Spaceport America, in addition to having a snazzy logo, sports training facilities for Virgin Galactic pilots spacemen, a 10,000ft runway, and will serve as Virgin Galactic’s headquarters for the next two decades. Want to visit? Good luck with that — you should probably just watch this video.

It’s put together by travel blog Gadling, whose crew got to chat up the ever-charming Richard Branson, his eerily similar son (though to be fair, why wouldn’t you want to grow up just like Richard Branson?), and a few other dignitaries and officials. With any luck, the facility will be bustling with commercial spacecraft over the next couple years, though I don’t suppose there are so many that they’ll need an extra runway any time soon.

Note that in the future, Spaceport America is scheduled to look much more like a StarCraft unit:

You may wish to postpone your visit until then.

We’ve posted about Virgin Galactic before, but this might be their biggest announcement yet. Take a look at SpaceShipTwo in all its glory, ready to launch the wealthy into flight.

Branson and company just unveiled SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave desert today, and it’s looking good. Testing has already started, however full blown commercial flights aren’t expected to start until 2011. Given the history of the space program, that seems best. Branson has stated previously that the first people to go up will be him, along with his family and the designer of the spacecraft, Burt Rutan. A seat on the ship will cost roughly $200,000 so I’d suggest you start saving now.

After testing delays last year, Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites successfully took to the skies with the Mothership Eve at the SC testing site in the Mojave. Wired.com has the exclusive video, which isn’t anything special, but it’s nice to see Virgin is puttering right along. Hit the jump to check out the video.

via Wired

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/5314095001

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/5314097001

A London banker named Per Wimmer will be taking a 30-minute space ride in XCOR’s “Lynx” two-seat suborbital space plane (see our previous coverage) in 2010. Los Angeles-based XCOR is offering relatively affordable space trips at around $74,000 a pop.

Wimmer has also purchased tickets on Virgin Galactic’s and Space Adventures’ first flights –also set to take off in 2010. Those tickets are about 50% and 25% more expensive, respectively, than XCOR’s.

Says Wimmer, “It will be a real race to see which of them goes up first – but if it is Xcor, I will become the first affordable space tourist.”

Daily Mail [via Newlaunches]

What won’t the porn industry think of? Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn wouldn’t disclose who the studio is, but said the offer “was $1 million, up front, for a sex-in-space movie. That was money we had to refuse, I’m afraid.” Other than the logistical issues of making a porno in five-minutes, I doubt VG is bummed about losing $1 million. They already have $40 million in deposits thus far. Virgin Galactic will begin flights departing from New Mexico in 2009 or 2010.

You could always jump on board a Zero G flight for much less, but you won’t see Earth from outer space.

“There have been various taxi trials outside the hangar already, but undertaken at night. The first flight trials will take place when we are ready and will definitely be this year and possibly within the next few weeks,” says Will Whitehorn, the suborbital spaceline’s president.

Commercial suborbital flights are still on track for 2010.

via The Reg

Good luck, Rich. Save me a seat.

PS- Due to some technical difficulties resulting from live blogging in the Mojave, the video interview we took is FUBAR at the moment, but we’ll see what we can do to fix that once we get back to LAX.

Isn’t she beautiful?

Burt Rhutan of Scaled Composites is currently giving his shpeal about the WK2.

Richard Branson was inspired to go to space by Stephen Hawking’s speech that the human race needed to move out into space and do what we’ve been doing here on earth, but more efficiently.

Air testing will begin shortly.

We’ll be able to see the aurora borealis from the WK2.

There’s a secret spaceport near Barcelona where the WK2 will operate from Europe. There will also be spaceports in New Mexico and Asia.

Anyone can travel on Virgin Galactic regardless of health. Sir Richard’s father who will be 92 at launch will even be able to travel. It’s a suborbital flight so there are less Gs being forced onto passengers.

Someone is asking about the quality of food on the WK2. WTF?! I’d probably puke if they served food.

12 are being built.

Now they’re talking about some aircrafty terms that I know nothing about. Something about the entire spaceship being all composite.

We’ll all be able to experience weightlessness. Awesome. John will feel less fat! If only for a few seconds.

270 people, as of today, have made reservations and they all wanted to have the ability to float around.

The WK2 will carry six passengers and two pilots although it’s capable of holding up to 11 people. Sir Richard only wants window seats.

One fuselage will carry the pilots while the other will hold passengers.

The WK2 was christened “EVE” after his mother. She was one of the first intercontinental female flight attendants. The EVE is full of firsts and Branson’s mother will be one of the first on-board.

Everyone is running around trying to take photos of Branson and his mother. They just popped open a bottle of champagne. Xeni Jardin is wielding a folding chair.

The twin fuselage and central payload area configuration allow for easy access to WK2 and to the spaceship for passengers and crew; the design also aids operational efieciencies and turnaround times. WK2 will be able to support up to four daily space flights, is able to carry out both day and night time operations and is equipped with a package of hightly advanced avionics.

I’m likely never going to get married, but if I ever do, I want to do as this couple is, in space.

Branson’s launching Virgin Galactic next year as the world’s first space tourism company, this much is known. But now he’s announced that on Galactic’s first flight, he’ll be personally officiating a wedding, the first ever human wedding off of Earth.

Now the pressure’s off me, so I can go back to being a sloppy bachelor.

The GPL wasn’t designed with spaceships in mind, however, so they clarified that they will cooperate with anyone who wants to contribute to the design, and will gladly allow others to use components for their own purposes. Check out the link for ongoing coverage and more info about this awesome project.

Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShipTwo; Plans open architecture spaceship [ZDNet]

Update: BBC has a better picture.

SpaceShipTwo is what the passengers will actually ride in, and White Knight Two is the launch vehicle that carries it to a high altitude before releasing the rocket. (It takes less energy to launch from 50,000 feet than from the ground). The design is a little bit different than the initial SpaceShipOne and White Knight One. Both are all carbon-composite vehicles, and are designed with an open architecture so that in the future other companies can use it as a foundation to create space vehicles for unmanned missions. White Knight Two is a double-hulled launch plane with four engines from Pratt & Whitney.

Branson suggests that if Virgin Galactic can prove the commercial viability of space flight, it will unlock a “wall of investment that could rival the amount invested in mobile or the Internet.” He also suggests that at some point in the future, in addition to suborbital thrill rides, the vehicle pair could serve as a superfast transport for point-to-point international travel here on Earth. (Forget about supersonic flight, this would be much faster). Looking much further out to a day when next-generation vehicles are flying commercially that can actually deliver small satellites and other payloads, he waxes about the possibilities:

One day we might be able to use space for energy production. While I believe aviation has to get more carbon efficient, seemingly benign industries like IT have outpaced aviation in carbon output. [One promise of a commercial space industry is] the ability to launch low-earth satellites that could literally take some of the heat out of the planet, by serving as a repository for information technology.

Although the flight rate will be low to start, the vehicle is designed to handle high flight rates several years from now. “The spaceship is being designed so that it can be flown twice a day and the launch plane can be flown three times a day,” says designer Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites. Virgin Galactic has ordered five spaceships from Scaled Composites, with an option of seven more. Rutan predicts that if Virgin Galactic is able to build 40 to 45 spaceships over first twelve years, with 15 launch planes, they could fly 100,000 people in the first twelve years of operation.

Virgin Galactic hopes to begin test flights this summer, but no mention of when commercial flights will actually start. With recession fears in the air, you’ve got to wonder what kind of impact that might have on demand for such premium-luxury travel.

And you thought Web 2.0 startups were risky.

On the initial $200,000 price per flight, Branson notes:

Within five years of launching, we hope that price will come down dramatically. We accept that $200,00, even though the dollar is not worth much anymore, is still too expensive for the majority of people.

By comparison, a trans-Atlantic flight in 1939 between New York and England cost the equivalent of $47,000 in today’s dollars. That was one-way and coach.