Virgin Galactic spaceship completes first crewed flight
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceship has successfully completed its first flight with the crew on board on Thursday as it soared over California’s Mojave Desert beneath its enormous mothership. The VSS Enterprise is named after the fictional starship from the science fiction TV show “Star Trek.” The flight test was the 33rd voyage of the mothership VMS Eve, one of company’s the WhiteKnightTwo craft. Three other crewmembers flew aboard the Eve mothership, which is designed to carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude above 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before the spacecraft drops and fires its hybrid rocket motor to launch into suborbital space. The Virgin Galactic spacecraft will provide a weightless experience and a view of the blackness of space and glowing Earth below at a cost of $200,000 per person. Though there are still no dates specified for when the company would put paying customers into space, things sure look promising for the first commercial batch of six passengers, which are supposed to be the Hollywood’s best known couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, accompanied by the superstar Robbie Williams and William Shatner.
