Virgin Galactic Unveils Its First Spacecraft Since Deadly 2014 Crash

Friday, Virgin Galactic unveiled its new spaceship to replace the one that crashed during testing a year and a half ago.

Some 700 customers – including Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, and Stephen Hawking – are believed to have signed up to experience a flight to suborbital space, about 62 miles above the surface of the Earth, to enjoy several minutes of weightlessness before coming back to Earth.

It will cost a rather pricey 250,000 USA dollars but it is a trip which is the stuff of childhood dreams offering a chance to take thrill-seekers into space.

Testing on the SpaceShipTwo, which Branson said was constructed by a team of 650 engineers, will begin with the electrical system and moving parts, followed by flights attached to the WhiteKnightTwo mothership before progressing to glide testing.

On Thursday, the company said that because of the crash, the new spaceship will not “blast off and head straight to space” anytime soon.

During the ill fated accident, the pieces for the second spaceship were over 75% complete, which could be the reason that Virgin Galactic’s investors intend to see the program all the way through to the end.

Virgin Galactic is getting ready to fly again.

It was never meant for carrying customers. The first spaceship had not yet travelled beyond the atmosphere.

Virgin Galactic’s past is nothing short of misadventures.

The first SpaceShipTwo – named Enterprise and unveiled in 2009 – disintegrated above the Mojave Desert during a test flight on October 31, 2014, killing one pilot and leaving another hospitalized with serious injuries.

Sir Richard told Sky News the next step would be to build hotels in space, where people could stay for “a couple of weeks”.

The company says they based the new ship off the design of the previous one to “benefit from incredibly useful data from 55 successful test flights as well as the brutal but important lessons from one tragic flight test accident”.

He added: “Nasa had issues in its time, it is part of the process of trying to achieve things that we have not before”. But after years of delays, and the fatal accident, Virgin Galactic is faced with the delicate balance of promoting its newest spacecraft, and the once unthinkable prospect of routine space travel, against the dangers and difficulties inherent in that endeavor.

The company still hasn’t said when it plans to take tourists up into space, though the first tickets have already been sold.

The company will now perform systems verification on the new spaceplane, followed by ground and flight tests in Mojave and its future home in Spaceport America, N.M. In a press release, Virgin Galactic said that it has already started work on the next SpaceShipTwo.