Virgin Galactic Mothership Unveiled by Branson (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Scroll down for photos and video.

From the AP:

MOJAVE, Calif. - Virgin Galactic is giving the world a glimpse of its secret space tourism program. Sir Richard Branson's space company Monday trotted out the mothership aircraft that will launch a still-to-be-built spaceship out of the atmosphere. The mothership is a white, four-engine plane with room in the middle where the spacecraft will go.

The early morning rollout in California's Mojave desert came four years after SpaceShipOne became the first private manned rocket to reach space. Now the White Knight Two aircraft being shown today is due to undergo flight tests this fall.

More than 250 customers have paid $200,000 or put down a deposit for the chance to be one of Virgin Galactic's first space tourists. A date for the first launch has yet to be announced.

CrunchGear liveblogged the event and has photos of the White Knight 2. View them --and a promotional video from Virgin Galactic-- below.

Video:

Comments

[RGKahn]

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I"ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, " and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of"wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov"ring there,
I"ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I"ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew"
And, while with silent lifting mind I"ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Junior (June 9, 1922 " December 11, 1941) was an Anglo-American aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is undoubtedly most famous for his poem High Flight.

[Enid]

sorry still good ?

[Enid]

Question

is my deed to one square inch of the moon I received from Post cereal in the fifties?

[Enid]

Its the future

us old folk need only bales of money to play

Hedge Funds in Space!

[YOUNGGLOBAL]

branson strikes again....

[protagonia]

Branson should be applauded for creating fantastic space technology that does not have weapons bristling from it.

He encourages peaceful space travel. Shows that there is a living in it, without the death and destruction virtually every other rocket brings.

Good.

[AmandaBC]

What's the carbon footprint of this monstrosity? And, more importantly, how can making a selected bunch of very wealthy guys see earth from a low orbit help human society?

Rich people are monsters.
Capitalism sucks.

[FerrisValyn]

Actually, the footprint of the system itself will be rather low - Its quite a fuel efficient system - on of the things Branson required (lightweight composites helped big time here). Concerning the carbon footprint of private spaceflight in general - http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/06/02/224354/suborbital-travel-has-low-carbon-footprint-says-esa.html

That should provide some idea.

Finally, as to how this can help society - this is helping to develop of planet industries, and the advent of cheap spaceflight - both of which will prove vital in dealing with the problems we face

[AmandaBC]

"this is helping to develop of planet industries, and the advent of cheap spaceflight - both of which will prove vital in dealing with the problems we face"

You're obviously mistaking business for society. A few capitalists will make a ton of money, that's pretty much it. As for the ESA study, it's quite hilarious to read this in your own link:

"However ESA's researchers have declined to release the per passenger carbon footprint data from the preliminary study."

Sounds more like wishful thinking than anything remotely rooted in reality...

[xenophon]

Money is a great thing especially when you actually have it.

I like the idea of people outside of government venturing into space, and if they can make it pay it will lead to other developments.

[rmc53x]

when the first woman astronaut went into space on the shuttle, the speculation was that they were going to 'experiment' with sex in zero-g. what do you bet that the first sex in space will be on a Virgin ship? gives new meaning to the 'mile high' club.

[plages]

Is that a bottle of Louis Roederer, Cristal Brut 1990? And where is Steven Colbert's name on the ship?

[Blurp]

How exciting! I can't wait to watch the uber-wealthy line up for their 15 Minutes in Space!

[FerrisValyn]

Cheap and reliable to space has to start somewhere. I'd for it to be instantly available to everyone who wants/needs access to space, but we aren't quite there yet

[Blurp]

Cheap and reliable to space? For what? To float around and look out a porthole for a few minutes? There is no high-minded, awe-filled goal here. Why would a private individual need "access" to space? This is just the next outrageously expensive gift in the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog.

[coyote4]

This is fabulous! Absolutely wonderful and original engineering. I congratulate them on their success so far!

I have loved the Rutan brothers for 30 years since, I believe it was Omni magazine (back when it was science based) did a full report on their rebellious aircraft designs. I so lusted to build one of their high performance kits....alas.

An explosion wiped out Rutan ownership of their manufacturing and testing business (now taken over by military industrial complex); Branson has bankrolled what was left of this Burt Rutan effort to great success and world fame. I wish I was a Branson employee; I would be so proud.

[LiberalRebel2]

so here is how I see it all being a bit more interesting for the space travelers of the near future. Branson & Company should invest in one or several computerized fueling and docking stations which would be placed within reach of each other and go outward from our own beautiful globe. These stations would have to be made in sections because they would need to be robust and able to withstand all sorts of troubles that accompanies a hazardous environment filled with solar storm outbursts and flying rock debris and so on and so on. So the hard part would then be to assemble these smaller modules into these space versions of hotel/fuel station/bunkers. but once that was achieved I do not see any reason why not to start a serious space exploration by smaller firms instead of those National and governmental ministries, departments and organizations that have waisted a lot of tax payers money in holding back more then facing head on them problems that the X-price so elegantly surpassed and left behind in a swift pace.

[mawrm]

Ummm... X-Prize was sub-orbital. That's relatively easy to do. When folks are able to go orbital and survive re-entry, then we can have a discussion.

[FerrisValyn]

You can use the sub-orbitals to develop cheap reliable orbital vehicles.

Besides, already people are working on it - check out SpaceX's Dragon

[Arielman]

I searched satellite imagery for Steve Fossett, who flew a Virgin sponsored jet around the world non-stop (along with other records) when he disappeared last Sept. 3, 2007 and I found a) the head of US search and rescue was replaced by a woman when it was found he had made fraudulent statements about his career achievements, b) the commercial imagery supplied through Amazon.com left a lot to be desired, i.e., I looked at over 11,000 images that were supposed to be an overlay of pre-day and post day that he disappeared and they very often did not even line up, like astronomers do to see the differences from one day to the next to spot movement, in this case features on the ground, c) compared to Amelia Earhart, in my opinion, perhaps over the sensitive nature of the area of California/Nevada, i.e., once one the largest munitions storages in the world; practice runway for those elite troops that perished in the desert attempting to free some of the hostages during the 1979 US Embassy crisis; it seemed that there was hardly any government effort in comparison to find the world record holding aviator, or so it seemed.

Perhaps on demand remote sensing, i.e., hyperspectral cameras, relatively cheap used in agriculture, geology, etc., onboard a ship like this might also aid future search and rescue efforts and not have to rely on the satellite scheduling bottlenecks and technology.

[Oilygarch]

Hyper-Spectral Imaging Systems were in fact used, but to no avail. Google "CAP AND ARCHER", without the quotation marks.

-& BTW, the woman that replaced that fraudulent general appears to be very competent. I think she's the first woman National Commander of the C i v i l . A i r . P a t r o l . Good job!!!

I would like to see more diversity issues worked out in the near future. Right now you would be very hard pressed to find an African American in upper echelon, and practically non-existent in some State Headquarters, such as New Jersey.

I'm sure our next Commander in Chief will put an end to that.

[mawrm]

Good to see another CAP member here. As an Afr-Am member (pilot and Sqdrn Maintenance officer) I will say that it's tough because CAP operates too much as a "good ole boys" network and quite honestly, there aren't very many Afr-Am members in CAP as a percentage so they have a hard time rising to the top. Yeap, I'm glad Pinella got the boot - quite the incompetent - and perhaps with new leadership in CAP we will see bigger and better things!!
But back to the Fossett issue- the Archer system is pretty darn good for those sorts of searches and in fact they found a number of other undiscovered wrecks during the search for Fossett. However, having been on airborne searches myself, giving the size of the plane, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack at times - luck comes into play.

[dora rice]

but where is his best friend aviator Fossett, because he certainly isn't on the ground in the Nevada desert. Did his life insurance help finance the Galactic Mothership for space tourism? He certainly isn't in the Nevada desert.

[recruitgal]

Searched every inch of it, eh?

[SpoxLogic]

So, just how much do you think Fossett was insured for? Billions$$? Since, that is what it would take to do thi ssort of thing. Please think before you post one of your haphazard brain-f a rts.