virgin galactic

Avid jet-setters aspiring for something more should check out Virgin America's new Mission: Galactic contest. Whoever earns the most status points with their Elevate loyalty program by August 7, 2013 earns a Virgin Galactic suborbital space flight aboard SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. … Read more

MOJAVE DESERT, Calif.--It's hard to imagine a more complete -- and impressive -- collection of aviation facilities and aircraft anywhere on the planet than the one in this vast, arid, wide-open wasteland northeast of Los Angeles.

Thanks to its endless amounts of dry, flat terrain, useless to most people, and the fact that there are only a few ways in -- vital for security -- the Mojave is, and has long been, the beating heart of the aviation world. It's here that Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier. And where Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne ushered in … Read more

All this week in the pouring British rain, people in suits have been gathering at a biennial trade show in Farnborough, England, to ogle the latest aircraft -- and sometimes buy a few. There's plenty on display for aviation geeks to get excited about, such as the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, but I was mainly there to take a look at the tech that BAE Systems is hawking out to its mostly military customers.

The main attraction was the first public showing of a plane that flies itself -- a 1983 Jetstream once used by a Scottish distillery that's … Read more

When Spaceport America makes international news, it's often in conjunction with names like "Richard Branson," "Virgin Galactic," and "Ashton Kutcher." That celebrity shine is hard to ignore, but it's not the only thing happening at the spaceport.

Virgin Galactic has already sold 520 tickets for its suborbital space tourism flights, expected to start in late 2013. I'm standing in front of the epically named Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space. It's a massive building that blends into the New Mexico desert from one side and reflects Spaceport America's 10,000-foot runway from the other.

A uniquely New Mexico venture I'm a part owner of the spaceport that is sprouting up out of the Jornada del Muerto (remember the Trinity Site location). As a tax-paying New Mexican, some of my state dues have gone to the $209 million price tag for this facility's first two phases of construction.… Read more

When you are a man who has everything--and has had everything for some time--how many pleasures are left upon this planet?

It is, therefore, with a vast thrust of uplift that I report that Ashton Kutcher, he of CBS' "Two And A Half Men," a huge but fragile Twitter account, and a smile that floats many a romcom, is being taken into space.

Time magazine reports that Kutcher has become the 500th human being to sign up for a suborbital Virgin Galactic flight.

Virgin's Sir Richard Branson was so heartily chuffed by this increase in his revenue … Read more

Space is already full of heavenly bodies, but apparently not enough of the kind to satisfy those at Playboy, which is taking matters into its own hands.

The adult magazine company has come up with a concept for a Playboy Club in space that includes a zero-gravity dance club and Playboy bunnies with jet packs. The "intergalactic entertainment destination" is featured in the March issue of Playboy, which is out on newsstands now, and is described as a cruise ship in space by the article's writers, A.J. Baime and Jason Harper.

Baime and Harper collaborated with various individuals on the project, including artist Thomas Tenery, Virgin Galactic head designer Adam Wells, and former NASA scientist Stan Kent, to figure out the design and features of the Playboy space club. Together, they dreamed up a wheel-shaped space station that has everything from a casino to a restaurant to "orbital pleasure domes." … Read more

With the shuttle program retired, NASA is turning to Virgin Galactic to hitch rides to the edge of space.

Richard Branson's private venture, which aims to be the first commercial space carrier, said it has signed a deal to give the agency up to three charter flights on SpaceShipTwo. The contract could be worth as much as $4.5 million.

The space plane, whose assembly hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port was unveiled last month, will carry at least one science mission with a flight test engineer to monitor experiments. … Read more

MOJAVE, Calif.--"We build spaceships."

That's the motto--perhaps the coolest ever?--of The Spaceship Company, the partnership between Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, builder of the X-Prize-winning SpaceShip One and its younger sister ship, SpaceShip Two.

And on Monday, The Spaceship Company (TSC) formally opened what it calls FAITH, the final assembly facility for SpaceShip Two and the aircraft on which it piggybacks, WhiteKnight Two. At the celebration, Virgin Galactic showed off, for the first time at a public event, a replica of SpaceShipOne, as well as the actual WhiteKnightOne, SpaceShipTwo, and WhiteKnightTwo (… Read more

Usually, when someone says "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen," you know that no matter what they're looking at, they're resorting to a little hyperbole.

But today, when I saw two videos taken from the window seat of a Virgin America flight that show Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo flying alongside in tandem (give the video about 35 seconds before the spaceship appears), my reaction was, well, "this is the coolest thing I've ever seen."

And that was before hearing the audio of the person shooting the video saying … Read more