Tag: Virgin Galactic

Catching up with the companies from 10 years ago

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Blue Origin, Companies, Lockheed Martin, News, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Reaction Engines, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace

There’s been some remarkable progress in the industry between 2014 and 2024. SpaceX dominated headlines with numerous achievements. They perfected their reusable rocket technology, dramatically reducing launch costs. The Falcon Heavy made its debut, and the Starship program progressed rapidly. By 2024, SpaceX had conducted multiple crewed missions to the International Space Station and was … Read More “Catching up with the companies from 10 years ago” »

Virgin Galactic Breaks Own Altitude Record

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Companies, News, Technology, Virgin Galactic

Now that 2014 is finally here, Virgin Galactic‘s first commercial flight with its WhiteKnightTwo / SpaceShipTwo combo edges ever so closer to reality with every day that goes past. A few days ago, they launched SpaceShipTwo 71,000ft up in the sky and tested several critical features in the process, as Virgin Galactic’s Chief Pilot Dave … Read More “Virgin Galactic Breaks Own Altitude Record” »

Virgin Galactic Teams Up With TV Show

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Companies, News, Virgin Galactic

About a month ago, we covered Mars One, the organisation founded by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp that is planning to have people settle on Mars. Interestingly, their main source of income for this enterprise will be a reality-TV program about those colonists… fast forward to this week, and here we have it: Virgin Galactic is … Read More “Virgin Galactic Teams Up With TV Show” »

How to get hired by a spaceline

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Companies, News

As is becoming more obvious every day to those reading up on the latest in space travel, humanity will soon enter a new era. The day a friend or family member will be sitting at the dinner table, talking about how an acquaintance flew into space with one of these entrepreneurial companies will not be … Read More “How to get hired by a spaceline” »

Virgin Galactic is expanding at the top

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Companies, News, People, Virgin Galactic

Sir Richard Branson‘s Virgin Galactic is pushing things into high gear, with the recent appointment of two heavy hitters. At the start of July it announced the appointment of Doug Shane as Executive Vice President and General Manager of The Spaceship Company (TSC) which as you might remember from reading here, began as a joint … Read More “Virgin Galactic is expanding at the top” »

The Cost Of Space Travel, As Virgin Galactic Ups Prices…

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News, Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace

Space travel will become a reality soon, so let’s have a look at what it would cost to, even for a brief moment, go above 100km (where space officially starts) and become an astronaut. Virgin Galactic‘s WhiteKnightTwo airplane will carry SpaceShipTwo with two pilots and six passengers to an altitude of 16 km (or 50.000 … Read More “The Cost Of Space Travel, As Virgin Galactic Ups Prices…” »

Richard Branson (1950)

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News, People, Profiles

There would be few who could claim to have never heard of the charismatic billionaire founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, Sir Richard Branson. A dropout at 16, he turned his hand to publishing with the magazine aptly named Student. As if that wasn’t enough, he turned to successfully selling records via mail order, … Read More “Richard Branson (1950)” »

Spaceport America

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Companies, News, Other Companies

Spaceport America can be found in New Mexico, United States and is the world’s first purpose-built, commercial spaceport. It opened for business in October 2011 and since then has already signed up several permanent tenants: UP Aerospace was the first, Sir Richard Branson‘s Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo fleet, and just this May Elon Musk‘s … Read More “Spaceport America” »

WhiteKnightTwo

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News, Technology, Virgin Galactic

The launch vehicle that Virgin Galactic will be using as part of its two-stage approach to sub-orbital spaceflight is the WhiteKnightTwo (also known as WK2), with the first one christened VMS Eve after Richard Branson‘s mother and the second one will be named after Steve Fossett, that other adventurer who sadly had a less than … Read More “WhiteKnightTwo” »