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She's almost ready to start captive carry tests then flights later in 2010.
Check the Spaceport America link at the bottom with its pic. The front page video has some neat shots of White Knight 2 doing low altitude fly-by's of the SA groundbreaking. Even without the passenger terminal being completed other launches by Lockheed Martin and others have been taking place in other facilities at the site. Looks to be a busy place once it's done.
Wired Magazine....
White Knight 2 - EVE (been flying since last December, but they modded the tail)
SS2
Spaceport America passenger terminal (under construction)
Check the Spaceport America link at the bottom with its pic. The front page video has some neat shots of White Knight 2 doing low altitude fly-by's of the SA groundbreaking. Even without the passenger terminal being completed other launches by Lockheed Martin and others have been taking place in other facilities at the site. Looks to be a busy place once it's done.
Wired Magazine....
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After all of the prize money and media coverage, routine space tourism — this grand flight of human fancy — seems about to happen. SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by a mother ship, WhiteKnightTwo, which has been flying for nearly a year. The first SS2 is under construction and slated to begin flight tests in early 2010. Virgin has already sold $60 million in tickets to its first 300 passengers. And a taxpayer-funded spaceport is under construction near Las Cruces, New Mexico.
In a year, maybe two — barring any test-flight glitches — people who have the right financial stuff will be rocketing daily into space for a few minutes of sensory overload and ego gratification. It may not be the colonization of Mars, but as Siebold says, “did the Wright brothers have Boeing 747s in their consciousness when they flew at Kitty Hawk? No, but it just grows from here; what they achieved made that possible.†If Virgin and Scaled Composites succeed in making this huge technical leap, a trip to suborbital space will have been reduced to nothing more than a pricey Tilt-A-Whirl for grown-ups.
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After all of the prize money and media coverage, routine space tourism — this grand flight of human fancy — seems about to happen. SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by a mother ship, WhiteKnightTwo, which has been flying for nearly a year. The first SS2 is under construction and slated to begin flight tests in early 2010. Virgin has already sold $60 million in tickets to its first 300 passengers. And a taxpayer-funded spaceport is under construction near Las Cruces, New Mexico.
In a year, maybe two — barring any test-flight glitches — people who have the right financial stuff will be rocketing daily into space for a few minutes of sensory overload and ego gratification. It may not be the colonization of Mars, but as Siebold says, “did the Wright brothers have Boeing 747s in their consciousness when they flew at Kitty Hawk? No, but it just grows from here; what they achieved made that possible.†If Virgin and Scaled Composites succeed in making this huge technical leap, a trip to suborbital space will have been reduced to nothing more than a pricey Tilt-A-Whirl for grown-ups.
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SS2
Spaceport America passenger terminal (under construction)