Future
Virgin Galactic aims to become the world's first commercial space line. The test-flight program is expected to continue through 2011, and future tests will focus on rocket motor testing and powered flights. Eventually, the rocket plane will be taken 60,000 feet above the Earth by its carrier and fire rockets to propel itself into space. A total of 370 customers have already placed a deposit (totaling $50 million) for a place on the flight, and about 80,000 people have placed their names on the waiting list. The trip will cost about US$200,000, and passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness during the suborbital flight.
The passenger-carrying commercial launches will initially occur at Virgin Galactic's launch pad at Spaceport America, near Upham, New Mexico.
Read more about this topic: VSS Enterprise
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“For a parent, it’s hard to recognize the significance of your work when you’re immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run the bath water or spread the peanut butter on the bread, proclaim proudly, “I’m making my contribution to the future of the planet.” But with the exception of global hunger, few jobs in the world of paychecks and promotions compare in significance to the job of parent.”
—Joyce Maynard (20th century)
“complaint of present days
Is not the certain path to future praise.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Our system of government, in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, CIA, Watergate, is still the best system of government on earth. And the greatest resource of all are the 215 million Americans who still have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)