Construction On Spaceship Factory Set To Begin In the Mojave
 

A production facility that would build the world's first fleet of commercial spaceships is set to begin construction on Tuesday at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

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The 6317 sq metres (68,000 sq feet) facility, one of the first aircraft assembly plants to be built in the region in decades, will be home to The Spaceship Co, or TSC - a joint venture owned by Mojave-based Scaled Composites and British billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

TSC hopes to complete the complex by September. It expects to build three White Knight aircraft, which resemble massive flying catamarans because each has two fuselages, and five smaller SpaceShipTwo rocket planes.

They would be used this way: A rocket plane with six passengers on board, attached to the wings of a White Knight mother ship, would be flown to 50,000 feet (15,240m), where it would be released. Then the rocket engine would ignite and propel the plane into sub-orbit.

TSC expects to employ up to 170 people when production is in full swing. It has begun posting job openings on its website for engineers and technicians.

Virgin Galactic, which says it has taken reservations and deposits from more than 380 people, hopes to make its first passenger flight next year from the yet-to-be-finished Spaceport America in New Mexico.

The craft is to climb to the edge of space, about 60 miles (96.54 km) above the Earth's surface. At that sub-orbital altitude, passengers experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The price for the experience: $US200,000 ($A197,882).

The White Knight carrier plane and the SpaceShipTwo rocket ship are in the midst of a test-flight program in Mojave. The idea was developed by Burt Rutan, a pioneering aerospace engineer who founded Scaled Composites. Last week, Rutan announced that he plans to retire in April.

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I really hope this takes off, given the situation currently with NASA and the government no longer funding it.

At 200k/per, I wonder how many trips they have to make to get a return on their investment. Interesting.

This is the first implementation of commercial space travel. From what i've heard rumors about, Virgin Galactic has plans to expand the types of travel, and eventually want to propel people to the moon and beyond. etc.

No clue on the initial return on the investment though.

Is this that thing about the space hotel, or whatever? It's definately an advancement. It would have to be horribly expensive.
In the next 100 to 50 years, it would be as cheep as airplanes are now, and as common as they are, too. If all goes well, that is. It's definately a step forward, and if we make that step turn into a walk, we'll eventually be able to run.

Yes, sort of. I'm pretty sure the company Virgin Galactic announced a few years ago that they had intent on forming a sort of "space hotel" and then possibly further down the road a "moon hotel", but for now, they're just going to focus on getting civilians into space.

I'm all down for a Bio-dome on the moon. I wonder when we'll be able to purchase land on the moon?

It'd be a great chance to make our rebellion work, too. Get all the members to be of the first few, then when the government shows up, we ambush them with moon bombs!