The era of space tourism is drawing closer. Virgin Galactic, on its fifth supersonic, rocket-powered test flight, successfully sent passenger Beth Moses, the company's chief astronaut instructor, to the edge of space, the first non-pilot to ever fly on a commercial aircraft. The flight marks the second time the company has reached the landmark height.
According to the standards set by the U.S. military and NASA, the crew of three becomes the 569th to 571st people to enter space, with Moses also becoming the first woman to do so on a commercial spaceflight.
Of course the boundaries of space differ, depending on who's defining space. Virgin Galactic considers space to begin at a 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) altitude, the height at which NASA and the U.S. military present astronaut wings. Other organizations, including the body governing astronautic records Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FIA), consider the 100-kilometer-high Kármán line, an imagined border, to be where space begins. Today's flight went 89.9 kilometers, or 55.8 miles, high.
Virgin Galactic's model of spaceflight is radically different than that of NASA, China, SpaceX, or Blue Origin. Today's SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, is more like a space plane than a classic rocket. Launching from Mojave, California, a quadjet cargo aircraft named WhiteKnightTwo carried Unity some 50,000 feet into the sky before separation. Unity's rocket motor was then able to propel the craft to Mach 3.04.
The crew experienced several minutes of weightlessness as Moses performed a "live evaluation of cabin dynamics," which, according to Virgin's press statement, is "fundamental to the provision of a safe but enjoyable customer experience."
After landing, Chief Pilot Dave Mackay, speaking for Moses and copilot Michael “Sooch” Masucci, said in a press statement that the trio "just enjoyed a pretty amazing flight which was beyond anything any of us has ever experienced. It was thrilling yet smooth and nicely controlled throughout, with a view at the top of the Earth from space, which exceeded all our expectations. I am incredibly proud of my crew and of the amazing teams at Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company for providing a vehicle and an operation which means we can fly confidently and safely."
The company's CEO, Richard Branson, said that "having Beth fly in the cabin today, starting to ensure that our customer journey is as flawless as the spaceship itself, brings a huge sense of anticipation and excitement to all of us here who are looking forward to experiencing space for ourselves. The next few months promise to be the most thrilling yet."
And other companies are at Branson's heels. Blue Origin has begun construction of its new engine facility in Alabama while SpaceX has faced setbacks in testing its new Starship, but test flights are planned to begin later this year.
It seems the era of commercial spaceflight is close at hand.
Source: The Verge
David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.
