Topic: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Makes First Glide Flight

[sam]

Does this image look futuristic? Well, the future is here, as this is an actual image from October 10, 2010 (today!) Virgin Galactic’s future passenger ship made its first manned glide flight on Sunday, with an unpowered flight of SpaceShipTwo lasting about 11 minutes after the spacecraft  was released from its White Knight Two mother ship, Eve, at 13,700 meters (45,000 feet) over the Mojave Desert. Scaled Composites test pilot Pete Siebold flew her down to the Mojave Spaceport, with with Mike Alsbury as co-pilot. “The VSS Enterprise was a real joy to fly,” said Siebold after landing, “especially when one considers the fact that the vehicle has been designed not only to be a Mach 3.5 spaceship capable of going into space but also one of the worlds highest altitude gliders.”

http://www.universetoday.com/75441/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-makes-first-glide-flight/

[Clive]

Nice looking piece of kit.