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The space tourism firm XCOR Aerospace Inc. announced plans in 2008 to launch its private two-seat Lynx space plane. Lynx was expected to fly paying space tourists to an altitude of about 38 miles above Earth, where passengers would experience 90 seconds of weightlessness. The company first estimated flight tests would begin in 2010, with private flights to follow soon after. Many space tourists bought into XCOR's Lynx model for the chance to briefly experience weightlessness at the edge of space. Having paid XCOR $100,000 for a ticket, customer Nael Hamameh thought his flight would come as early as 2011,...

Virgin Galactic LLC, Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, reached the edge of space in a test flight Thursday, four years after a fatal accident set back the project, forced a reassessment of safety issues and roiled the growing commercial-space industry. Virgin Galactic launched the spaceplane called SpaceShip Two and its two pilots from a carrier aircraft cruising miles above Southern California’s Mojave desert. For around $200,000 a seat, the closely held company seeks to offer thrill rides featuring majestic views of the earth capped by a few minutes of weightlessness. The launch also could provide momentum for nascent private efforts to...

The statement didn’t specify what it meant by “space altitude,” but company officials have previously said they were using the altitude of 50 miles, or approximately 80 kilometers, used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force for awarding astronaut wings. “For Virgin Galactic, the major milestone that we perceive is the altitude at which NASA and Air Force folks get their astronaut wings, which is 50 miles,” George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said last month. “For us and our customers, I think we’ll be focused on 50 miles, at least at the start.” That is below the 100-kilometer...

Mojave CA (UPI) Oct 5, 2004 The world's newest spaceship is back at its spotless hangar at the Mojave Airport, serving as a backdrop for dozens of television news shows. The day after its flawless third flight out of the atmosphere - a mission that captured a $10-million cash prize for its owners - it was quiet. Only a handful of the thousands of guests who came to witness the flight remained in town. Still spanking new, SpaceShipOne has fulfilled its mission, forever retiring the notion that only governments can fly people beyond the atmosphere. Spaceship creator Burt Rutan plans...

SIR Richard Branson tried to prevent the Iraq war in a secret deal with Nelson Mandela. The Virgin boss hoped to send the former leader of South Africa to meet Saddam Hussein and persuade him to go into exile. He even got United Nations chief Kofi Annan's approval for the plan, despite fears that Saddam might kidnap Mandela. A private jet was ready to fly the Nobel Peace Prize winner to Iraq. Branson offered to join him on the peace mission. But coalition forces invaded Iraq just before they went. Branson opposed invasion plans and believed if they could offer...

Inspired by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Virgin founder Richard Branson has taken to his blog to say that businesses should begin standing up against climate change deniers. "While Tim told sustainability skeptics to 'get out of our stock,'" Branson writes, "I would urge climate change deniers to get out of our way." Cook's statements came at a recent shareholders meeting, where he soundly shot down a proposal rooted in climate change denial that would have had Apple putting its bottom line above its interests in sustainability. Cook said that those who would prefer Apple do everything purely for profit simply...

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane disintegrated in mid-air after two tail stabilizers prematurely extended, federal investigators said Sunday, a discovery that could shift the focus of the probe into Friday’s fatal crash away from the craft’s rocket motor. But the National Transportation Safety Board’s acting chairman Christopher Hart cautioned against jumping to conclusions. “What I’m about to say is a statement of fact and not a statement of cause,” Hart said. “We are a long way from finding cause. We still have months and months of investigation to do, and there’s a lot that we don’t know. We have extensive...

Branson along with Bill Gates, Cargill, and Kimball Musk, backed the Memphis Meats clean-meat startup in its $17 million Series A round, which went on to raise in excess of $22 million. Memphis Meats will join a cadre of sustainable food businesses such as the three Israeli companies — Meat the Future, Future Meat Technologies, and SuperMeat — which will supply food to China as part of a $300 million deal. Branson, who gave up meat in 2014, appears to be investing in alignment with his beliefs and predictions about the future, all while trying to act against the deforestation...

And you thought it was bad when the media tried to tell us Michelle Obama was a fashion icon, never dreaming that it could get worse. The former First Lady and Secretary of State swapped her signature pantsuit for a badass black leather blazer during her first major post-election speech on Tuesday. Social media swooned over Clinton’s sudden sartorial shift at the Professional Business Women of California conference, where she came out swinging against Republicans. “Badass” Hillary Clinton still has skin in the game; showing who’s the boss.Also keeping skin in the “badass” game, Barack-my-wide-belt-on-my-non-mom-skinny-jeans-matches-my-badass-leather-bomber-jacket Obama: Former President Barack Obama...

New photos reveal mammoth structure of Paul Allen’s six-engine Stratolaunch Feb 24, 2015, 12:26pm PST Updated: Feb 24, 2015, 4:03pm PST   View Photos KGET image One of the Stratolaunch's twin carbon composite hulls, nearly done.   Steve Wilhelm Paul Allen's giant satellite launch plane, called Stratolaunch, has been kept mostly under wraps since the project began – or at least as much under wraps as you can keep something with a 380-foot wingspan.But now, new images from a California television station have revealed some interesting details about the aircraft.Stratolaunch is Allen's bid to compete in launching satellites into...

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL SAYS ONE PERSON KILLED, ONE INJURED IN CRASH OF VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACECRAFT IN MOJAVE DESERT -CNN, CNBC This is a breaking news story. Please check back for further updates. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct 31 (Reuters) - A suborbital passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic crashed during a test flight on Friday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, officials said. Two pilots were aboard the spaceship, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January. It was not immediately known if they were able to parachute to safety. More than 800...

MOJAVE, Calif. — Virgin Galactic made a triumphant return to powered flight today (April 5) with a successful test of the company's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity suborbital vehicle. It was the company's first powered flight in nearly 3.5 years, following the tragic loss of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise on Oct 31, 2014. During the descent, the crew deployed SpaceShipTwo's feather system, which reconfigures the ship into a high-drag shuttlecock by moving its twin tail booms. The feather will be used to soften the vehicle's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere during spaceflight. "@virgingalactic back on track,ꞌꞌ Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson tweeted after today's...

The battle of the billionaires between Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson looks set to finally blast its first passengers into space next year. Speaking at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Colorado, Jeff Ashby, a former NASA astronaut who is director of safety and mission assurance for Jeff Bezos' space firm Blue Origin, said the firm is now 'a year out' from human flights. It comes as Richard Branson claimed in October he will travel to space on his Virgin Galactic craft within six months. Elon Musk is also expected to soon reveal the launch schedule for a...

Virgin Galactic performed the latest glide flight of its second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane Aug. 4, calling it a "dry run" for upcoming powered test flights. SpaceShipTwo, carried aloft by its WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, separated from the plane about an hour after its 11:58 a.m. Eastern takeoff from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The spaceplane landed back in Mojave ten minutes later. The glide flight was the sixth for this SpaceShipTwo vehicle, named VSS Unity, and the first in two months. As on two previous glide flights, pilots tested the feathering system that raises the vehicle's twin tail booms for...

Professor Stephen Hawking says he is planning to travel into space on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. The physicist and cosmologist, 75, said he had not expected to have the opportunity to experience space but that the Virgin boss had offered him a seat. Discussing the meaning of happiness on Good Morning Britain, he said: 'My three children have brought me great joy. 'And I can tell you what will make me happy, to travel in space. 'I thought no one would take me but Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes immediately.'

Sir Richard Branson has called on Parliament to take a second look at the EU referendum. He believes the Leave vote has "opened a Pandora's Box of negative consequences" for Britain, fed on "false promises" by Brexiteers.

Space isn't just the next frontier for human exploration—apparently clothing brands are also looking towards the heavens. Today, Adidas revealed that its Y-3 brand will be working with Virgin Galactic to design not only the astronaut pilot’s flight-suits, but the outfits for everyone at Spaceport America. (For those not familiar with the brand, Y-3 is a fashion collaboration between Adidas and designer Yohji Yamamoto.) ... The flight-suit is made from Nomex Meta Aramid, which is a material very similar to kevlar. It retains some of the bullet-proof fabric’s rigidity, but is considerably more flexible. So while it will help support...

Defence giant BAE Systems to buy a stake in Britain's Reaction Engines, which is developing revolutionary SABRE engines for ultra-fast aircraft How an aircraft fitted with the SABRE engines might look ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hypersonic air travel and cut-price satellite launches will move a step closer when BAE Systems buys a stake in a UK company developing engines able to power aircraft at 2,500mph and into space. The FTSE 100 group is set to purchase 20pc of Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines for £20.6m, in a deal that will see the defence giant’s expertise applied to research on the privately-held company’s engine, which combines...

Barry Matsumori, formerly the senior vice president of sales and business development at SpaceX, has joined Virgin Galactic's satellite launch team. With Virgin Galactic, Matsumori holds the title of senior vice president of business development and advanced concepts for LauncherOne, the company's small satellite launch vehicle. Prior to SpaceX, Matsumori held a leadership role at Qualcomm as vice president of wireless connectivity where he was responsible for the development of mobile telecom module products as well as satellite communication infrastructure and terminals. He has held positions at Space Systems Loral (SSL) and General Dynamics, and has experience with early-stage technology...

It wasn't until SpaceShipTwo was more than 10 miles above the Mojave Desert and had passed through the sound barrier that Siebold noticed something was seriously wrong. Seconds later, Siebold heard a loud bang and then a sound — like “paper fluttering in the wind” — which he now knows was the rocket plane breaking apart. And suddenly he was plummeting to Earth. Siebold said he did not see Alsbury prematurely moving a lever that unlocked the ship's movable tail — a mistake that investigators say started the sequence of events that caused it to come apart. The rocket ship...