Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson's private space tourism venture, inaugurated the spaceport "America" in New Mexico, USA, with a demonstration flight of the first private spaceship.
"Today is another historic day for Virgin Galactic," said Sir Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Global Concern, who received the keys to the terminal and hangar from which the first private flights to space will operate. "We are here with a group of amazing people who are helping us lead the creation of one of the new industries of the 21st century, space tourism."
Branson and his children, Sam and Holly, who will be the first commercial passengers on the spacecraft, inaugurated the new structure, built according to strict ecological standards, in a very impressive ceremony, in which an Israeli representative, Aliron Yaron, CEO of Galactic Dreamlines, the Israeli company that markets in Israel, was also present. the first private flights into space, at a price of 200,000 dollars per ticket. The first flights are expected to depart from the new spaceport as early as 2013.
"The intention is not only to sell space tickets to private customers, although there is a huge demand for that. More than 450 customers around the world have already bought a card and paid for it, and there are definitely quite a few Israelis who are interested in being the first to fulfill this dream." explains Aliron Yaron, director of Virgin Galactic's Israeli representative office, "Galactic Dreamlines".
"The company is taking steps to expand its mission beyond commercial space tourism, and last week it won a NASA contract. In recent times, there have also been quite a few orders for plane tickets from research and academic institutions around the world that intend to fly representatives into space to perform experiments during the flight," says Yaron.
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It is said one small step for man one big step for humanity…..
The first flights could be an important turning point in the future of the planet, in the past there were plans for hotels in space, mining of minerals. There was talk in the past about using, for example, the surface of the moon for the possibility of refining and mining helium 3, for example, from the surface of the moon and using it to produce electricity.
Who knows, maybe what has been a theory up until now will be able to embroider skin and tendons and turn from science fiction into modern day reality.
They always talked about 2012, was it postponed to 2013?
I agree with Yair.
Completely unnecessary.
Got it, I always thought he was the manager of this project.
Burt is the manufacturer, while Virgin Galactic is an airline. Just like El-Al for that matter which uses Boeing planes and does not manufacture them itself. Of course Branson has a lot more money to do events and PR than Rotan.
Interestingly, in the past when the "White Knight" plane was mentioned, a picture of this man always appeared:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content1/167623634-L-burtrutan.jpg
Brett Rutan. Why is it no longer mentioned in connection with the plane? Is he no longer associated with the project?
Here is Brett lecturing on Ted:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/heb/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html
For those who are interested: a few points that annoy me about this news:
1 By "flight into space" I mean, if I understood correctly of course, the few minutes in which the plane is a little higher than a normal plane and then you feel the loss of gravity. After the few minutes they descend and actually land in the same field from which the flight left (only poorer). Isn't calling it "space tourism" a bit pretentious?! Isn't it more appropriate to call it: "Raid"? Extremely expensive, long and probably boring for the most part and yet overall a "raid".
2 Instead of boasting about the "strict ecological standards" according to which the airport was supposedly built - wouldn't it be a little more "green" to simply not build this ultra-super-polluting facility designed to entertain the upper millionaires?
3 The smile of Mr. Richard Branson (sorry! sir). That's it, just this smug smile "brings" me nerves.
a few days ago
(on the construction process)
https://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content3/2011/10/VIRGINֹ_galactic-spaceport.jpg