Word: branson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Most of Branson's competitors are intent on rocketing right off the launchpad. But Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo flies in lazy circles up to 50,000 ft.--spy-plane territory--attached to a huge turbojet launch plane. Then SpaceShipTwo drops away and rockets off into space at 3,500 m.p.h. on its laughing-gas engine. Aboard the spaceship the two pilots will cut the rockets and the ship will coast up to 80 miles, well outside the atmosphere. For 4 min., the six passengers (now astronauts!) can unstrap and float weightless around the cabin. Earth will look like a shiny...
...former Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, won the $10 million Ansari X Prize (sponsored by a foundation seeking radical breakthroughs in space travel) that year and removed, once and for all, what Carmack calls the "giggle factor" in private spaceflight. "This is real. We're not dreaming anymore," Branson says, all signs of his Necker Island playfulness gone. "You could argue," he says, taking a swipe at NASA, "that we've wasted 50 years...
...Rutan formed the Spaceship Company--a Boeing for the new space age--with Virgin placing orders for the first 12 ships. Branson is betting $250 million just to get Virgin Galactic started. Rutan plans to build at least 40 spaceships and expects to be run ragged by other clients. "I know this is an interim step," says Rutan, 63. "Fifteen years from now, every kid will know he can go to orbit in his lifetime...
...Necker Island, Branson gathered some of the Founders to meet Rutan and chat about spaceship design, safety issues and preparation possibilities for the G-forces and sensory overload of a first-time astronaut--like how to puke in space. They debated who would be the first paying customers. The hedge-fund honcho from California? The Internet couple from England? The hot German babe in the bikini? Or the guy from New Zealand who changed his family name to Rocket? Physicist Stephen Hawking, who believes that mankind must colonize space, sent word that he wants in--which would allow...
...will all end up. "I have a hunch that the most important reason we're going to space is not known now," says Rutan, who also points to similarities with the early computer industry, which evolved from the Army's need to improve its ballistics calculations. He and Branson have 100 engineers looking at new technology for both orbital and suborbital flights as well as lunar flybys in a "glass bubble." On Necker, the two men pored over ideas for a plane that would fly orbitally, cutting flying time between New York City and London to 20 min. once...