Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo caught mid-flight on video
By Ross Miller 
posted May 2nd 2009 1:23PM
posted May 2nd 2009 1:23PM
posted May 2nd 2009 1:23PM
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great! one step ahead.
Where's my credit card!
For Two hours at 70,000 ft and 6 minutes of Zero Gravity is worth staying in debt for eternity...
It's not nearly 2 hours.
It's not really flying over Mojave; it's just flying over XP again.
^-- stupid :(
I meant to say one of the following:
"It's not really flying over Mojave; it's just flying over Vista again."
"It flew to Mojave, and turned around to go back home to XP."
AWESOME.
How come every article is riddled with dicks owning themselves? I know posting a comment must be exciting and all but the least you could do is make sure your comment even makes any sense!
failage?
Wow.
Way to suck at commenting.
Change your name and try again one town over.
If Engadget had an "Edit", "Delete post", or "Preview" feature like any other decent message/comment board, this wouldn't have happened.
But yes, failage. :)
This isn't really amazing, a flight into space may be cool but it isn't anything amazing, all SpaceShipTwo can do is LEO, like the shuttle. you can't land on the moon with that, so no moon holidays :(
So you've been 200 miles above the Earth's surface?
I wish it made it to LEO!
All it can do is a quick up and back. But that's a beginning and whether it's practical or not, they're going to be thinking about how to reach LEO every step of the way in this endeavor.
ok, send me the ticket if you win such a trip. Unlike you, I'm easily amused :)
It can't go to LEO, it can only do a ballistic trajectory. And there's a huge difference, it's the difference between the X-15 and the Mercury rocket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15
In order to orbit, you need to pick up LOADS of horizontal velocity (7-8 km/s, 25000 km/s). And coming back in you have to scrub it off. This is why NASA switched from taking off under a plane to an enormous rocket for takeoff. And scrubbing the speed off is the cause of all the heat of reentry, which carbon fiber cannot withstand.
er, 25000km/h.
NASA's first launch didnt just land them on the moon and neither will a private company's first launch put them on the moon, but this is a step in the right direction, hopefully most of us will be able to afford to go to space in our lifetime, something our parents couldnt dream of doing.
But when can I buy one?
Why were they three-in-the-green the whole flight?
Did the pilots forget to pull the wheels up in the midst of all the excitement?
I guess because it'll look pretty stupid if they lost their only plane just because they couldn't lower their landing gears.
So they've built a spacecraft yet they're worried that perhaps they didn't get the gear mechanism done right? Makes sense.
When you still have an aircraft in the experimental phase it's standard for them to lock the landing gear down in case of an emergency. It is important to limit the variables as much as possible. Some aerospace companies will do their test flights over a shallow body of water for the same purpose. It's fairly common.
From Wikipedia: Gadget
A gadget is a small technological object (such as a device or an appliance) that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty. Gadgets are invariably considered to be more unusually or cleverly designed than normal technological objects at the time of their invention. Gadgets are sometimes also referred to as gizmos.
Yes, Aeroplane, yes.
If gadgets are sometimes referred to as gizmos, why do people often say "gadgets and gizmos"?
If they're the same, there's no need to include both. If "gadgets" are a subset of "gizmos," then just say "gizmos."
Yes, I cringe every time someone mistakenly says that "[they] could care less."
Although "en-" is often used as an intensifier. You could say that a spacecraft is a pretty fucking intensified gadget.
robots.
"Virgin Galactic Spaceport America"
bit over to the top for whats basically going to be an airport...
Well, "Virgin Galactic" is not galactic yet, in the sense that it can fly throughout our galaxy.
But maybe someday...
I think "Virgin Spaceport" alone is good enough.
awesome
am i the only one that thinks this is really freakin cool?!!?!
I would love to take a ride on that. It would be amazing.
That's what she said.
Even though I hate you due to obvious reasons, I laughed at that.
Well done.
Taking a ride on a virgin isn't as amazing as you'd expect...
When are they going to actually do a full separation and launch test? I want to see them get the secondary vehicle at least to a sub orbital altitude.
Technically, just hanging under the wing on the ground it is at a sub orbital altitude.
Is this plan just supposed to be for their galactic fleet?
Saw "SpaceShip One" at the Smithsonian this week. It was 2004 when it captured the X-prize. Four years later and this sub-orbital tourist-in-waiting is still waiting to break the bonds of mother earth.
Thats at Mojave
Get bent.
Not only is Engadget's comment system fucked, so are the people posting the comments.
I think it's funneling people from youtube.
.........a giant step for mankind.......?
I need to get my glasses checked, I think I'm seeing double...
you need to get your math-skillz checked, there are 3.
I can't wait till the day when a lunar vacation is no big deal.
If you have millions of $$ then it won't...
200 mile high club CHIKA CHIKA YEAAAAAAAAAA
I paid 30 mil to go into space and all I got was a T-shirt and some crappy ice cream in a bag
That's space vomit, soldier!