Virgin unveils spaceship designs

Virgin Galactic had final released the concept and design of a launch system that could take fare-paying passengers to space. Based on the award-winning concept of SpaceShipOne, Virgin introduces the SpaceShipTwo concept.

According to BBC News, the new concept is merely a refinement of SpaceShipOne, but its size has been increased to take 8 people at one time on a sub-orbital trip, starting in 2010. Sir Richard Branson has said that space business has huge potentia.

I think it's very important that we make a genuine commercial success of this project. If we do, I believe we'll unlock a wall of private sector money into both space launch systems and space technology. This could rival the scale of investment in the mobile phone and internet technologies after they were unlocked from their military origins and thrown open to the private sector.

Virgin Galactic has put together a contract with innovative aerospace designer Burt Rutan in building the spaceliners. White Knight Two, the carrier holding the spaceliner, has said that the SpaceShipTwp is nearly complete and will start flight-testing late this year. According to Virgin Galactic, SpaceShipTwo is about 60% complete.