Virgin Galactic To Begin Operation In New Mexico In Two Years

I wonder if passengers will have to suffer the indignity of taking
their shoes off before boarding? Given the medical examination
requirement, they will probably be subjected to more invasive
measures.

NEW MEXICO SPACEPORT DESIGN "OUT OF THIS WORLD"
(http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196076)
The design for New Mexico's Spaceport America
(http://spaceportamerica.com), unveiled on Tuesday, will
incorporate the natural landscape, with a low-profile,
100,000-square-foot building that mimics a sand dune. A rolling
concrete shell will act as a roof, with massive windows that open
to a view of the runway and spacecraft, the designers said. A team
of U.S. and British architects and designers, along with officials
from the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and Virgin Galactic, are
working on the project, which they billed the "world's first space
terminal." The terminal and hangar are projected to cost about $31
million, and will include space for Virgin Galactic's pre-flight
and post-flight training facilities and lounges, as well as the
maintenance hangar for two White Knight Two and five
SpaceShipTwo aircraft. Construction is scheduled to begin next
year, with completion expected in late 2009 or early 2010.


Book your $200,000 flight now:
http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/book.php


http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/news.php
04.09.2007 / FOSTER PARTNERS TO DESIGN SPACEPORT

Foster Partners to design the world's first spaceport The Foster
Partners and URS team has won an international competition to
build the first private spaceport in the world - The New Mexico
Spaceport Authority Building - it was announced today. The sinuous
shape of the building in the desert-like landscape of New Mexico
and its interior spaces seek to capture the drama and mystery of
space flight itself, articulating the thrill of space travel for
the first space tourists. Organised into a highly efficient and
rational plan, the Spaceport has been designed to relate to the
dimensions of the spacecraft. There is also a careful balance
between accessibility and privacy. Visitors and astronauts enter
the building via a deep channel cut into the landscape. The
retaining walls form an exhibition space that documents the
history of the region and its settlers, alongside a history of
space exploration. Designed to have minimal embodied carbon and
few additional energy requirements, the scheme has been designed
to achieve the prestigious LEED Platinum accreditation. The
low-lying form is dug into the landscape to exploit the thermal
mass and natural light enters via skylights. Lord Foster said: "We
are absolutely thrilled to be part of the dynamic team chosen to
design the worlds first space terminal. This technically complex
building will not only provide a dramatic experience for the
astronauts and visitors, but will set an ecologically sound model
for future Spaceport facilities."


Here's hoping that Virgin Galactic's flights are as uneventful as
clicking the links on their FAQ page:

http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsi...Picture&src=26


http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/overview.php
_OVERVIEW HOW IS THIS SAFE

Due to the unique technology, developed by Burt Rutan's Scaled
Composites and now exclusively licensed to Virgin, the spacecraft
design overcomes many of the safety and cost issues that had
previously made space travel the preserve of the privileged few.

Safety is at the heart of the design and will be at the core of
the Virgin Galactic operation. Agreed designs for SpaceShipTwo
have multiple levels of redundancy on all key systems in order to
achieve an extremely robust system in every phase of flight.
Commercial operations will only start once a full testing
programme has been completed.

Virgin's experience in aviation, adventure, luxury travel and
cutting edge design will be vital in contributing to the design of
the spaceship, the smooth operation of the spaceline and to
creating the experience of a lifetime.

Work on the SpaceShipTwo design and construction is well advanced.
Testing of the SpaceShipTwo prototype is likely to start in 2007
with commercial flights on the maiden Virgin Galactic craft, the
VSS (Virgin SpaceShip) Enterprise, commencing early in 2009.


WHAT IS VIRGIN GALACTIC?

Virgin Galactic is a company owned and established by Richard
Branson's Virgin Group to undertake the challenge of making
private space travel available to everyone and by creating the
world's first commercial spaceline.

Virgin will own and operate privately built spaceships, based on
the history making SpaceShipOne . These spaceships, which are
currently under construction, will allow affordable private
sub-orbital space travel for the first time in history and give
you the opportunity of being amongst the very first private
astronauts.


WHAT TRAINING IS INVOLVED?

Virgin Galactic's goal is to end the exclusivity attached to
manned space travel which means designing a vehicle which can fly
almost anyone to space safely without the need for special
expertise or exhaustive, time consuming training.

There will be 3 days of pre-flight preparation, bonding and
training onsite at the spaceport .

Our goal is to provide you with the most incredible experience of
your life. The trip will be intense, approaching sensory overload
and the more that can be simulated beforehand, the better the real
thing will be!

Learning how to make the most of your time in zero gravity and
tips on how to be most comfortable in macro gravity will form an
integral part of your preparation. We expect to use the
WhiteKnight carrier aircraft which will feature a duplicate
SpaceShipTwo cabin, as an integral part of the preparation
experience.

We will ensure that all our passengers can fly safely. This will
involve some pre-flight medical checks. Early indicators show
that the required medical assessment will be simple and
unrestrictive and that the vast majority of people who want to
fly, will not be prevented from doing so by health or fitness
considerations.


WHAT WILL THE EXPERIENCE BE LIKE?

The journey starts from the moment you make a firm reservation and
book your place amongst the first to go.

In the lead up to the start of Virgin Galactic commercial
operations and to your flight itself, we will keep you fully
involved and informed. There will be opportunities to contribute
ideas and participate in pre flight events.

Astronauts tell us that nothing can really prepare you for your
first experience of space, but we will ensure that you are fully
equipped to savour every second of an experience which will be
intense, wonderful and truly unforgettable. And, as you would
expect from a Virgin company, your comfort and enjoyment will be
our primary aim right up until you leave the spaceport, complete
with a fully documented record of the whole experience and of
course, with your astronaut wings!

Are You Ready?

Your journey to space will be one of incredible contrast and
sensory overload.

From the spaceport to 50,000ft, you will be in the spacecraft
attached to the mother ship, a specially designed jet carrier
aircraft. It will be a time of anticipation and perhaps
contemplation of what's ahead. You will know the rest of your crew
and enjoy the confidence that has come from preparing with them
and the highly trained pilots for the trip you are about to take
together.

Then the countdown to release, a brief moment of quiet before a
wave of unimaginable but controlled power, surges through the
craft. You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed
but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye-
watering acceleration which, as you watch the read-out, has you
travelling in a matter of seconds, at almost 2500mph â€" over 3
times the speed of sound.

As you hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere, the large
windows show the cobalt blue sky turning to mauve and indigo and
finally to black. You're on a high, this is really happening,
you're loving it and coping well. You start to relax; but in an
instant your senses are back on full alert, the world contained in
your spaceship has completely transformed.

The rocket motor has been switched off and it is quiet. But it's
not just quiet, it's QUIET. The silence of space is as awe
inspiring as was the noise of the rocket just moments earlier.
What's really getting your senses screaming now though, is that
the gravity which has dominated every movement you've made since
the day you were born is not there any more. There is no up and no
down and you're out of your seat experiencing the freedom that
even your dreams underestimated. After a graceful mid-space
summersault you find yourself at a large window and what you see
would make your hair stand on end if the zero gravity hadn't
already achieved that effect. Below you (or is it above you?) is a
view that you've seen in countless images but the reality is so
much more beautiful, so much more vivid and produces emotions that
are strong but hard to define. The blue map, curving into the
black distance is familiar but has none of the usual marked
boundaries. The incredibly narrow ribbon of atmosphere looks
worryingly fragile. What you are looking at is the source of
everything it means to be human, and it is home. You see that your
fellow astronauts are equally spellbound, all lost in their own
thoughts and storing away the memories.

Then the pilots are asking you to return to your now reclined
seats. Gravity is starting to return as you knew it had to. The
deceleration produces strong g forces, but you're lying down and
deal with them just as you've been taught. You can hear and feel
the feathered wings of the spacecraft producing a powerful drag as
the thickness of the atmosphere increases, although out of the
windows it still looks like space. The g forces quickly ease off
and you hear the pilot announce that she is about to re-feather
the craft for the graceful glide home.

Later that evening, after the celebrations and wings ceremony, you
are finally alone and know that life will never quite be the same
again. You also know you need to sleep, although maybe just time
to read about Virgin Galactic's plans to fly through the Aurora
Borealis - now that would be something.


WHEN CAN I GO?

Virgin Galactic expects to be the first company to provide
sub-orbital flights to the general public (and certainly the
best!) but does not regard itself as being in a race . We have no
absolute or forced deadlines for launch, made possible by the fact
that we are fully and independently funded by Sir Richard Branson
and the Virgin Group. We will launch as soon as possible, but only
when we are happy with the results of the exhaustive
WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo test flight programme. That test
flight programme is scheduled to begin in the latter part of 2007
and all being well commercial operations should start little over
a year later.


Importantly Virgin Galactic is the only company with the rights to
Burt Rutan's design and technology, proven by SpaceShipOne, which
is unrivalled in its potential to give passenger astronauts a
fabulous experience, safely.



WHERE WILL I FLY FROM?


Virgin Galactic's space flights will initially operate from the
Mojave Spaceport, a stunning location in the Californian desert
which will afford spectacular views of the Pacific Coast. It is
also the home of Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, the birth place
of SpaceShipOne and where SpaceShipTwo is now being built. It will
provide a fitting launch site for this amazing venture.



Virgin Galactic will then establish its headquarters and operate
its space flights from the world's first purpose built commercial
spaceport, 'Spaceport America' in New Mexico. Funded by the New
Mexico state government and now in course of design and
construction, it will provide cutting edge facilities and a
wonderful location for fledgling astronauts to realise their
dreams. Virgin Galactic is also already looking seriously at other
potential spaceport locations around the world, with a view to
expanding the enterprise and making the wonder of space travel as
accessible to as many people as possible.



WHO IS INVOLVED?

Richard Branson
Richard Branson was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School. It
was here that he began to set up Student Magazine when he was just
16. By 17 he'd also set up Student Advisory Centre, which was a
charity to help young people.

In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer, and not
long after he opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London.
During 1972 a recording studio was built in Oxfordshire, and the
first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded "Tubular Bells" which
was released in 1973.

This album went on to sell over 5 million copies! Since then many
household names, including Belinda Carlisle, Genesis, Phil
Collins, Janet Jackson and The Rolling Stones have helped to make
Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world. The
equity of Virgin Music Group - record labels, music publishing,
and recording studios was sold to THORN EMI in 1992 in a
US$1billion deal.

The Virgin Group has now expanded into international music
Megastores, air travel, mobile, financial, retail, music,
internet, drinks, rail, hotels and leisure, with around 200
companies in over 30 countries. Yes, we've been busy!

Virgin Atlantic Airways, formed in 1984, is now the second largest
British long haul international airline and operates a fleet of
Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 aircraft to New York, Miami, Boston,
Los Angeles, Orlando, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Johannesburg,
Tokyo, Las Vegas, Delhi, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Shanghai and the
Caribbean. The airline is based on the concept of offering a
competitive and high quality Upper Class, Premium Economy and
Economy service. The airline has won many major awards, including
Airline of the Year Award several times.

During 1997 Virgin took over Britain's two most run-down rail
franchises, CrossCountry and the West Coast Main Line. Virgin is
currently engaged in a £2billion fleet replacement
programme.

In 2002, the combined sales of the different Virgin holding
companies exceeded £4billion. In addition to his own business
activities, Richard is a trustee of several charities including
the Virgin Healthcare Foundation, a leading healthcare charity
which was responsible for the launch of a health education
campaign relating to AIDS in 1987.

The Foundation has also become involved in a lobbying campaign
called Parents Against Tobacco, which aims to restrict tobacco
advertising and sponsorship in sport. His help in the initial
funding of charity projects helped that organisation to raise over
£100 million, through campaigns such as Comic Relief and many
other charities. For more information on the Virgin Group and
charity, go to virgin.com.

And to keep his adrenaline levels high, Richard has been involved
in a number of world record-breaking attempts since 1985. In 1986
his boat, "Virgin Atlantic Challenger II" rekindled the spirit of
the Blue Riband by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest ever
recorded time. This was followed a year later by the epic hot air
balloon crossing of the same ocean in "Virgin Atlantic Flyer".
This was not only the first hot-air balloon to cross the Atlantic,
but was the largest ever flown at 2.3 million cubic feet capacity,
reaching speeds in excess of 130 miles per hour (209 k/ph).

Still after the ultimate adventure, in January 1991 Richard
crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, the
furthest distance of 6,700 miles. Again, he broke all existing
records, with speeds of up to 245 miles -per hour in a balloon of
2.6 million cubic feet.

Between 1995 and 1998 Richard Branson, Per Lindstrand and Steve
Fossett (who joined the team after the tragic death of Alex
Ritchie), made a number of attempts to circumnavigate the globe by
balloon. In late 1998 they made a record-breaking flight from
Morocco to Hawaii but their dream of a global flight was shattered
by bad weather, and then a Swiss team successfully circumnavigated
the globe in early 1999.

In December 1999, Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood in the
Queen's Millennium New Year's Honours List for "services to
entrepreneurship". Well done, Sir!


Burt Rutan
Born in Estacada, Oregon, 30 miles southeast of Portland, and
raised in Dinuba, California, Rutan displayed an early interest in
aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old he was
designing and building model aircraft. His first solo flight in a
real plane was an Aeronca Champ in 1959, when he was sixteen. In
1965 he graduated third in his class from California Polytechnic
University with an aeronautical engineering degree.

From 1965 to 1972 Rutan worked for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards
Air Force Base as a flight test project engineer, working on nine
separate projects including fighter spin tests and the XC-142
VSTOL transport. Shortly after, he became director of the Bede
Test Center for Bede Aircraft, in Newton, Kansas, a position he
held until 1974 [prior to the introduction of the BD-5].

Rutan struck out on his own in June of 1974 with the creation of
the Rutan Aircraft Factory in the Mojave Desert, where he designed
and developed prototypes for a number of aircraft, mostly
homebuilt. His first design was the Rutan VariViggen, a two-seat
pusher with a canard in front. The canard was later to become a
standard feature in most Rutan designs. In April 1982, Burt Rutan
founded Scaled Composites,LLC, which has become one of the world's
pre-eminent aircraft design and prototyping facilities. Scaled
Composites is headquartered in Mojave, California.

Over the years Burt Rutan has designed hundreds of aircraft,
including the now-famous Voyager, which was piloted by Dick, his
brother, and Jeana Yeager in 1986 on a recordbreaking nine-day
non-stop flight around the world.

He made headlines again in 2004 with SpaceShipOne, which became
the first private/privately funded craft to reach space in June of
that year and win the Ansari X Prize a few months later on October
4. SpaceShipOne completed 2 flights within 2 weeks, flying with
the equivalent weight of 3 persons and doing so while reusing at
least 80% of the vehicle hardware. The craft displays Rutan's
unique form of design and aircraft concept. This achievement
quickly turned to commercial success. Virgin Galactic, an offshoot
of Virgin Airlines, has announced that it will begin space tourism
flights in 2008 using craft based on the designs of SpaceShipOne.
Dubbed SpaceShipTwo, these new craft, also designed by Burt Rutan,
will allow 20 "experience optimized" passengers to glimpse the
planet from 70-80 miles in suborbit. Production of the first of
five planned SpaceShipTwo crafts is expected to start in late
2005, with the first test flights in 2007. Passengers are expected
to fly in late 2008 or early 2009.

Burt Rutan is also working with Transformational Space Corporation
in the development of an air launched, two stage to orbit, manned
spacecraft. It is intended to have a taxi capacity to carry
passengers to the International Space Station. As of June 2005,
air drop tests of quarter scale mockups had verified the
practicality of air release and rotation to vertical.

Some of his other designs include the Raytheon Beechcraft
Starship, the Proteus high-altitude long-endurance aircraft, the
Ares military jet, the remarkably asymmetrical Boomerang, as well
as small, light, general-aviation aircraft such as the VariEze,
Long-EZ, Quickie, Quickie 2, and Defiant.

On March 3, 2005, the GlobalFlyer, an aircraft similar to the
Voyager design but with stiffer materials and a jet engine,
completed the first solo non-stop, non-refueled flight around the
world. Steve Fossett was the pilot. Between February 7, 2006 -
February 11, 2006, Fossett and GlobalFlyer set a record for the
longest flight in history: 26,389.3 miles.


WHY VIRGIN? WHY SPACE?


Even with Burt Rutan's ground breaking technology, to which Virgin
Galactic has the excusive rights, getting thousands of people to
space and back safely is a significant challenge. Virgin brings
essential operational experience to its new venture which comes
from years of safe airline and rail operations; it has also
committed the resources required to ensure proper funding.

We recognise the need to optimise the experience of space for each
one of our future astronauts. SpaceShipTwo is the first space
craft in history to be designed around the safety, comfort and
enjoyment of the passenger. Virgin's well deserved reputation for
adding that little extra will also be brought to bear, we aim to
create the world's number one spaceline in all respects!

Developing the capability to escape the boundaries of our home
planet is one of mankind's most spectacular achievements and has
enormous potential significance to the future of the human race.
Already, our limited exploration of space has changed the way we
live and think, from instant global communications to a better
understanding of climate change. Space travel to date though has
come at enormous expense, not just in financial terms but in its
environmental impact and the personal safety of those involved.


At Virgin, we believe that private sector innovation is often the
key to radical improvement. We have a long history of promoting
and investing in breakthrough technologies, from alternative
energy to highly fuel-efficient aircraft and trains.

We also believe that it is in mankind's interest to develop our
knowledge and understanding as well as our access to space; for
this reason we have undertaken to develop and commercialise the
completely new approach to manned space travel made possible by
Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne. In doing so, we will enable many
thousands of people across the world to experience space for
themselves and help to unlock the potential benefits that will
come from safe and affordable manned space access.