VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACESHIP RELEASED IN TWO SCALES
SMN report: Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic seems to be on track to become the world's first commercial spaceline, with a passenger-carrying spaceship, the VSS Enterprise , carried by a twin-fuselage mothership, VMS Eve . Both vehicles were developed by California-based Scaled Composites, headed by the veteran designer Burt Rutan. Eventually there will be two motherships and five spaceships in the Virgin Galactic space fleet. Spaceport America And now that Spaceport America, Mojave, California, has been opened, the craft have an operating base. It’s the world’s first private spaceport, with a suitably futuristic terminal ( above ) designed by the internationally famous Foster + Partners. Voyage to the edge of space Actually, the word ‘spaceship’ is a slight exaggeration, for the Mach 3 craft are not designed to go into orbit, like the winged Space Shuttle Orbiters. Instead they will go just above the 100 km (61 miles) mark, a somewhat arbitrary height called the Karman...