Virgin Galactic unveils its sleek cabin for future space tourists
Spaceship Unity's cabin will capture the ultimate Instagram moment for you and comes with a very big mirror.
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The seat and view that Virgin Galactic customers will enjoy about the spaceship VSS Unity.
Fly with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to space and you can expect a custom-sized reclining seat, automated mood lighting and plenty of roam to float around once the spaceship VSS Unity reaches the microgravity environment of orbit.
That's all part of the package revealed by the space tourism company on Tuesday via a live YouTube stream, which you can watch via the embed below:
Virgin Galactic unveiled the cabin where customers who pay $200,000 or more for a ticket will become bona fide astronauts. The company teamed with Under Armour, which also makes its spacesuits, to develop the fabric for each seat, which the company says have been designed for safety, comfort and maximizing space once the life-long shackles of gravity are temporarily broken.
"What we created was this really clever seat that has this special bending mechanism that clears out the cabin so that in space there's this beautiful uninterrupted expanse, or volume inside our spaceship that people can explore and roam around in," said chief space officer George Whitesides, adding that inspiration was taken from similar design work done by the US Air Force and NASA.
The interior of the spacecraft also boasts seat back screens with live flight data, 16 cameras to record the experience from every angle, the largest mirror in a spaceship cabin and, of course, a dozen windows to gaze down at Earth from a vantage point few people experience.
"Every customer will have two windows to themselves and in a fun twist, every customer will also have two cameras focused on them to capture every aspect of their experience," Whitesides added.
That may all add up to literally the best selfies ever.
Virgin Galactic hasn't announced exactly when it will send its first paying customer to space, but Whitesides told me last August that 2020 would be the year and it already has hundreds of aspiring astronauts (with means) in line.
"Next up for us will be a powered flight over New Mexico," said Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier in a statement provided to reporters Monday. "That will take us back to space and allow us to finish up some important testing."
To get a closer look at the cabin, the company is also launching an AR-enabled mobile app, which will become available later Tuesday.