | Email this | Comments

Dark horse set to ride into space race, strapped to world’s largest solid rocket booster

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Alliant Techsystems (ATK) may not be on top of your betting card, but it has plenty of shuttle motor pedigree. To compete with the likes of SpaceX, Astrium and others, it's putting that technical savvy into its Liberty system to carry seven astronauts -- or tourists -- and cargo into low earth orbit. The huge 300-foot rocket and composite crew module would use ATK's solid rocket motor, originally designed for the ill-fated Ares 1, along with EAD's Ariane 5 engine, to become the heaviest lifter in NASA's fleet. Already knee-deep in a separate project, the Space Launch System designed to send Orion into deep space, ATK would like to wean NASA off it's pricy $63 million Russian ISS hitchhikes with a cheaper option that could be mission-ready in just three years. We've heard that kind of talk before, but if Liberty pulls it off, it could give our out-world aspirations a much needed ticket to ride.

Dark horse set to ride into space race, strapped to world's largest solid rocket booster originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 16:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSpace.com  | Email this | Comments

Space travel coming to an airport near you? Maybe, if Skylon keeps its cool

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Want to get from New York to Perth in under 4 hours, or maybe just head to outer space on a lark? Reaction Engines' "Skylon" mach 5 spaceplane might be your chariot -- or not. Its scheme of ingesting oxygen from the atmosphere instead of stowing it like a 50-year old modern multi-stage rocket sounds good, but the project's fate may hang on critical new tests. Failure is still a possibility, but if the high-speed, superhot gases can be cooled enough for the hybrid Sabre engines to work, and if Reaction Engines Limited can secure another round of funding, punching your space-ticket could soon be a very real possibility.

Space travel coming to an airport near you? Maybe, if Skylon keeps its cool originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceBBC News  | Email this | Comments