Space Tourism Moves a Step Closer
to reality
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An aircraft which will act as a mother ship for a spacecraft that will take tourists
into space has been unveiled in the US.
British business tycoon and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson led a
crowd of engineers, dignitaries and space enthusiasts in the unveiling of
WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) at a hangar in the Mojave Desert in California.
More than 250 people have already paid $200,000 each to be among the first
to make the tourist trips, which are expected to start in 18 months.
WhiteKnightTwo is designed to carry SpaceShipTwo under its wing and
release it from an altitude of 50,000 feet. The spacecraft will then climb to an
altitude of 60 miles under its own power before gliding back to Earth with its
two-man crew and six passengers.
WK2 represents ground-breaking aerospace technology. It is the world’s
largest all carbon composite aircraft and many of its component parts have
been built using composite materials for the very first time.
At 140 ft, the wing span of WK2 is the longest single carbon composite
aviation component ever manufactured.
Both WK2 and SpaceShipTwo (the latter is under construction and is now
about 70 percent complete) were built in line with Virgin Galactic's quest to
launch the world's first private, environmentally benign, space system for
people, payload and science.
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