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Victorian agent sells Virgin Galactic
Meridian Travel has been selected as the only Victorian travel agent accredited as a Space Agent for Virgin Galactic’s incredible space adventures.
Directors Kirsty Eccles & Jodie Quick contacted The Mole last week and provided some fascinating insights into this new wrld of travel.
Providing all goes to plan, the inaugural flight, carrying Richard Branson and his family, will launch toward the end of 2008 with commercial flights commencing shortly after this.
The State of New Mexico has committed around US$220 million to construct a purpose built spaceport. Construction will shortly begin and the spaceport should be fully operational in 2010/2011. It is called Spaceport America and will be Virgin Galactic’s world HQ.
SpaceShipTwo carries 6 passengers and one pilot.
The cabin is large with many windows allowing passengers to experience the full wonder of the views. During the zero-g phase they will be tethered to their seats but other than that free to float around the cabin to maximise their space experience.
They will complete 2-3 days of training. The whole flight takes 2 ½ hours.
WhiteKnightTwo will fly to around 50,000 feet (approximate cruising height of concorde) where she will release SpaceShipTwo (SS2). A few seconds later SS2 will fire her hybrid rocket engine and within 10 seconds will be travelling vertically out of the earth’s atmosphere at Mach 3 (3 times the speed of sound).
Once at an altitude of around 110 – 120 km she will turn off her rockets and passengers will be instantly weightless. They will enjoy this for 4 to 5 minutes.
The pilot will activate the wing feathering mechanism which creates drag and therefore allows a safe re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. At around 70,000 feet the wings will return to their original configuration and SS2 will glide back down to the spaceport for landing.
Original plans are for one flight a week quickly ramping up to twice daily.
Meridian Travel has been established for more than 25 years and are thrilled to be part of this amazing opportunity which will propel us into a new era of space tourism. Both Kirsty and Jodie look forward to growing with this new product and having their name associated with the Virgin Galactic brand.
For info contact [email protected]
Graham Muldoon
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