| 04 Mar 2010 |
|
Virgin Set for Spaceship Test Flight in 2011
- Text size
DUBAI -- Virgin Galactic, owned by billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi's Aabar InvestmentsAabar Investments
, said on Wednesday it expects to launch test flights into space in 2011, and operate commercial flights in four to five years. Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, said he expected the $1 billion company to be profitable two years after the launch of the space flight on the carbon composite wonder machine named SpaceShipTwo, a sleek black-and-white vessel that was unveiled in December.
About 330 aspiring astronauts, including 20 Gulf Arabs, have signed up to be rocketed into zero gravity by the business jet-sized vehicle.
The space tourism company did not reveal the identities of the Gulf nationals.
Tickets for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to 100 kilometres above Earth space are priced at $200,000.
Whitehorn, speaking to the media on the sidelines of a space conference in Dubai, said the company had collected almost $50 million so far.
He declined to give a timeline for the commercial debut of the spacecraft from the Mojave spaceport in California, saying "the most important thing is to be safe."
"The Mojave spaceport will be open next year and we will hopefully test flights into space next year," Whitehorn said.
Virgin Galactic, the Virgin Group's commercial spaceline, sold a 32 per cent stake for $280 million in the company to Abu Dhabi's Aabar InvestmentsAabar Investments
in July 2009.
The space tourism project, with a $450 million budget, would see the construction of six commercial spaceships that would take passengers high enough to achieve weightlessness and see the curvature of Earth set against the backdrop of space.
SpaceShipTwo (SS2), which can carry six passengers and two pilots, will be carried aloft by a mothership, White Knight Two, and released at 50,000 feet. The craft's rocket engine then burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel to climb more than 65 miles above the Earth's surface to reach the brink of space when tourists can experience five minutes of weightlessness in a cabin with circular windows on the sides and the ceiling.
By Issac John
© Khaleej Times 2010
Zawya is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties and subscribers. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by those third parties, including information providers, subscribers or other users of the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Company. The Company neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made on the Service by anyone other than authorized Service employee spokespersons while acting in their official capacities. The Company is not responsible for any infringement of intellectual property rights or breach of any applicable law or regulation, including regulation in relation to financial services or the distribution of financial products, defamation, data protection, telecommunications (including regulations relating to excessive use, spamming or other abusive activities) or obscene, offensive or illegal content). Under no circumstances will the Company be liable for any loss or damage caused by a member's reliance on information obtained through the Service. It is the responsibility of member to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content available through the Service. Please seek the advice of professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information, opinion, advice or other content.
Read the full Member Agreement
http://www.zawya.com/legal/NewsLetter.cfm?name=disclaimer
Loading ...
Post a Comment
1.1 Contain any material which is libelous or defamatory of any person, is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory or causes damage to the reputation of any person or organisation.
1.2 Promote sexually explicit material, violence, discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age or any illegal activity.
1.3 Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
1.4 Be threatening, abuse or invade another's privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
1.5 Be used to impersonate any person, to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, or be likely to deceive any person.
1.6 Give the impression that they represent Zawya.
1.7 Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.