Space.com has a report from Wired Nextfest in NYC where they’ve plonked down with Dickie B to discuss his new space tourism service, Virgin Galactic.
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).
Check the site for other great images.
SPACE.com — Virgin Galactic Unveils SpaceShipTwo Interior Concept
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I saw the video this morning from another source and was pretty blown away. There’s something so visceral about the idea of blasting up into the sky that can transcend even the limitations of cheap CGI.
The Phillipe Starck designed interior was interesting. It really brought to mind the images of space travel from the 1960’s, an antiseptic future with meals in a pill and no straight edges or corners for unsightly dirt to settle in. It was a kind of ‘better than human’ ideology, a civilisation of intellect and lesiure without messy things such as emotions or bodily functions getting in the way of our advancement.
And now that people are finally offering space tourism, this 1960s pop futurism (which in the 21st centruy is quite retro and not forward looking) is the style that is being utilised. I reckon that if somebody from that time was suddenly catapulted into today that would look at the design of the SpaceShipTwo and think that the people in the ’60s had accurately forecasted the future. The truth seems to be that they actually created it.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:43 am
Do u design passenger bus interriors
October 21st, 2008 at 6:09 am