Virgin Galactic completes first spaceflight in over two years, in step toward finishing development

cnbc ^ | Michael Sheetz

[BenLurkin]

The company’s spacecraft, named VSS Unity, was carried up to an altitude of about 44,000 feet by a carrier aircraft called VMS Eve. The aircraft then released the spacecraft, which fired its rocket engine and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound.

After performing a slow backflip in microgravity at the edge of space, Unity returned through the atmosphere in a glide, landing back at the runway of Spaceport America in New Mexico that it took off from earlier.

Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft Unity is designed to hold up to six passengers along with the two pilots. The company has about 600 reservations for tickets on future flights, sold at prices between $200,000 and $250,000 each.

The company expected to clear some or all of its remaining Federal Aviation Administration milestones with this flight, setting it up to receive a key license needed to conduct regular spaceflights.

[tennmountainman]

Congrats to Branson.
I’m a SpaceX fan but this is an accomplishment for Branson.
Branson will be competing with Bald headed Bezos for Space
Tourism.

[A Navy Vet]

Amazing how much SpaceX and now Boeing has accomplished with their out of box thinking. With all the great accomplishments of NASA, they're looking kinda sad now. We really needed a helicopter on Mars with so many rovers?

Commercial space exploration and consumer flights are the future.

[A Navy Vet]

I thought Virgin Orbit and SpaceX are two different companies.

[Vaquero]

You missed the ‘but ‘. Yes two different companies

[Semper Vigilantis]

Blame 40 layers of bureaucracy and government oversight for that. By the time a project gets approved (congress gets theirs) and funded (congress gets more) the idea is a decade behind civilian projects.

[wastedyears]

SpaceX has numerous successful launches, payload deployments, rendezvous with the ISS, and rocket landings per month.

They’ve also successfully brought humans to and back from the ISS twice.

[Vermont Lt]

Commercial mining on the moon is the near future.

There are REMs there in quantities higher than on earth. There are resources there for rocket fuel that make it the perfect stopping off point to refuel for Mars and the Asteroids.

Lunar factories are only decades away—not centuries.

[StAnDeliver]

Very strange that Virgin doesn't even have a video on their Youtube channel yet, nor did they have livestream ... I wouldn't go up on that if you bought my ticket ... Between that first test flight where the old pilot nearly gimbal'd an out-of-control corkscrew roll, and the "Enterprise" smoking pile with the failure to lockout the butterfly deploy, nah.

The over/under on the first controlled egress into terrain is 5 paid flights...

[A Navy Vet]

Thanks.

[A Navy Vet]

"Commercial mining on the moon is the near future."

However, the logistics/facilities are a ways off for mining. I see consumer space flights before that. SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Boeing and others will reap billions from such consumer flights which will pay for more exploration.

Is SpaceX (Musk) the only one eyeing Mars for a manned flight? It's all moving so fast, I can't keep track. Just glad to see all these advances in my lifetime. It has always been on my bucket list to witness a manned landing on Mars. I doubt it will happen before I kick off, but just orbiting a manned mission would be thrilling.

[tennmountainman]

They are.

[Rabin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbFPOnyCyZs

its live and on line.
check it out.

Rab.

[markman46]

the mars copter is a tech demo only, as for Boeing, they screwed up with the starliner failure yo reach the iss, and have to do the demo again on their dime.

[A Navy Vet]

Okay.