Filed under: Transportation

Hold onto your dollar bills, y’all — the WhiteKnightTwo is set to be unveiled (and swooned over) on Monday. We knew the fabled space tourism vehicle was set to be unwrapped this month, but knowing that said event is merely hours away just gets our juices flowin’. Richard Branson and “other dignitaries” are preparing to officially launch the ship at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California (a short drive from Zzyzx, we hear), and we’re still being led to believe that test flights should begin as early as this fall. Hey, at least you know what you’re doing next year if your ship comes in.

[Via The Register]

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Filed under: Transportation

It’s been just a few months since a test of an experimental motor for Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipTwo passenger space vehicles caused a deadly explosion at the company’s Mojave Desert facility, but we’re hearing whispers today that the craft will be unveiled on January 23rd, along with the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane. Testing of the six-person ship will apparently start in mid-2008, with the first commercial Virgin Galactic flight tentatively scheduled for the end of 2009. That seems hopelessly optimistic to us, but then again, we’re not ones to doubt the awesome combined powers of Burt Rutan and Richard Branson.

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