Space Travel
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Pilots May Fly Commercially to Space in 2014
I remember being a kid and watching Han Solo sitting in the Cantina scene on Tattoine, shortly after he fried Greedo (Han definitely shot first, by the way). I remember his co-pilot, Chewie, and the old man and annoying kid that he was set to transport to Alderaan—and I remember the ship. The Millenium Falcon,…
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Best Shots of Last Space Shuttle Discovery Fly-By
Today, Space shuttle Discovery departed NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the last time with an early-morning takeoff atop NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). The agency’s most-flown shuttle is on its way to Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. The SCA transporting Discovery took off from Kennedy…
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HD Video – Space Shuttle Launch Seen From SRB
In the past, we haven’t posted about space flight and the shuttle program because it doesn’t really fit into the commercial and military aviation topic, which is the main focus of Flightstory. But, just recently, an extraordinary video came up that shows spectacular footage from the Space Shuttle launch from point of view of the…
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Opening of Spaceport America
Today the first commercial spaceport in the world – Spaceport America – was opened by Sir Richard Branson and New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. Looking skyward, more than 800 guests marveled at Virgin Galactic’s commercial space vehicles as they soared through the skies of southern New Mexico during the dedication ceremonies of Virgin Galactic’s new…
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SpaceShipTwo First Feathered Re-Entry
Virgin Galactic today announced that SpaceShipTwo (SS2), the first commercial space ship, successfully demonstrated its unique reentry “feather” configuration for the first time. After a 45 minute climb SS2 was released from VMS Eve in 51,500 feet. The spacecraft established a stable glide profile before deploying, for the first time, its re-entry or “feathered” configuration…
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Virgin to Build Intercontinental Rocket Plane?
Virgin founder and one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of our time, Sir Richard Branson recently gave an interview to British magazine T3. Besides the talk about Virgin Galactic and that manned space flights with SpaceShipTwo might be just a few months away he mentioned another very interesting topic. As a next step after Virgin…
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Virgin Galactic to Send Researchers to Space
Virgin Galactic signed a contract with the Southwest Research Institute to fly scientists into space (over 100 kilometers or 328,000 feet above the Earth), enabling valuable microgravity, biology, climate and astronomy research. This is the first such agreement ever! As part of the contract, SwRI has made full deposits for two researchers to fly on…