Richard Branson to unveil Virgin Galactic Space Liner

Virgin Galactic readies for Monday's unveiling of SpaceShipTwo — the first-class space tourist's wonder machine at the core of the space tourism firm's suborbital fleet. Image Credit: Scaled Composites/Bill DeaverThe Virgin Galactic Space Liner, originally conceived and built by aerospace visionary Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to secure the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004, will be uveiled today at the Mojave Air and Space Port in the California desert.

Richard Branson to unveil Virgin Galactic Space Liner

It is fitting that with all of the unveilings of transportation craft at the LA Auto Show last week for display to the public through December 13, 2009, Richard Branson decided to unveil Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo — the first-class space tourist's wonder machine at the core of the space tourism firm's suborbital fleet.

Branson's Virgin Galactic is establishing its headquarters to operate private space flights from Spaceport America, billed as the world's first "purpose built" commercial spaceport, which is now under construction outside Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Branson, who also owns Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. and Virgin Trains, sold a 32 percent stake in Virgin Galactic to Aabar Investments PJSC of Abu Dhabi in July, raising $280 million. The purchase valued the venture at $900 million.

Virgin Galactic is unveiling the SpaceShipTwo, the company's first commercial spacecraft - and tourists are alredy lining up for out of this world vacations. Image Credit: Virgin Galactic

This excerpted and edited from Bloomberg -

Branson Collects $42 Million From Would-Be Astronauts
By Steve Rothwell - Bloomberg - December 7, 2009

U.K. billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Ltd. venture is riding out the recession, with would-be astronauts paying $42 million to book a trip to the edge of space, its chief executive officer said.

Virgin Galactic added $4 million in deposits in the past nine months, CEO Will Whitehorn said in an interview. Fees range from a minimum $20,000 to the full $200,000 fare, with singer Sarah Brightman, physicist Stephen Hawking and X-Men director Bryan Singer among more than 300 clients to sign up. Virgin aims to sell at least 700 tickets by the first commercial launch.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will unveil Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo model at a test site in the Mojave Desert today, with the first commercial flight scheduled to take place from Spaceport America, New Mexico, in the next couple of years. A handful of lost contracts included one from a client who invested money through swindler Bernard Madoff, Whitehorn said.

Virgin’s prototype SpaceShipOne flew to the edge of space three times in 2004. SpaceShipTwo will be taken to 50,000 feet by the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, from where it will fire its own rocket motor and climb to 360,000 feet (110 kilometers). The craft is designed to carry two pilots and six passengers who will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the earth during a six-minute suborbital flight

Virgin Galactic has commissioned three carrier planes and five spaceships from Spaceship Co., its venture with Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Scaled Composites unit. The company was set up so that in future it can take orders from other customers.

“It’s creating a lot of interest and they must believe the technology is ready to roll,” said Professor George Fraser, director of the Space Research Centre at Leicester University, England. “But 700 bookings is only 100 flights, and I suspect this is the sort of thing people will do once and just be happy to be back on the ground safe.”

Fraser said the use of the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft as a platform from which to launch a more powerful rocket able to achieve full earth orbit might have more potential in the longer term. The technology would allow much more affordable deployment of mini satellites weighing tens of kilograms, he said.

“The main challenge, as with any new aircraft, will be to get through the tests with the regulators,” said Pat Norris, Chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Space Group, by telephone. “It’s hard to tell what might go wrong.”
Reference Here>>

Virgin Galactic has spent about $200 million on the project out of a budget of $450 million.

Slideshow of unveiling here (breaking, when available)

... notes from The EDJE

The Wizard Of OZ - F1 Qualifying In Australia

Jenson Button took his first pole position in three years at the Australian Grand Prix, as Brawn GP utterly dominated qualifying on its debut. Image Credit: BBC

The Wizard Of OZ - F1 Qualifying In Australia

World famous British businessman, Richard Branson, stepped up and threw his sponsorship muscle behind one of the more promising F1 ventures to come along in this era of slick tires and modified areodynamics.

Virgin Group has become the first major sponsor of the Formula 1, Mercedes-powered, Brawn GP team. It is not a title sponsorship deal and the team's official name will remain unchanged for now.

Branson, who had been linked with a takeover of the former Honda team recently, said that moves to cut costs in the sport and a push by the American Gevo company, in which Virgin is investing, to come up with a clean fuel for the sport were contributing reasons for his decision to jump into F1 team sponsorship.

"I am very, very excited to be here today," said Branson, who had flown direct from London after agreeing the deal. "A few weeks ago I said that there were two preconditions for us to get involved with F1.

One was that the costs of F1 should come down. It was just too expensive to get enough new entrants into the sport, and the second one was that F1 should be spear-heading a clean-fuel revolution.", said Bransom at the announcement ceremony at Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

Branson's pledge of sponsorship support was soon rewarded, in that, the two drivers that pilot the Mercedes-powered Brawn GP machines placed the cars in P1 and P2 during qualifying for the OZ Grand Prix event to be run tomorrow.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello confirmed the pace showed previously in testing, with the Briton, Button securing pole position ahead of the Brazilian, Barrichello ... and with rival teams admitting Brawn GP's cars were simply out of reach.

The Brawn team raced as Honda last season but secured their survival with Mercedes engines only at the beginning of this month following Honda's decision to quit F1 because of the global financial crisis. From Saturday, the Virgin logo was added to the previously unbranded white cars - and a new colour scheme will be unveiled at next weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix. Image Credit: BBC

This excerpted and edited from autosport.com -

Button leads all-Brawn front row in Oz
By Matt Beer, autosport.com - Saturday, March 28th 2009, 07:03 GMT

Jenson Button took his first pole position in three years at the Australian Grand Prix, as Brawn GP utterly dominated qualifying on its debut.

Rubens Barrichello led Button in a Brawn one-two in both Q1 and Q2, with a clear margin over their rivals in each session.

But in the pole position shoot-out it was Button who emerged on top, beating Barrichello to first place by 0.305 seconds.

Button had taken provisional pole by half a second on his first run, before being briefly deposed by his teammate, but he was able to redress the balance moments later.

Although Brawn GP is effectively a renamed Honda operation, it is officially classed as a new team - which makes today's result the first time a new entrant has taken pole for its debut since the factory Mercedes-Benz team in the 1954 French GP.

The grid line-up was strikingly different to the previous season's form, with Red Bull and Williams among Brawn's main rivals, Ferrari near the foot of the top ten, and the McLarens 14th and 15th.
Reference Here>>

How the field sets up after penalties (the two Toyota cars that originally placed P6-Glock and P8-Trulli, will have to start from the back of the grid for having rear wing elements that were too flexible)

Melbourne results (BBC) -

Final Qualifying
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Position Country Driver Car number Team Qualifying time
1 great britain Jenson Button 22 Brawn-Mercedes 1:26.202
2 brazil Rubens Barrichello 23 Brawn-Mercedes 1:26.505
3 germany Sebastian Vettel 15 Red Bull-Renault 1:26.830
4 poland Robert Kubica 5 BMW Sauber 1:26.914
5 germany Nico Rosberg 16 Williams-Toyota 1:26.973
6 brazil Felipe Massa 3 Ferrari 1:27.033
7 finland Kimi Raikkonen 4 Ferrari 1:27.163
8 australia Mark Webber 14 Red Bull-Renault 1:27.246
9 germany Nick Heidfeld 6 BMW Sauber 1:25.504
10 spain Fernando Alonso 7 Renault 1:25.605
11 japan Kazuki Nakajima 17 Williams-Toyota 1:25.607
12 finland Heikki Kovalainen 2 McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.726
13 switzerland Sebastien Buemi 12 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.503
14 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr 8 Renault 1:26.598
15 italy Giancarlo Fisichella 21 Force India-Mercedes 1:26.677
16 germany Adrian Sutil 20 Force India-Mercedes 1:26.742
17 france Sebastien Bourdais 11 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:26.964
18 great britain Lewis Hamilton 1 McLaren-Mercedes
19 germany Timo Glock 10 Toyota
20 italy Jarno Trulli 9 Toyota

After this qualifying performance from Brawn GP, backed by the Virgin Group's timely sponsorship ... Richard Branson can now be called, for the moment, the Wizard of OZ.

... notes from The EDJE