Virgin Galactic’s Private Spaceship Ramping Up Toward Passenger Flights

Image: The first WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo launch system has undergone extensive tests. Next to come are critical rocket-powered flights of the two-pilot, six-passenger spaceship.  Credit: TSC

This year is key for Virgin Galactic’s bid to become the first commercial spaceliner service, as rocket-powered flights of its SpaceShipTwo are on the books for summer.

Meanwhile, assembly of a second vehicle pair — the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane and another SpaceShipTwo suborbital space plane — is in progress at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Details of this year’s Virgin Galactic milestones were highlighted by George Whitesides, chief executive officer and president of Virgin Galactic, at a Jan. 20 meeting here of The Aerospace & Defense Forum (Los Angeles Chapter).

Virgin Galactic’s Private Spaceship Ramping Up Toward Passenger Flights

Image: The first WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo launch system has undergone extensive tests. Next to come are critical rocket-powered flights of the two-pilot, six-passenger spaceship. Credit: TSC

This year is key for Virgin Galactic’s bid to become the first commercial spaceliner service, as rocket-powered flights of its SpaceShipTwo are on the books for summer.

Meanwhile, assembly of a second vehicle pair — the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane and another SpaceShipTwo suborbital space plane — is in progress at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Details of this year’s Virgin Galactic milestones were highlighted by George Whitesides, chief executive officer and president of Virgin Galactic, at a Jan. 20 meeting here of The Aerospace & Defense Forum (Los Angeles Chapter).

Space Travel: The Interplanetary Tours Reservation Desk

Imaged Above: Planetary time-schedule

I’ve had a hand full of you folks asking about my opinion on commercialized space travel and where its headed. So it’s my delight to bring up this article from wired that highlights old and now considered novelty items from the American Museum of Natural History that take us back to a point in history that shows space travel was still very much alive within public interests:

Today, space travel is closer to reality for ordinary people than it has ever been. Though currently only the super rich are actually getting to space, several companies have more affordable commercial space tourism in their sights and at least one group is going the non-profit DIY route into space.

But more than a decade before it was even proven that man could reach space, average people were more positive about their own chances of escaping Earth’s atmosphere. This may have been partly thanks to the Interplanetary Tour Reservation desk at the American Museum of Natural History.

In 1950, to promote its new space exhibit, the AMNH had the brilliant idea to ask museum visitors to sign up to reserve their space on a future trip to the moon, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn. They advertised the opportunity in newspapers and magazines and received letters requesting reservations from around the world. The museum pledged to pass their list on to whichever entity headed to each destination first.

Today, to promote its newest space exhibit, “Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration,” the museum has published some of these requests. The letters manage to be interesting, hopeful, funny and poignant all at once. Some even included sketches of potential space capsules, rockets and spacesuits. The museum shared some of its favorites.

Head on over to the source to check even more content from the gallery!

Space Travel: The Interplanetary Tours Reservation Desk

Imaged Above: Planetary time-schedule

I’ve had a hand full of you folks asking about my opinion on commercialized space travel and where its headed. So it’s my delight to bring up this article from wired that highlights old and now considered novelty items from the American Museum of Natural History that take us back to a point in history that shows space travel was still very much alive within public interests:

Today, space travel is closer to reality for ordinary people than it has ever been. Though currently only the super rich are actually getting to space, several companies have more affordable commercial space tourism in their sights and at least one group is going the non-profit DIY route into space.

But more than a decade before it was even proven that man could reach space, average people were more positive about their own chances of escaping Earth’s atmosphere. This may have been partly thanks to the Interplanetary Tour Reservation desk at the American Museum of Natural History.

In 1950, to promote its new space exhibit, the AMNH had the brilliant idea to ask museum visitors to sign up to reserve their space on a future trip to the moon, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn. They advertised the opportunity in newspapers and magazines and received letters requesting reservations from around the world. The museum pledged to pass their list on to whichever entity headed to each destination first.

Today, to promote its newest space exhibit, “Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration,” the museum has published some of these requests. The letters manage to be interesting, hopeful, funny and poignant all at once. Some even included sketches of potential space capsules, rockets and spacesuits. The museum shared some of its favorites.

Head on over to the source to check even more content from the gallery!

Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Unveils Giant Plane for Private Space Launches

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced today (Dec. 13) that he is teaming up again with aerospace design mogul Burt Rutan to develop what the pair is calling a revolutionary approach to private space travel for cargo satellites, and eventually people.

Pictured Above: An image rendering of the giant aircraft that will be used to launch private spacecraft carrying cargo and people into orbit on flights by Stratolaunch Systems, a venture unveiled by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen on Dec. 13, 2011.

The billionaire investor and philanthropist unveiled the new company Stratolaunch Systems, which aims to create airport-like operations for space travel. The company, headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., will use a gargantuan twin-boom aircraft to launch a rocket and space capsule on missions to send commercial and government payloads, and ultimately paying passengers, into orbit.

Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Unveils Giant Plane for Private Space Launches

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced today (Dec. 13) that he is teaming up again with aerospace design mogul Burt Rutan to develop what the pair is calling a revolutionary approach to private space travel for cargo satellites, and eventually people.

Pictured Above: An image rendering of the giant aircraft that will be used to launch private spacecraft carrying cargo and people into orbit on flights by Stratolaunch Systems, a venture unveiled by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen on Dec. 13, 2011.

The billionaire investor and philanthropist unveiled the new company Stratolaunch Systems, which aims to create airport-like operations for space travel. The company, headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., will use a gargantuan twin-boom aircraft to launch a rocket and space capsule on missions to send commercial and government payloads, and ultimately paying passengers, into orbit.


  Space Tourism May Mean One Giant Leap for Researchers
  
  If all goes as planned, within a couple of years, tourists will be rocketing into space aboard a Virgin Galactic space plane — paying $200,000 for about four minutes of weightlessness — before coming back down for a landing on a New Mexico runway.
  
  Sitting in the next seat could be a scientist working on a research experiment.
  
  Science, perhaps even more than tourism, could turn out to be big business for Virgin and other companies that are aiming to provide short rides above the 62-mile altitude that marks the official entry into outer space, eventually on a daily basis.
  
  A $200,000 ticket is prohibitively expensive except for a small slice of the wealthy, but compared with the millions of dollars that government agencies like NASA typically spend to get experiments into space, “it’s revolutionary,” said S. Alan Stern, an associate vice president of the Southwest Research Institute’s space sciences and engineering division in Boulder, Colo.
  
  Read Full

Space Tourism May Mean One Giant Leap for Researchers

If all goes as planned, within a couple of years, tourists will be rocketing into space aboard a Virgin Galactic space plane — paying $200,000 for about four minutes of weightlessness — before coming back down for a landing on a New Mexico runway.

Sitting in the next seat could be a scientist working on a research experiment.

Science, perhaps even more than tourism, could turn out to be big business for Virgin and other companies that are aiming to provide short rides above the 62-mile altitude that marks the official entry into outer space, eventually on a daily basis.

A $200,000 ticket is prohibitively expensive except for a small slice of the wealthy, but compared with the millions of dollars that government agencies like NASA typically spend to get experiments into space, “it’s revolutionary,” said S. Alan Stern, an associate vice president of the Southwest Research Institute’s space sciences and engineering division in Boulder, Colo.

Read Full

You could say this is a sequel to the “Mindfuck of The Night” post.

Firstly, let’s take a quick look at our current technology. There is already multiple successful research on invisibility cloaking technology and Active Camouflage which have been shown in said research to be able to hide objects. This was posted about a year or so ago, we are now in 2011.

Secondly, physicists and other scientist have yet to tap into the power of dark matter, which is what makes up most of the universe. We’ve got matter, and dark matter, the cytoplasm of the universe you could say. Why do I mention dark matter in time travel theorizing? Because dark matter I think will be the energy of the future, theories dictate that with enough harnessed dark matter energy one could, in theory, travel back in time or forward by creating a wormhole with this energy. What about paradoxes? Well, let’s say that what holds true for the quantum plane (sub atomic/ the level of the very small universe), where the same particle can be at multiple places at once without canceling itself then lets apply that to our own universe. That being said the paradoxes suddenly disappear, because you see if the same holds true for the quantum then that would mean that there are an infinite number of universes even ones with the same exact properties with only a minor change in it. If some one were to tamper with the past or future it would merely create new timelines and universes that branch off from one another to allow for every possible outcome, just like the quantum theory shows for sub atomic particles that we are only discovering their purpose now.

Thirdly, space tourism is currently having a huge boom for itself in interest and funding as many countries attempt to be the leading one in space flights and research. This indicates that if you apply that notion to a future you’d probably have a lot of well made space crafts. Who knows, maybe in this time there would also be a better understanding of dark matter, since at this point I’m sure our scientific instruments would have technologically evolved enough to understand this energy.

Toss these up in a pot like a strew, they start to create an amazing imaginary image that just some how makes sense to me. If our technology has gotten so advanced now that we can A.) Hide observable objects in plain sight B.) Even realize that there is dark matter and it is usable as a powerful universal energy source since it is literally every where C.) Make a tourism out of Space travel, which shows you how advanced our vehicles and flight craft have gotten D.) Theorize that the laws of physics allow for time travel to happen.

Would it not be okay then to imagine that perhaps way into our very own timeline, the timeline and universe you and I Live in now, at some point in to the future leads a technological breakthrough in which we finally learn time travel? At this point in time there would be no doubt about the power of science, in this future I would guess that the community is based on scientific ideals if they are able to reach such unfathomable (for now) technology. They would be the children of Sagan, to paint this community more vividly. The generation of the scientists and well informed, children of the universe.

In this timeline, in my timeline since I don’t want people taking this too serious(it’s all just fun science fiction right now).. Here, humans have finally progressed into space faring, technologically advanced, time bending metahumans that have learned to harness just about every aspect of their known scientific studies (Biology, The Human Body, Astronomy, Psychology, Ecology, Geology, etc.). In this kind of community one would actually find it hard to pick a fight or express negative emotions since at this point those would seem primitive (much like most find squatting in the outskirts of the wild life and taking a number 2 primitive). In this kind of community our invisibility cloaking technology would have advanced beyond comprehension, I would think this allows for some very amazing hiding tricks. Hiding tricks essential if one would want to go back in time as a curious historian/time traveler charged with the duty of understanding our past so that we can not repeat idiocy or errors in the future.

That being said; Ancient Astronauts

You could say this is a sequel to the “Mindfuck of The Night” post.

Firstly, let’s take a quick look at our current technology. There is already multiple successful research on invisibility cloaking technology and Active Camouflage which have been shown in said research to be able to hide objects. This was posted about a year or so ago, we are now in 2011.

Secondly, physicists and other scientist have yet to tap into the power of dark matter, which is what makes up most of the universe. We’ve got matter, and dark matter, the cytoplasm of the universe you could say. Why do I mention dark matter in time travel theorizing? Because dark matter I think will be the energy of the future, theories dictate that with enough harnessed dark matter energy one could, in theory, travel back in time or forward by creating a wormhole with this energy. What about paradoxes? Well, let’s say that what holds true for the quantum plane (sub atomic/ the level of the very small universe), where the same particle can be at multiple places at once without canceling itself then lets apply that to our own universe. That being said the paradoxes suddenly disappear, because you see if the same holds true for the quantum then that would mean that there are an infinite number of universes even ones with the same exact properties with only a minor change in it. If some one were to tamper with the past or future it would merely create new timelines and universes that branch off from one another to allow for every possible outcome, just like the quantum theory shows for sub atomic particles that we are only discovering their purpose now.

Thirdly, space tourism is currently having a huge boom for itself in interest and funding as many countries attempt to be the leading one in space flights and research. This indicates that if you apply that notion to a future you’d probably have a lot of well made space crafts. Who knows, maybe in this time there would also be a better understanding of dark matter, since at this point I’m sure our scientific instruments would have technologically evolved enough to understand this energy.

Toss these up in a pot like a strew, they start to create an amazing imaginary image that just some how makes sense to me. If our technology has gotten so advanced now that we can A.) Hide observable objects in plain sight B.) Even realize that there is dark matter and it is usable as a powerful universal energy source since it is literally every where C.) Make a tourism out of Space travel, which shows you how advanced our vehicles and flight craft have gotten D.) Theorize that the laws of physics allow for time travel to happen.

Would it not be okay then to imagine that perhaps way into our very own timeline, the timeline and universe you and I Live in now, at some point in to the future leads a technological breakthrough in which we finally learn time travel? At this point in time there would be no doubt about the power of science, in this future I would guess that the community is based on scientific ideals if they are able to reach such unfathomable (for now) technology. They would be the children of Sagan, to paint this community more vividly. The generation of the scientists and well informed, children of the universe.

In this timeline, in my timeline since I don’t want people taking this too serious(it’s all just fun science fiction right now).. Here, humans have finally progressed into space faring, technologically advanced, time bending metahumans that have learned to harness just about every aspect of their known scientific studies (Biology, The Human Body, Astronomy, Psychology, Ecology, Geology, etc.). In this kind of community one would actually find it hard to pick a fight or express negative emotions since at this point those would seem primitive (much like most find squatting in the outskirts of the wild life and taking a number 2 primitive). In this kind of community our invisibility cloaking technology would have advanced beyond comprehension, I would think this allows for some very amazing hiding tricks. Hiding tricks essential if one would want to go back in time as a curious historian/time traveler charged with the duty of understanding our past so that we can not repeat idiocy or errors in the future.

That being said; Ancient Astronauts

Space Tourism May Mean One Giant Leap for Researchers

If all goes as planned, within a couple of years, tourists will be rocketing into space aboard a Virgin Galactic space plane — paying $200,000 for about four minutes of weightlessness — before coming back down for a landing on a New Mexico runway.

Sitting in the next seat could be a scientist working on a research experiment.

Science, perhaps even more than tourism, could turn out to be big business for Virgin and other companies that are aiming to provide short rides above the 62-mile altitude that marks the official entry into outer space, eventually on a daily basis.

Space Tourism May Mean One Giant Leap for Researchers

If all goes as planned, within a couple of years, tourists will be rocketing into space aboard a Virgin Galactic space plane — paying $200,000 for about four minutes of weightlessness — before coming back down for a landing on a New Mexico runway.

Sitting in the next seat could be a scientist working on a research experiment.

Science, perhaps even more than tourism, could turn out to be big business for Virgin and other companies that are aiming to provide short rides above the 62-mile altitude that marks the official entry into outer space, eventually on a daily basis.