Written on July 29, 2008 – 7:24 am | by Bogdan Alex |

Ever since astronauts got to fly into space, many earthlings started dreaming of flying around in 0 gravity and see the Earth from outer space, and eventually get to other planets. The first two “dreams” are already possible and one provider of private space flights is Virgin Galactic.

Space pioneers Richard Branson and Burt Rutan presented earlier this year the WhiteKnightTwo which is the aircraft that will launch SpaceShipTwo into suborbital space. Yesterday, in the Mojave desert north of Los Angeles, the two designers got to test the top-secret aircraft, which will first serve as a flight simulator next month for select pilots who will learn to launch private citizens into space. The WhiteKnightTwo has a 140-foot wingspan and should be ready for flight testing at the end of September.

DVice informs that SpaceShipTwo is the vessel in which the first group of space tourists will ride. The attached vessel will first be carried to 50,000 feet by WhiteKnightTwo before it blasts into space on its own. The smaller private-jet-sized six-passenger/two pilot craft is only70% complete thus far, but it would be ready for a test flight later this year.

WhiteKnightTwo is said to be entirely constructed out of carbon fiber composite. Virgin Galactic claims that the first commercial flights will occur some time in late 2009 or early 2010, with the first passengers being Richard Branson and his family. The 2.5-hour space flight is scheduled to include five minutes of weightlessness before the ship reenters the Earth. The estimated cost per passenger is around $200,000.