Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity reaches 170,000ft

Via mashable.com by Miriam Kramer

Getting a glimpse of Earth against the blackness of space is a transformative moment. Astronauts often say that seeing our blue planet as it appears from the void gives them a new sense of clarity when it comes to our world, humanity, and even environmentalism. It looks like at least one Virgin Galactic pilot got a taste of that "overview effect" during a test flight of the company's SpaceShipTwo on Thursday.

"Dark sky, blue glow, totally amazing; a million dollar view," Virgin Galactic pilot Michael Masucci said during the flight, which brought him and co-pilot Dave Mackay up 52 kilometers above the Earth.

The Thursday test marks the third rocket-powered test flight of the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity craft, the second ship of its kind built after the first crashed in a fatal accident in 2014.


For this flight, the VSS Unity hit Mach 2.4, and flew higher than it ever has before.

"Having been a U2 pilot and done a lot of high altitude work, or what I thought was high altitude work, the view from 170,000 feet was just totally amazing," Masucci said in a statement.

"The flight was exciting and, frankly, beautiful. We were able to complete a large number of test points which will give us good insight as we progress to our goal of commercial service."

That goal could be met within the next couple of years, when Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic's founder, flies as a passenger on the first commercial flight of the VSS Unity.

That said, there's still a ways to go before the VSS Unity flies its first paying customers.

While 52 kilometers up is quite the height, it's still only about halfway to what is broadly defined as "space" — which is thought to begin at about 100 kilometers.

When Virgin Galactic does begin to fly its full flight profile, the plan is for it to take its customers to the very edge of space before bringing them back home.

During that flight, passengers will see Earth against black space and feel minutes of weightlessness from suborbital space.

At the moment, Virgin Galactic has sold about 700 tickets to fly at about $250,000 per seat.

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