Virgin Galactic reveals SpaceShipTwo

The press has been full this week with talk about Richard Branson's unveiling of a mockup of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.



Space.com gave more details about the flight:

“The air-launched SpaceShipTwo is designed to seat eight people – six passengers and two pilots – and be hauled into launch position by WhiteKnightTwo, a massive carrier craft currently under construction by Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn said.

For an initial ticket price of $200,000, Virgin Galactic passengers will buy a 2.5-hour flight aboard SpaceShipTwo and launch from an altitude of about 60,000 feet (18,288 meters), while buckled safely in seats that recline flat after reaching suborbital space. A flight animation depicted passengers clad in their own personal spacesuits as they reached a maximum altitude of at least 68 miles (110 kilometers).”

Here is the flight animation they mention, the experience looks like fun - but you would get more zero-G time on the Zero-G Flight by Space Adventures:
Bottom-line? This is a great first step for regular space tourism, and will allow Virgin Galactic and their partners to put in place the infrastructure necessary to support it - but it's a whole way below the orbit of likely early tourist destinations. SpaceShipTwo will take you to just over 11 miles, which is roughly twice 68 miles, which is roughly ten times what the commercial airliner is shown at in the image below:

Bigelow Aerospace is planning on orbiting at around 350 miles - a whole lot further out!

[Update: Gizmodo have a video of the event.]
[Update 2: Someone kindly pointed out that I had misread the bit I quoted - must be the sleep deprivation - you start the flight at 11 miles, however the actual max height is still well below what is needed.]