Wow, Sir Richard Branson has done it again, this guy is my kind of Billionaire.

I wouldn't mind a flight on the VSS Enterprise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3693020.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3693518.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40116000/jpg/_40116110_vss_virgin_203.jpg

Hmm he likes going for alot of firsts.

And even a hotel, well hey once i'm a millionaire i might go and stay there in 40years time.

Hmm he likes going for alot of firsts.

And even a hotel, well hey once i'm a millionaire i might go and stay there in 40years time.

$1 million will be minimum wage in 40 years time :)

Heh, got a sweet Austin Power flashback just then..... ONE MEEEELLION DOLLARS!

I think Richard Branson could make a very good Hank Scorpio if they ever do a live action Simpsons Movie.

http://simpsons.metropoliglobal.com/famosos/3F23AlbertBrooks.jpg

http://www.unreel.co.uk/features/featureimages/spyheroes02.jpg

Hank scorpio is the best.

By far my favorite episode.

We can all thank Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and the visionaries behind the Ansari X-Prize for this.

Typical of the media too screw it up though. On CH10 tonight they said "going into orbit". lol. It's a sub-orbital craft.

The good news is Robert Bigelow (owner of America's budget chain) is putting up $50 million for someone to develop an orbital craft to service his planned inflatable orbital habitats.

Great to see the private sector showing Uncle Sam, Boeing and Lockheed that affordable access to space is within our grasp (and that's not even factoring in what will happen to this planet if or when the space elevator becomes a reality).

I think it is high time we started building a massive starship - I guess the best engine drive system we can hope for is a nuclear fission reactor at present as no dilithum crystals, Goauld crystals, ion drive, photon, nuclear fusion systems have been yet developed. ;) Artifical gravity would also be a welcome development. Gee its depressing we don't yet have starships capable of prolonged human habitation and the ability to make use of hyperdrive engines.

I commend Richard Branson on his forward thinking vision, at least a few industrialists are making the world a more exciting place.

interesting tidbit for you South Africans, Mike Melville, the pilot and first private spaceship astronaut, is originally from South Africa.

There was also a show on about spaceshipone and Rutan showed renderings of future plans. The 7 seater that presumably will be the virgin galactic ship was shown and it was much larger. very cool!

lots going on in space :)

After travelling yesterday from Shrewsbury to London, and having 2 Virgin trains cancelled due to faults, causing my journey to take forever, as I was stuck in Birmingham for ages. I just have to say, I hope Virgin rockets are more reliable than Virgin trains, which have a terrible reputation in the UK.

It was misery on the train that finally arrived, 3 loads of passengers squished into 1 train like cattle.

Beam me up - Branson to finally get Captain Kirk into space
By Eddie Fitzmaurice
October 24, 2004
The Sun-Herald

Star Trek star William Shatner wants to go where no ordinary man has gone before.

The US actor, who played Captain Kirk in the iconic television series set in space, is among 7000 people who have signed up for Sir Richard Branson's first commercial space flight, set for early 2008.

For £115,000 ($276,000), passengers on Virgin Galactic are being promised a 3-hour journey into space, including at least six minutes of weightlessness.

Flights will initially only take off from the Mojave Desert in California, but Virgin eventually hopes to open other launch sites in Britain, Florida, Australia and Singapore.

Early plans are for a fleet of five spaceships, each carrying up to nine people.

Along with Shatner, former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro has put his name forward while a Hollywood director has booked an entire ship.

Sir Richard has also revealed plans to take his family into space, with dad Ted set to become the world's oldest astronaut at age 90.

Retired barrister Ted, 86, Sir Richard's mum Eve, 80, his model daughter Holly, 21, and student son Sam, 18, could make the trip, but one key omission from Sir Richard's family outing will be his wife Joan, who refuses to take part.

Speaking on Friday from the Mojave Desert in California, Sir Richard, 54, said: "Joan will have her feet firmly on the ground, I suspect, trying to encourage the kids to stay on the ground.

"She thinks we're all mad. My dad has put his hand up for the flight. My kids definitely want to come and perhaps my mum will come as well."

Sir Richard has ploughed more than $180 million into the Virgin Galactic project, which should allow the paying public to fly 112 kilometres above the earth.

The Virgin craft is based on the American-designed SpaceShipOne, which flew over the Californian desert in June.

The ship will begin its round trip into space strapped beneath a turbojet-powered plane. When the plane reaches 50,000 feet, the spaceship will release itself and fire up rocket engines to propel it straight up at three times the speed of sound.

Within 25 seconds, the craft will have accelerated to more than 3000 kmh, the thrust pressing passengers back into their flat "beds". At an altitude of 70 miles, beyond the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere, the fledgling astronauts will be able to unclip their seatbelts and enjoy a six-minute float around the cabin.

The view through the portholes will show the curvature of the earth.

Sir Richard said he was overwhelmed by the response.

"We have committed £60 million and we have had a tremendous take-up. All indicators are that the risk was worth taking.

"People have been very cynical about the project, but slowly they are understanding that we are deadly serious and it will happen."

WOW. he is making MEGA profit.

It says he put 150,000,000 into the project.

It also says 7000 people have signed up for the first ones (at 276,000 each)

Means he makes a total of 1,932,000,000.
Minus expenses of 150,000,000

He should make profit of 1,782,000,000


:|

Space Race 2: Flying High Beyond The Sky

Huntsville AL (UPI) Oct 26, 2004

Burt Rutan cast an eye around the crowd pressed into Moontown Airport's biggest hangar Saturday night. There was not much room - the seats had been filled since 7 - and the rain kept folks pretty tightly packed inside.
The crowd represented Rutan's past and future: aviation enthusiasts and private pilots, who frequent the grassy strip airport, located 25 miles east of Huntsville, and rocket scientists, most of whom work at the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center at the other end of town.

Rutan, who has been averaging better than one new aircraft design every year for the past three decades, confessed he is finished with airplanes for a while. The mission now for his Mojave, Calif., team is to create 3,000 new astronauts a year, beginning in four or five years. That is per departure point, Rutan quickly added, and per ship.

Mojave is not going to be the only place in the world where there will be a place to buy tickets and fly a spaceflight, Rutan told the audience. He said it is mystifying why rocket-builders have been ignoring the most obvious and lucrative payloads in their quest to beef up business.

You carbon units, he said. You who are easily replicated by unskilled labor. You are the most valuable payloads. Other payloads are very expensive to build and launch, but you all will pay for your ride.

Next week, Rutan and his business partner, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., collect on a $10 million prize won for flying a three-person, privately developed craft into sub-orbital space twice within two weeks.

Even before the competition was over, Rutan had found his next partner, Richard Branson. The British tycoon and flamboyant chief of Virgin Group in London has pledged to more than quadruple Allen's $20 million-plus investment in SpaceShipOne. In exchange, Rutan promised to deliver a fleet of spaceliners to carry passengers beyond the atmosphere.

The backbone of the Branson venture, called Virgin Galactic, will be five ships, each capable of flying at least five and more likely around eight people at one time. SpaceShipTwo will not look anything like its predecessor.

For one thing, Rutan must fix a stability problem caused by SpaceShipOne's high upswept wings. For another, Rutan and Branson plan a ship of luxury, with service and amenities that at least match Virgin Atlantic's upper-class travel service. And that, as any airline flier knows, starts with leg room.

Rutan said SpaceShipTwo will have about the same diameter crew cabin as a Gulfstream V business jet, which measures slightly more than 6 feet in height and 7 feet in width (1.9 meters by 2.2 meters.) Seats will fully recline so that even elderly passengers - Rutan plans to fly his 88-year-old father - will be able to handle the expected force of six times Earth's gravity upon descent.

The G-forces are higher than what SpaceShipOne's pilot experienced, but that is because Rutan is aiming for a top altitude of between 84 miles and 87 miles (135 kilometers and 140 kilometers), rather than the 62-mile, (100 kilometer) target required to win the Ansari X Prize competition.

The extra altitude will add about another 90 seconds of weightlessness for passengers to enjoy. Travelers will be able to do more than watch how candy flies around in space - they can fly themselves.

Instead of shoulder harnesses and tight seatbelts we want this roller coaster-type bar that you fold out of the way and you can float around, Rutan said. We think that's important. If you want the view, we have handles there so you can float over and put your nose right against your own window.

Or if you want to pull down your science tray and do whatever you brought along for an experiment - or play with your cat. You have bought the ride.

You paid for it and this experience is going to have very few restrictions on what you can do because these payloads are doing it for fun and every person has a different idea of what fun is, Rutan said. Does that mean that some guy and his girl might want to take the whole ship? OK!

In exchange for some of the extra altitude and about 30 seconds of weightlessness, passengers also may have the option of landing in a different place from where they took off.

The ship could launch not far from Las Vegas and land in Mojave, Rutan said. Or, we could launch offshore, start out over the ocean and then ... fly over the mountains and land in the desert. I think that will add something to the experience.

Rutan said he hopes NASA and other research organizations will take advantage of Virgin Galactic to conduct experiments now flown on sounding rockets at a cost of several million dollars per flight. SpaceShipTwo's seats will be easily removable to support larger and heavier payloads.

Instead of spending millions to sign a contract, they can just buy a ticket like everyone else. That's the way it ought to be, Rutan said.

Initially, the cost of the flights - estimated at about $200,000 per ticket - will be too high for most people to afford. However, within 10 to 12 years Rutan told the audience he would expect between 20 and 40 percent of them would be able to go.

The demand for sub-orbital space travel will continue to grow until orbital spaceflight becomes a real possibility, in perhaps 23 years to 24 years, Rutan said.

Once it gets started, it won't need to be pushed, because it's going to be pulling us, he said.

The best part of all, Rutan added, is that 15 years from now, every kid in here who dreams, 'Wouldn't it be cool to fly in space?' will know that in your lifetime, you are going to go to orbit. You will know that, not just dream that. I think that is the neatest thing about the whole program.