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Virgin Galactic shows off passenger spaceship cabin interior:
Highly detailed amenities to enhance the customer flight experience were shown in an online event revealing the cabin of the company's rocket plane, a type called SpaceShipTwo, which is undergoing testing in preparation for commercial service.
There are a dozen windows for viewing, seats that will be customized for each flight's six passengers and capable of adjusting for G forces, and, naturally, mood lighting.
Yet designer Jeremy Brown said the passengers' most lasting impression may come from a large mirror at the rear of the cabin.
"We think that there's a real memory burn that customers are going to have when they see that analog reflection of themselves in the back of the cabin, seeing themselves floating freely in space ... that very personal interaction that they'll have with the experience," he said.
[...] The passengers, clad in space suits designed by the Under Armour company, will be able to leave their seats and float about the cabin, using handholds tested by chief astronaut trainer Beth Moses during Virgin Galactic's second flight into space last year.
The test was aimed at helping finalize the design and at learning how to train passenger astronauts for what they will experience as they become weightless and reach the top of the flight profile, known as its apogee, before the descent begins.
Moses said she tested different ways of getting in and out of the seats, moved around the cabin and waved at the mirror, concluding that it was not disorienting.
"I also purposely went to a point in the cabin to most dramatically try to enjoy apogee and a view of Earth from the stillness of space," she said.
[...] The company has yet to set a date for flights with paying passengers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2020, @03:53PM (1 child)
Senator Jake Garn was a former military pilot, did not get sick on the vomit comet, but became the sickest individual to ever puke all over the ISS.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @04:26AM
I've been in some crazy airplane and helicopter flights doing science experiments and never got airsick. I've been out on a deep sea fishing boat about four times and threw up all four times. I used to sometimes get carsick as a kid, but I don't any more (or I don't think I do--I'm almost always the driver now and rarely every ride in the back). I've never got sick at an amusement park and I love riding every coaster I can get to.
I've had a pilot tell me that a colleague of his had to stop flying because later in his career he developed airsickness that he never got over, even if he was the one doing the flying.
It certainly is an interesting phenomenon. With me, I think it mostly has to do with smells (fishy-smelling boats and diesel fumes) than the motion but who knows?