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posted by takyon on Friday December 14 2018, @07:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the virginity-lost dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo reaches space for the first time

Virgin Galactic has come a long way since its tragic 2014 crash. The company's SpaceShipTwo has reached space after months of testing, flying to an altitude of 271,268 feet before returning to Earth. The stay was brief (SST fired its rocket for all of a minute), but it was enough to both verify the spacecraft as well as conduct four NASA-backed scientific experiments that studied the effects of microgravity and devices that could handle life support and counteract vibration.

[...] Actual passenger flights aren't likely to happen for some time. Virgin stressed that it wanted to finish its tests "safely," not just quickly. The successful visit to space makes that more a question of when than if, though, and suggests that Richard Branson might be vaguely realistic when he talks about hopping aboard his own flight within months.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 14 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 14 2018, @07:19PM (#774521) Journal

    How has this not spawned endless jokes already? Are wags too focused on politics to crack the jokes about Virgin spaceships that practically write themselves?

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @11:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 14 2018, @11:47PM (#774608)

    welcome to the beige age!