Hello world, Ken Baxter here with big news!
Today, history was made in the middle of the New Mexico desert when the visionary with a dreamto make space travel accessible for everyone, Sir Richard Branson, rode his rocket into the stratosphere. Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity achieved a speed of Mach 3 after being released from the mothership, VMS Eve. The vehicle reached space, at an altitude of 53.5 miles, before gliding smoothly to a runway landing at Spaceport America.
In an official release from Virgin Galactic – “Today’s flight was the 22nd test flight of VSS Unity and the first test flight with a full crew in the cabin, including the Company’s founder, Sir Richard Branson. The crew fulfilled a number of test objectives related to the cabin and customer experience, including evaluating the commercial customer cabin, the views of Earth from space, the conditions for conducting research and the effectiveness of the five-day pre-flight training program at Spaceport America.”
You may have noticed that Sir Richard does everything really big and this was no exception. As cool as can be, Sir Richard cycled his way to the launchpad this morning for an experience of a lifetime. A worldwide live stream of the launch made the momentous occasion accessible no matter what corner of the world you were in. The launch, delayed about 1.5 hours went off into to brilliant blue skies without a hitch. There were some issues with the live stream signal of the the takeoff of the mothership, VMS Eve with VSS Unity and have included footage in the video below.
“I have dreamt about this moment since I was a child, but nothing could have prepared me for the view of Earth from space. We are at the vanguard of a new space age. As Virgin’s founder, I was honoured to test the incredible customer experience as part of this remarkable crew of mission specialists and now astronauts. I can’t wait to share this experience with aspiring astronauts around the world.”
After achieving the test objectives today Virgin Galactic expects to begin regular passenger flights by next year. It will finally be time for my dream to come true!
If you would like to discuss I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or contact me directly at rocketman@kenbaxter.com
Thank you again for visiting my blog – Ken Baxter the Rocketman of Las Vegas!
