Billionaire entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic has passed another important milestone in the race to provide the first commercial space travel that will be available to thousands of people.  

The actual spaceship, VSS Enterprise (code named SpaceShip Two) has made it’s first “captive flight” strapped to the belly of the Virgin Mothership Eve, the dual fuselage mothership that will carry the spaceship to it’s launch altitude of more than 50,000 feet. 

This flight went perfectly and both mothership and spaceship, attached to each other, flew up to launch altitude.  The test flight lasted for a little under 3 hours.

Virgin Galactic will continue flight testing through 2010 and 2011.  If all goes well, the first passengers will be able to take sub-orbital trips to space on Virgin in 2012.

Over 300 people have already reserved the first flights and brought in deposit reciepts of around $30 million dollars.  Sub-orbital flights to 100 km above the earth will cost about $200,000 dollars per person.  The spaceship can hold 6 passengers and two pilots for each flight.

We look forward to seeing the progress of the program and who knows, maybe even going to space one day.
 

Videos

Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise First Captive Carry Flight

Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise Rollout

Virgin Galactic - 3 minute Overview