I think I now want a ticket aboard Enterprise even more than I did before.

They're performing just one song, rumored to be either Gold, True or I'll Fly For You (surprising news to anyone who thought they had just two songs) if Spandau Ballet guitarist/saxophonist Steve Norman is to be believed. With only six passengers and two pilots allowed on that first Enterprise flight, the five Spandau Balleters will make up almost half the human weight. Although judging by the looks of Tony Hadley these days, maybe it'd be more like 50/50. [The List]

Trance "act" Above & Beyond DJed in the Mojave desert yesterday for Branson's SpaceShipTwo event, and are so desperate to see space, they've asked if they can join the ride. Hailing from the UK, Above & Beyond certainly sound space-nutty, sampling Buzz Aldrin in one of their tracks.

Boasting to NME, one of the trancers, Jono Grant, said:

"We're big fans of all things space-related and so in terms of dream gigs, this is up there alongside our performance in Rio to one million people"

Branson, how about forgetting the whole 'space passenger fights' thing and turning SpaceShipTwo into an intergalactic anti-Noah's Ark? [Above & Beyond NME via TechRadar]

As a bonus: Enjoy Sir Richard Branson with his blonde wig—come on, nobody can have such perfect hair, and be so dashing—and the legendary Burt Rutan and his even-more-legendary muttonchops. These guys, my friends, are making history right now. And I'm talking about taking humans to the stars, not hairstyle history. Sure, it's suborbital fight, but you have to start somewhere. These people are the ones really pushing the envelope forward.

Check the still pictures here.

Click on image to see it in full resolution

I can't wait for a whole fleet to be developed, and the SpacePort to be finished.

I just saw SpaceShipTwo. It's very large and shiny. It's really impressive mounted to the mothership, makes Eve look right.

What you are seeing here is the rehearsal for the presentation of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, the first space airliner in history. It will happen tonight, so stay tuned for images of this new spectacular aircraft, hopefully the beginning of a long series yet to come.

UPDATE:

• Watch the photos of SpaceShipTwo here.
• Watch the video here.

[Flickr and Twitter via Hyperbola]

Spaceport America will be the first spaceport in history, and it will host commercial operations by private space travel companies, like Virgin Galactic.

I'm sure that—in a few centuries—this structure will be buried under multiple layers belonging to another huge structure: A giant spaceport—one of many in the world—in which massive spacecrafts will be lifting off and arriving from trips from the Moon, Mars, Titan, and Europa. Or at least, I hope that's what will happen.

If you are around, you can attend the historic groundbreaking ceremony—the first step in its construction—on Friday, June 19, 2009. Check the link for details. [Spaceport America]

* Apparently, the stuff dreams are made of look like vaginas from the air. Rubber vaginas.

As Virgin Galactic gets ever closer to the start of commercial operations, we are reaching and passing many important and historic milestones. The Virgin MotherShip (VMS) Eve, the first of our amazing, all carbon
composite, high altitude WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicles, is flying superbly. SpaceShipTwo, which will air launch from Eve, is largely constructed and awaiting the start of its own test flight programme later this year.

Rough translation from Brit:

OMFG THAT KICKED ASS! I CAN'T WAIT TO GET INTO THAT THING!

Yes, Sir Richard, I totally share the feeling. Even more because this time there have been no problems at all.

One of the cool things about the rocket is that is controllable and can be shut down safely at any time, allowing SpaceShipTwo to glide down to Earth at any time in case there's any problem. This is obviously one of the biggest concerns for the company: Safety.

The other big thing—other than putting amateur astronauts up there—is being green. They are trying to make the engine as clean as these things could be. The engine will burn for a very short period of time because it will be first lifted by White Knight II, which uses cleaner fuel. In fact, the carbon footprint for "each of its passengers and crew will be about a quarter of that for a return trip from London to New York."

Will Whitehorn has worked at Virgin for 22 years. Before he ran Galactic, which he named, he did search and rescue for Sir Richard Branson's world-record-attempt balloon flights, and flew helis for British Airways. I got him on the phone for a few minutes to talk about space travel.

How'd Virgin get into the business of civilian space flight?
Sir Richard has always been into space. In the '80s, he was in touch with Gorbechev about getting into the Soyuz. And his first movie produced was The Space Movie [commissioned by NASA to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Apollo mission].

But Virgin Galactic's origins began with a conversation between me, Buzz Aldrin and Sir Richard Branson in the winter of 1996. We asked him why the American space program never launched crafts from air. Buzz explained that the US had the X-15 project in the '60s and they did test launches from a balloon before, and that the US did these experiments when Buzz was a pilot for the Navy in the '50s.

In 1999 we decided to register the name Virgin Galactic, not knowing where we'd find a spacecraft.

In 2003, Steve Fossett and Virgin cofunded the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, a plane Fossett would [use to] circumnavigate [the earth] on a single tank of fuel, setting a record. I was watching Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites build the flyer, and noticed he had a small spacecraft in the corner of his factory—it being the ship [SpaceShipOne] that Paul Allen was funding for the [Ansari] X Prize.

That's how we found our ship builder.

How are your customers going to be prepped for space?
There's a three-day training program in our New Mexico facility where, among other things, they'll get G-force training. We've tested 100 of them already using a centrifuge, so they'll understand the forces. If you look at the WhiteKnightTwo [launch vehicle], the starboard hull has an identical cabin to the space ship [see below], and the WhiteKnight has the unique ability to be an astronaut training vehicle, creating forces up to 7Gs. And it can be used as a zero-G flying plane, so passengers can experience G forces and zero G. When White Knight is bringing SpaceShipTwo and its load of passengers into orbit, it is also training the next day's travelers in its hull.

What's the in-flight entertainment going to be like?
The in flight entertainment system won't be like a normal entertainment system. Every customer will have a record of their flight. And lots of data: They'll see how many G's they sustained on the way up, they'll see what time they've arrived, etc. Of course, the best in flight entertainment of all will be the view of the Planet Earth; you'll be able to see the blue planet and the blackness of space while you're weightless.

When's the price coming down to $10,000?
Once the program gets regularized, and we get enough volume, we will be able to reduce the costs. But we believe after 3 to 5 years, we can get it down to $100,000 from $200,000. We can get it down to $100,000 but don't think we'll get it down to $10,000. UPDATE: Sir Richard Branson believes that in his lifetime, the price will be affordable for the average middle class family.

Gravity doesn't go on sale.
Gravity doesn't give you a discount.

Have you already started engineering the zero-g airsickness bags?
NASA already makes one. They're easy to get. But of our 100 customers that we put through the centrifuge, none felt ill from the test.

What other plans do you have for Virgin Galactic?
It's also an industrial and scientific system. We'll bring scientists into space to do microgravity experiments. And we can launch small unmanned rockets or satellites into space, up to 200 kilos, much more cheaply and safely than ever before.

Why should we send people into space?
Stephen Hawking believes that too many scientists in the '80s and '90s got into the mindset that we could just send robots into space. But he said it's wrong to think that way, because humans need to explore. And we now know enough about our planet that we know that a catastrophic event will happen in the next few thousand years—volcanic or otherwise—which would have the propensity to wipe us out. We have to have the ability to leave the planet, and we're only going to be able to do this if we develop manned space flight.

Get Me Off This Rock: Gizmodo's week long dedication to the idea of human life in space.

The flight lasted just under an hour, and apparently all went according to plan. You can see some brief in-flight videos at Flightglobal.

I'm digging the design, resembling the two P-51s bolted together for the F-82 Twin Mustang—the last piston-engined fighter ever ordered into producation by the USAF. [Space Fellowship via Slashdot, Photo: Alan Radecki]

The design has been set since September 2007, but now that an environmental impact assessment has been passed, construction can now begin. Branson is banking on the rich still paying for a suborbital flight in our current economic clime, and yeah, I probably believe him.

Virgin Galactic and its SpaceShipTwo/White Knight launch system will be the main attraction, but the spaceport's license for vertical and horizontal takeoffs can be used by any number of clients willing to lease some launchpad time. [Ars Technica]

Yeah, it's just slowly trucking down the runway, but it's the first time we've actually seen this thing in any sort of action. The next step? The first flight, which is expected to happen around the 19th of this month. We still have a bit of a wait before it'll actually deliver SpaceShipTwo into space, but it's exciting to see progress being made. Now just drop the tickets, Virgin. I want to go. [FlightGlobal]

Photo Credit Alan Radecki

Luckily Scaled Composites, builders of the aircraft and spacecraft, planned for this sort of opportunity and designed their air-data probe systems, usually used just for avionics, to allow for other sensors to be attached in the hope that exactly this sort of science opportunity would come along.

The sensors will look for CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and will be aboard the 200-odd practice flights needed for testing and certification. After that program, Virgin and NOAA will decide if the equipment will go onto the commercial space flights alongside paying passengers. [NewScientist]

What's the training like?
The program has yet to be announced, but we know it's a combination of real flight, simulated flight and centrifuge training.
What's the difference between your Virgin Galactic and Virgin America rides?
The different flight profile of each, but in some ways it flies like any jet...although some portions of the launch of SpaceShipTwo's reentry is glider-like. These planes also do +6Gs.
Is it like a Rollercoaster?
Well, a rollercoaster is more of an inverse G. [So, it's not similar]
What qualification did you need to become a Galactic pilot?
3,000 hours of flight time, and a variety of plane experience, since we also have to fly Gulfstreams to sometimes take customers to and from the spaceports.

Rich, you are a lucky bastard.
[Giz at Virgin Galactic Launch]

Actually it's a flight simulator for pilot training. Virgin America pilots will be trained to fly Virgin Galactic flights, which makes them the luckiest commercial pilots in the country.

Before the ship rolls out, I might as well scribe a few of the details we learned earlier.
• WhiteKnightTwo is completely carbon fiber composite, save for the engines and landing gear.
• We were flown out from LAX on a new Virgin America plane called, "My other ride is a spaceship"
• Virgin American is 30% more fuel efficient than other domestic airlines.
• Virgin America is giving away a ride on Virgin Galactic to one of its customers in a contest called "The Race for Space"

Bob Morgan, Lead engineer at Scaled Composites, is speaking now.

He's said that the vehicle is triple the weight but has capacity for 12 more passengers. The plane's cabling system is also carbon fiber.

They're unveiling it now.

Burt and Sir Richard are doing a Q&A now...

• WhiteKnight and SpaceShipTwo can launch higher in altitude than the first ships, but the SpaceShip can't grab enough atmosphere any higher than the previous launch point, so can't go as high this way. So they drop the SpaceShip payload at the same altitude.
• As far as bases go, after New Mexico, they'll open a spaceport in Sweden, and they're talking to Spain and the Far East.
• Who can go on this? Because its suborbital, we can make the flight only 2-3Gs instead of 5Gs and so older people like Sir Richard's parents, Stephen Hawking and others are going to try going.
• Food? Their solution is not feeding you at all. Probably for vomit concerns.

• The wingspan has no seams, its one piece tip to tip. Composites don't bolt together well, so they don't use them.
• This is about seeing the curvature and beauty of the earth and experience weightlessness.
• 270 people are signed up and many have begun training in centrifuges to resist G forces.

More Facts:
• The first ships will be called "Spirit of Steve Fosset" after Sir Richard's friend and his mother, "Eve"
• SpaceShipTwo is 60% done.
• Similar construction and design to SS1
• Will carry six Passengers and two pilots; could carry 11, but Sir Richard only wants to sell window seats.
• Whole fuselage used for passenger cabin
• Reclining seats to max cabin space in zero g and re-entry.
• SpaceShipTwo can do 6Gs front to back, and 3.8Gs head to toe.
• Zero G WILL be out of seat. I hope they have tethers.
• WhiteKnightTwo can ferry SS2 coast to coast in the US.

• Hugging the WhiteKnightTwo is emotionally satisfying, but the hull tastes dusty.
• The port cabin is a mockup with painted windows.

[Giz at Virgin Galactic Launch]

The latest Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog of exotic gifts is offering the trip, which includes four nights of winding down apres spaceflight at Richard Branson's private retreat in the British Virgin Islands.

Someday in the not-too-distant future we'll laugh at this $1.76 million price tag, but for now, maybe we could get Neiman Marcus to donate a charter spaceflight as a Gizmodo contest prize. But then, some of our commenters don't have to be in space to be weightless. No, no, I'm not talking about you. Commenters, what should it take to win the trip? – Charlie White

Niemann Marcus Christmas Book [Niemann Marcus, via CNN Money]

Here's a video from the event, including Virgin's video simulation, an interview with the VP of Virgin Galactic marketing and some shots of the cabin interior. There's a pretty strong emo feel to it all, so make sure you watch it with the blinds wide and the windows shining with sunlight. – Mark Wilson
Thanks Nathan!

People With Ideas

This morning, Sir Richard Branson will unveil the first mock ups ever seen of SpaceShipTwo's interior cabin. The layout: two pilots and 6 very rich space tourists/astronauts. Mockups? We've got em here.

The cabin was designed by Seymour Powell, known for Baby-G Shock watches by Casio. The design of the six passenger seats is meant to recline completely to minimize G forces on the body, appropriately enough. And eject them into the room during weightlessness in orbit. The room looks...padded, like the rooms in an insane asylum. While they're floating, passengers can check out the view of earth and space through 15 oversized windows. And there's word of passengers being able to conduct scientific experiments through intrumentation and handheld wireless pods (whatever that means.) Take off will occur at Virgin Galactic's New Mexico HQ, with discussions of bases in the UK, Sweden, and Australia.

Flights will take 2.5 hours, reaching over 110km above Earth's surface, and each astronaut gets 3 days of flight prep included with their $200,000 payment. That price'll drop over time. Not soon enough for broke bloggers like Joel and I.–Brian Lam