– Virgin Galactic Spaceship Shown Off, Are You Rich Enough For Space Travel!?

SpaceShipTwo, the dream machine of billionaire Sir Richard Branson of Virgin fame, is that much closer to becoming a real object over our heads. It will be over most of our heads in price per flight, and over all of our heads as it rockets across the planets atmosphere, giving those with deep pockets a glimpse at Space.

There are already those that have paid $200,000 to be among the first to take the historic flight, which will be the beginning of what Branson hopes is a burgeoning commercial space flight industry. But those early ticket holders will have to wait in line behind Branson, his family and SpaceShipTwo designer Burt Rutan.

Branson will be looking to follow in Admiral Adama’s footsteps in the year 2011 after loads and loads of safety test.

“NASA spent billions upon billions of dollars on space travel and has only managed to send 480 people,” Branson said. “We’re literally hoping to send thousands of people into space over the next couple of years. We want to make sure that we build a spaceship that is 100 percent safe.”

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1 Comment

masonstorm says:

November 18, 2010 at 10:58 am

I think this is one of the few times imo when privatization is a really good idea. Whether we think it’s necessary or not, we need to continue to develop new forms of space travel and technology to facilitate it. What the ppl whose only argument is “we have too many problems down here to be worrying about this,” they fail to understand the two most important implications of aeronautical research. The first is for national defense… it’s bad enough that nasa has to rely on Russia to ferry them to the ISS. If we keep going at this rate, our disadvantage will only grow as they continue to develop new technologies in their space program while we pump the brakes on ours. Is air and space superiority something you really want the Russians to have? It doesn’t seem like a good idea for any one country to have, let alone one whom we have a sketchy history with. The second is that with aeronautical research comes a flood of new technologies, most of which are very applicable to us down on earth. For example, if it wasn’t for nasa, we wouldn’t have the chips that we use for non-invasive biopsies, solar energy, and a whole litany of other things (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html#Top has a good number of inventions that most of us don’t know came from our space program). And if you’re one of those ppl that are so skeptical (or cynical imo) that you still don’t think that any of the things on this list warrant a larger investment in a privatized space industry, just remember that while you sleep at night, you most likely have nasa to thank for that, too. If you use any type of home security system, chances are they use infrared and laser technology that came out of nasa’s research (just look at the adt home security infrared camera page. They even admit that the technology came from nasa!)

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