Jim Clash
In
the latest chapter of Virgin Galactic’s space tourism story, Sir
Richard Branson yesterday unveiled the company’s newest version of
SpaceShipTwo, called “Unity.” The craft is the result of a valiant
effort by staffers to replace SS2 “Enterprise,” which, after 55 test
flights – four of them rocket-powered – broke apart on ascent Oct. 31,
2014, over the Mojave Desert.
After an extensive NTSB investigation, human error was determined to
be the cause of the accident. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed, and
pilot Pete Siebold was badly injured.
The new Virgin Galactic VSS Unity spacecraft was unveiled at Mojave
Feb. 19, 2016. It replaces SpaceShipTwo Enterprise, destroyed in a
2014 test crash. (Photo courtesy of Virgin Galactic)
Helping to choose the name for the new Unity vehicle was none other
than renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who plans someday to fly on it
(Branson has given him a free ticket). Hawking, who suffers from ALS, or
Lou Gehrig’s disease, wasn’t present at the Mojave Air & Space Port
for rollout, but he did offer thoughts via a pre-recorded four-minute
message to the hundreds of attendees including Branson and his family,
actor Harrison Ford and singer Sarah Brightman.
“We are entering a new space age, and I hope this will help to create
a new unity,” said Hawking, 74. “Space exploration has already been a
great unifier — we seem able to cooperate between nations in space in a
way we can only envy on Earth. Taking more and more passengers out into
space will enable them and us to look both outwards and back, but with a
fresh perspective in both directions. It will help bring new meaning to
our place on Earth and to our responsibilities as its stewards, and it
will help us to recognize our place and our future in the cosmos — which
is where I believe our ultimate destiny lies.”
Branson, 65, was clearly moved by Hawking’s interest in space, and
responded. “We felt strongly that we should somehow make sure that
Stephen remained a permanent part of Unity’s story, because so much of
what he stands for resonates with what we at Virgin Galactic aspire to
be,” said the billionaire. “So the Galactic Girl on the side of our
proud Spaceship Unity now carries a banner using an image of Stephen’s
eye.”
Stephen Hawking trains weightless for his future Virgin Galactic space
flight. The cosmologist helped name VG’ s new SpaceShipTwo “Unity.” (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Like the plan for predecessor Enterprise, Unity will be dropped from a
mother-ship, light its rocket motor and carry six passengers and two
pilots into space, considered 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level.
The rides will be short and suborbital – ie, straight up and down –
unlike ISS, which circles the Earth. Passengers will see the curvature
of Earth and the blackness of space, while at the same time experiencing
a few minutes of weightlessness. Current ticket price is $250,000.
VG’s commercial flights will be the culmination of work from the turn
of the century when SS2’s predecessor, SpaceShipOne (built by Burt
Rutan), flew pilots three separate times to space in 2004 to win the
prestigious $10-million Ansari X Prize.
Other companies working on space tourism include Jeff Bezos’ Blue
Origin, which in January vertically launched its New Shepard vehicle
unmanned into suborbital space and brought back the booster and capsule
intact – and XCOR Aerospace, which is still in the development stages of
its Lynx vehicle. Another company, World Sky View, is planning to take
customers just above 100,000 feet in a balloon, technically not space
but offering space-like views.
Sir Richard Branson at Mojave Air & Space Port with Virgin Galactic’s
new SpaceShipTwo “Unity.” (Photo courtesy of Virgin Galactic)
VG expects test flights of Unity to start later this year. Its 700 or
so ticket-holders – this reporter among them – seem confident that they
will become astronauts within the next few years, as is Hawking. “If I
am able to go, and if Richard will still take me, I would be very proud
to fly on this spaceship,” said the scientist.
In the meantime,
many future tourist-nauts are training for their flights in centrifuges and high-altitude MiGs, and on parabolic weightlessness flights over the U.S. and Russia.
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