Overview
- Serves as a go-to book and reference guide for suborbital space tourists, space scientists and those who want to know how one maverick company pulled off one of the most remarkable achievements in manned spaceflight
- Describes the medical and training requirements for those flying on board, the critical roles of the astronaut trainers (of whom the author is one), and the new breed of commercial space pilots
- Provides an insight into the companies supporting Virgin Galactic, including space training agencies such as NASTAR and rocket companies such as Sierra Nevada
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books (PRAXIS)
Part of the book sub series: Space Exploration (SPACEE)
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Thirty years ago when Sir Richard Branson called up Boeing and asked if they had a spare 747, few would have predicted the brash entrepreneur would so radically transform the placid business of air travel. But today, Branson flies airlines on six continents, employs hundreds of jets and, in 2014, was predicting that his spaceship company – Virgin Galactic – would soon open the space frontier to commercial astronauts, payload specialists, scientists and space tourists. With more than 600 seats sold at $250,000 each, what started off as a dream to send people just for the excitement to look back and marvel at Earth, was on the cusp of finally being turned into a business.
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Then, on October 21, 2014, tragedy struck. SpaceShipTwo was on its most ambitious test flight to date. Seconds after firing its engine, Virgin Galactic’s spaceship was breaking through the sound barrier. In just the three seconds that it took for the vehicle to climb from Mach 0.94 to Mach 1.02, co-pilot Mike Alsbury made what many close to the event believe was a fatal mistake that led to his death and the disintegration of SpaceShipTwo. Miraculously, the pilot, Peter Siebold, survived the 16-km fall back to Earth.
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Soon after the event Branson vowed to continue his space tourism venture in spite of this. Already a second SpaceShipTwo is being built, and ticket-holders eagerly await the day when Virgin Galactic offers quick, routine and affordable access to the edge of space. This book explains the hurdles Virgin Galactic had and still has to overcome en route to developing suborbital space travel as a profitable economic entity, and describes the missions that will be flown on board SpaceShipTwo Mk II, including high-altitude science studies, astronomy, life sciences, and microgravity physics.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Virgin Galactic
Book Subtitle: The First Ten Years
Authors: Erik Seedhouse
Series Title: Springer Praxis Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09262-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-09261-4Published: 19 March 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-09262-1Published: 23 February 2015
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 203
Number of Illustrations: 9 b/w illustrations, 76 illustrations in colour
Topics: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics, Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics), Popular Science in Astronomy