Virgin Galactic, which plans to be the first in the world to organize tourist suborbital space flights, as well as launches of small artificial satellites, is going to intensify this activity already this year. Her first commercial flights are expected to begin in 2013 or 2014.
To date, applications have been accepted from over 500 passengers who have signed contracts and are waiting in line to fly as the first space tourists outside the Earth in a private suborbital space shuttle Space Ship Two, accommodating six passengers and two pilots. This ship was built and tested by the aerospace company Scaled Composites, whose founder is aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Now the ship belongs to the American military-industrial company Northrop Grumman.
Tourist suborbital flights represent a rise to a 16-kilometer mark, then the Space Ship Two is undocked from the White Knight Two, and it goes on its own. The flight time is 2.5 hours, of which 5-6 minutes in zero gravity. "There are many things you can do in the suborbital zone. This is an area that has not been visited by anyone for 40 years," said Neil Armstrong, an American astronaut who first set foot on the lunar surface on July 21, 1969 during the expedition of the Apollo 11 ship. According to Armstrong, space flights open up many new opportunities. “I really believe and hope that some new methods will be both useful and beneficial,” he said.
According to William Pomerantz, vice president of Virgin Galactic’s Special Projects, the first of five Space Ship Two ships planned for construction has already completed 31 atmospheric tests, 15 of them with the White Knight Two, and 16 trials in the planning mode .
