Page 43 - Space Plane News Today

Decades in the making. tell me, how do you feel? >> well, i managed to avoid getting excited for 17 years since we started building spaceships and mother ships and space ports and all these things. i finally got the call from our chief engineer saying every single box had been checked on the safety aspect and that would i like to go to space. and i hit the roof. i was so excited. >> reporter: the virgin galactic rocket powered space plane is set to take off sunday from new mexico. the mother shi...

Inequality. >> look at the new book about zuckerberg and facebook. teddy and nicholas, thank you both. about five to six minutes before the real action aboard unity 22, thats when the mother ship is going to let go of the actual space plane carrying richard branson and his fellow passengers. lets go to rachel crane, cnns space and innovation correspondent who has been covering this beat for years and knows it better than anybody. rachel, youve been waiting and looking to the sky. at this point t...

These things. and i finally got the call from chief engineer saying that every single box had been ticked on the safety aspect. and that i was -- um -- um -- would i like to go to space? and i hit -- i hit the roof, i was so excited. >> reporter: the virgin galactic rocket-powered space plane is set to take off tomorrow from new mexico. the mother ship will release the spaceship at around 40,000 feet. the rocket will ignite. and take branson, two pilots, and three others, on a 2,400-mile-per-hou...

Using it for mining or developing things on board, like for instance, commercial space station where we can do contact lenses or excuse me, corneal lenses for people and different -- all kinds of different things. pharmaceuticals that can be made so much better in space. >> so as you know, there were two women on board. we can see them in this video right here. they were on board bransons space plane today. this has long been a male-dominated field. are you encouraged to see more women traveling...

Rest of us. only a little over 500 people have ever experienced space travel, have gone to space at all. thats what theyre trying to achieve here, is to really open up the heavens, democratize space and this space flight of sir richard branson is a major milestone forward. its important to remember this is still a test flight. the company said they have two more additional ones before they start commercial operations in early 2022. thats when theyll spend the 600 passengers who have spent $200,0...

Performance. richard branson teasing he is making an exciting announcement upon landing. >> the spectacle over there where you are. in a few days, there will be another one of these from jeff bezos. theyre different in a lot of ways. can you walk us through a little bit of what is different about todays launch versus what we will see on july 20th? >> reporter: thats right. just looking at the two different vehicles, you see the difference. virgin galactic system, its a space plane. the new sheph...

Coming along for the ride veteran pilot and one-time nasao female astronaut candidate wally funk.st at 82, her first ride into space will make her the oldest person to go there. also flying, an anonymous person who bid $28 million for the trip. blue origin uses a rocket.gi virgin galactic uses a space plane with wings that unfold for landing. both plan to soon carry paying passengers.to branson and team have been practicing in a simulator. >> hello down there. >> youre not nervous? >> im not ner...

Rocket and a an airplane theyre calling it a space plane. howie: theres so many unique things that makes it so fascinating, beyond what you described as the battle of the billionaires. we should point out even though theres been success with this particular spacecraft, this is not without rifnlgt you talked -- without risk. you talked about somebody putting their billions of dollars where their mouth is. this is not a routine thing yet. they had to feel ready to launch. nasa does not regulate th...

And tomorrow, listen, this could happen. branson set to head to the edge of space on the supersonic space plane built by his company virgin galactic. and branson says he cannot wait. >> yeah, never been more excited in my life. and the wonderful team coming up with me are equally set. >> if all goes as plans, branson is going to become the first founder of a space company to get there in a vehicle that he helped to fund beating former amazon be ceo jeff bezos by nine days. cnns rachel crane is l...

Grand junction, they set their all-time record high temperature today -- or friday, i should say. theres the forecast for las vegas. 117 today. that, again, could tie or potentially break their all-time high temperature. we start talking about all-time high temperature records broken. you have to bring an asterisk to that because it doesnt happen often. this is on the backdrop of our drought conditions that are still ongoing. anywhere you see that dark shade of red, that is an exceptional drough...