Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic unveils new spacecraft ‘Unity’

MOJAVE, February 20: Calif.-Sir Richard Branson knows how to throw a party. And he made sure that the unveiling of his new spacecraft was feted appropriately in a massive hangar here Friday, with pumping music, swirling lights and, of course, champagne.
The ceremony included lofty rhetoric about making space travel accessible to the masses, and the appearance of Star Wars’ Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, sitting in a front-row seat. But there was also a somber tone. The introduction of the new SpaceShipTwo, christened Unity by Branson’s granddaughter’s milk bottle, came 16 months after its predecessor came apart during a test flight in 2014, killing the co-pilot.
Branson started his speech by saying that his employees “picked themselves up at the end of 2014. They redoubled their efforts and they remain absolutely committed to our shared goal.”
That would be to “make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamt of before now,” he said. “And by doing that we can truly bring positive change to life on Earth.”
In an effort to manage expectations and assure potential customers that it was moving deliberately and making safety paramount, Virgin Galactic released a statement the day before the event warning: “If you are expecting SpaceShipTwo to blast off and head straight to space on the day we unveil her, let us disillusion you now: this will be a ground-based celebration.”
First, the new spacecraft would need to go through a series of rigorous tests, the company said. Even before the vehicle was assembled, the company laid out in detail how it “poked, prodded, stretched, squeezed, bent and twisted everything to be used to build these vehicles.”
Once the ground testing is done, it would begin flight testing. Unlike rockets that launch vertically, Unity would be mounted to the belly of a massive mother ship, known as WhiteKnightTwo, an airplane that would fly to more than 40,000 feet. Once aloft, it would drop the spacecraft, which would ignite its engines and fly past the edge of space, where passengers would experience weightlessness and see the Earth from more than 100 km, generally considered the threshold of space.
In a recorded statement played at the event, professor Stephen Hawking said that he has “always dreamed of space flight. But for so many years I though it was just that- a dream. Confined to earth and in a wheelchair, how could I experience the majesty of space except through imagination and my work in theoretical physics?”
He said years ago Branson offered to give him a ride to space, and added that, “I would be very proud to fly in this spaceship.”
Virgin is one of several companies that are working to opening up access to space. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin also plans to fly tourists to space. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) XCOR, which is building a suborbital spacecraft that would be able to fly three or four times a day, also hopes to soon fly paying customers past the edge of space.