With his usual flair, British billionaire Richard Branson rappelled from a balcony, shook up a big bottle of champagne and took a swig while christening the world’s first built-from-scratch commercial spaceport on Monday.
Branson’s Virgin Galactic will stage its commercial space tourism venture from Spaceport America in a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico.
Branson was joined by New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin and scores of would-be space travelers at the terminal-hangar for the dedication. It had been nearly a year since Branson was in New Mexico to celebrate the completion of the runway.
Photo: AFP
“The building is absolutely magnificent,” he said. “It is literally out of this world and that’s what we were aiming at creating.”
With the spaceport and mothership completed, the company is now finalizing its rocket tests.
“We’re ticking the final boxes on the way to space,” Branson said.
He hopes enough powered test flights of Virgin Galactic’s sleek spacecraft can be done by the end of next year to start commercial suborbital flights from the spaceport soon after.
More than 450 people have purchased tickets to fly with Virgin Galactic. About 150 of them attended the ceremony.
Before getting to enter the hangar, the crowd was treated to a flyover by WhiteKnightTwo, which will one day will help take space tourists on suborbital flights.
The taxpayer-financed US$209 million spaceport will be a launch station for people and payloads on the rocket ships being developed for Virgin Galactic.
With custom metal paneling and massive panes of glass, the state-of-the-art terminal rises from the desert floor to face the nearly 3.2km concrete runway.
The building will house Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft, mission control and a preparation area for travelers.
It was six years ago that Virgin Galactic and New Mexico officials reached an agreement to build the spaceport. Officials said the completion of the terminal and hangar marks another major milestone that brings the dream of rocketing tourists into space closer to reality.
Still, the question many are asking is when the first ships will launch from Spaceport America. It was Branson who once predicted the maiden passenger flight would take off in 2007.
Branson acknowledged the wait in an interview on Monday. He and his two children will be among the first to fly, and he said he wants to ensure he can bring them home safely.
“We want to be sure we’ve really tested the craft through and through before turning it over to the astronauts who bought tickets to go up,” he said. “If it takes a bit longer, we’ll take a little bit longer.”
Commercial service will start up after the company gets a license from the US Federal Aviation Administration. NASA has already signed a US$4.5 million contract with the company for up to three chartered research flights.
Tickets for rides aboard WhiteKnightTwo cost US$200,000. The two-and-a-half-hour flights will include about five minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth that until now only astronauts have been able to experience.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number