Spaceport America – the first private spaceport

Very soon, anyone (who has a certain amount of money, of course) will be able to go even in the Middle, but in space. Since the first private spaceport, Spaceport America, created by corporation  Virgin Galactic, has already opened.

 

The author of the project of building itself is Norman Foster, the most famous architect of our days. Spaceport has an area of ??11 thousand square meters. Here will settle down administration of the building space and space travel, as well as a hangar, a two-class spacecraft White Knight Two, and two ships of the class SpaceShipTwo.

As expected, the first passenger flight on these ships will be carried out at the end of 2012. But there already are four hundred people who paid 200,000 $ for the right to make a suborbital flight.

In addition to providing space tourists the opportunity to commit suborbital flights, Virgin Galactic plans to carry out another audacious project. It will be based in Spaceport America. At least for the first time.

This project involves high-speed transcontinental passenger flights. Its main goal – flight between London and Sydney (17 000 miles) in just four hours. To achieve this goal will be used the same technique as for suborbital flights. Carrier aircraft White Knight Two lifts shuttle SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 15 kilometers above the ground, then releases it, and it has itself raised to a height of 100-110 km, where the flies at a speed of 4,000 kilometers per hour.