Are YOU Ready To Go To Space????

One of the more stirring presentations at the International Space Development Conference was the updated briefing on the Virgin Galactic commercial space program. Virgin Galactic is a company owned and established by Richard Branson's Virgin Group to undertake the challenge of making private space travel available to everyone and by creating the world's first commercial spaceline.

Virgin will own and operate privately built spaceships, based on the history making SpaceShipOne. These spaceships, which are currently under construction, will allow affordable private sub-orbital space travel for the first time in  history and give you the opportunity of being amongst the very first private astronauts.

The first part of the two-ship program is now in flight testing. The "mothership," dubbed VMS Eve is, "both visually remarkable and represents ground-breaking aerospace technology." According to VG's Wil Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic plans to conduct test flights of VMS Eve carrying SpaceShipTwo during the second half of 2009.

The spaceship hitches a ride up to around 50,000 feet attached to a specially designed carrier aircraft, 'the mothership.' Once at 50,000 feet, the spaceship is released from the mothership and ignites its hybrid rocket. The spaceship then begins a climb from 50,000 feet to over 360,000 feet. This climb takes about 90 seconds and will reach a speed of just over 3 times the speed of sound.

Shortly before the apogee (maximum altitude) of its flight path, the spaceship feathers (folds its wings) in preparation for re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, drawn by the Earth's gravitational pull. As the spaceship meets the resistance of the upper atmosphere, the feathered wings act as air brakes, safely positioning and decelerating the spaceship allowing for a carefree re-entry into the earths atmosphere.

At approximately 60,000 feet, the spaceship's wings are re-configured into their original position allowing for an unpowered (glide) landing back at the spaceport.

Aero-TV Checks In On The Latest Details Of The Virgin Galactic Space Program (Part 2)

FMI: www.scaled.com, www.virgingalactic.com, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews