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Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo Will Take to the Air Later this Year

by Joshua Fruhlinger on June 10, 2008 at 05:16 PM


While much of the attention surrounding Virgin Galactic's race to space tourism has surrounded its SpaceShipTwo, word has come that carrier ship WhiteKnightTwo will rollout in late July, and after some ground tests, take to the skies by September.

With this rollout come some new details about the composite, twin-boom mothership, which Virgin Galactic is selling as an "open architecture" that it is clearly open to pimping for other applications. Says Prez Will Whitehorn, "WhiteKnightTwo is the world's most advanced payload carrier (a plane from which another vehicle/vessel takes off). It has the best fuel efficiency of any aircraft ever built in history. It is the world's first 100% carbon composite aircraft." Virgin Galactic is even looking into using WhiteKnightTwo as a forest fire water bomber with its payload capacity.

Nonetheless, we care because the giant ship that will carry rich people to space at $200,000 a pop is going to be flying by September. Press passes please? [Source: USAToday]

Tags: future tech, FutureTech, space travel, SpaceTravel, virgin galactic, VirginGalactic

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