Virgin Galactic has announced plans to send its first customers to space later this year.
When you’re in the space tourism business, spacious windows are essential. As well as vast “floating zones for astronauts” associated with a multitude of cameras to feed his accounts on the social networks – to better impress his friends.
Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc has all of that covered in the cabin of its VSS Unity, which it unveiled on Tuesday in a virtual media tour designed to evoke the same high-end aesthetic that Virgin Group has pursued for its commercial airlines, its airport lounges, hotels and scheduled cruise line.
Virgin Galactic calls its spaceship cabin the “centerpiece” of the experience it sells for those who can afford tickets that cost over $ 250,000. The interior space provides each guest with “distraction-free security, quietly absorbing periods of sensory intensity, and providing each astronaut with a level of privacy necessary for personal discovery and transformation.”
The company has announced plans to send its first customers to space later this year. Prior to this milestone, Virgin Galactic last week installed a Walt Disney Co customer experience veteran as the new CEO and has gradually stepped up its marketing efforts to present space walks as the ultimate travel for people. rich adventure seekers.
“When we created Virgin Galactic, we started with what we thought was the best customer experience, and then we built the spacecraft around it,” said British entrepreneur and Virgin founder Richard Branson.
Richard Branson with a model of the LauncherOne rocket from the window of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo.
The VSS Unity reaches space not from a launch pad, but from a larger aircraft.
At 45,000 feet or above, the transport aircraft releases the spacecraft, which then ignites its rocket engine, propelling its two pilots and six passengers to an altitude of more than 68 miles above Earth, which , according to NASA, is technically “space”.
The long journey to commercial flight dates back to 2004, when Branson founded Virgin Galactic. Arguably the pioneer in the field, his dream suffered a fatal setback in October 2014, when a test pilot was killed on a flight in California. The tragedy influenced major redesign work over the next six years. But financial struggles would follow.
In 2018, Branson rejected a billion dollar investment proposal from Saudi Arabia after the murder of U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the kingdom. Instead, Branson decided to take the company public through a merger in 2019 with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based special purpose acquisition or “blank check” company, which took a 49% stake.
Virgin Galactic plans to pilot five spacecraft in the coming years and expand internationally. But Branson isn’t the only space billionaire who dreams of creating a thriving space tourism industry.
Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos, the World’s Richest Person, Founded Blue Origin to Help Develop Private Space Exploration; and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp is building a massive spacecraft in South Texas to transport astronauts to the Moon and, eventually, potential colonizers to Mars.
Virgin Galactic is also planning to rely heavily on mood lighting, a feature that UK-based Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd has pioneered on its long-haul flights. At times, all the lights will be off.
The cabin of the VSS Unity has a dozen windows to provide plenty of views of Earth, as well as 16 cameras to capture both video and stills as memories. The backrest screens provide flight data and a communications system allowing passenger astronauts to speak with the pilots up front.
These pilots will be able to recline the passenger seats to help them better manage the forces of gravity, which can reach four times those of the Earth’s surface, during ascent and re-entry. This movement “also frees up space in the cabin to maximize an area of unrestricted astronaut float in zero gravity,” the company said.
“At the peak of the experience, as Earth comes into view against the black sky of space, all lights go out, bringing instant focus to the deeply beautiful sight,” Virgin Galactic said.
The depth, however, will be quite brief. Guests will experience 10 to 15 minutes of weightlessness during the 30-minute flight before the ship flies back to southern New Mexico.
But there will be champagne and hors d’oeuvres waiting for them on their return.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
