FTA:
Two days ago Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise, attached to its mothership, the VSS Eve, successfully completed the very first test flight.
At 7:05am (PST), the craft that Richard Branson hopes will be the flagship vehicle for commercial journeys into space took off on an two hour 53 minute flight achieving an altitude of 45,000 feet. More test flights are scheduled throughout the year and the next phase of testing will be to glide independently from the mothership, followed by independent powered flight.
Virgin claim that once the Enterprise breaks free from the mothership, it will use a single hybrid rocket to blast itself about 110km into the thermosphere at a speed of 4200km/h - faster than the world’s fastest military jets. Acceleration to Mach 3 and beyond will be achieved using a mixture of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel.
If this thing (space tourism) really takes off, I predict that there will be boom for the private space industry in the coming years.
