Video Courtesy: Virgin Galactic www.virgingalactic.com Sir Richard Branson Takes first Flight in VMS Eve at Airventure 2009 Today, at the worlds largest private air show (EAA Airventure 2009, Oshkosh, Wisconsin), Sir Richard Branson took his first flight in the mothership which will launch Virgin Galactics space tourism and science customers into space. The space launch vehicle known as VMS Eve is a unique twin hull all carbon composite aviation vehicle designed to launch SpaceShipTwo above heights of 50000ft and today Sir Richard was on board to witness first hand the incredible flying qualities of the aircraft piloted by Pete Siebold and Clint Nichols. VMS Eve has already undertaken 16 test flights and todays demonstration flight at Oshkosh represents flight 17.
I was lucky to see SpaceShipOne, the world’s first commercial space ship, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio after it won the first X Prize for first commercial space flight. It had left the Airventure in Oshkosh, WI and was staying the night in Dayton, Ohio before completing its last flight to the “graveyard”, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. The White Knight, the plane that carried SS1, was needed back at Mohave Spaceport for SpaceShipTwo reasons
Virgin Galactic is only one of several high-profile contenders in the new commercial space race. Others include Europe’s EADS Astrium; Blue Origin, started by Amazon.com Inc.
At the worlds largest private air show, the EAA Airventure 2009 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I took my first flight in the mothership which will launch Virgin Galactics space tourism and science customers into space.
SpaceShipTwo’s MotherShip Stops In At Wittman Field The center of the aviation universe, for this week, at least appears to be a certain place in Wisconsin known to many of the faithful from the aviation world. It is also well-known to a certain spaceship builder who has serious roots in the same place..
