To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39169798,00.htm

Photos: Virgin goes Galactic for SpaceShipTwo
…a $200,000 price tag on zero gravity

By CNET News.com staff

Published: Thursday 24 January 2008

Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson (left) and Scaled Composites CEO Burt Rutan show off the final design for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo at New York's American Museum of Natural History.

Members of the press, as well as special guests and about 100 of the 200 travellers who have reserved $200,000 seats aboard the craft - which aims to be the first commercial suborbital spacecraft for the private sector - were present for the unveiling of the design.

Construction of the actual SpaceShipTwo is nearly 60 per cent complete. Virgin Galactic hopes it will make its first flight in 2009. Final images and mock-ups have changed quite a bit from older designs, like these from 2006.

Photo credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com