Wired Magazine’s NextFest is taking place in NYC this week, and I could kick myself for not being there. If you’re there, digging it in person as I type this from behind my lonely little MacBook, I hate you.
Among the many amazing things at NextFest today: Sir Richard Branson unveiled the concept interior for SpaceShipTwo, the Virgin Galactic spaceliners on which passengers will soon be able to space-vacay with cushy intergalactic recliner seats and lots of big windows looking out on the great beyond.
“It won’t be much different than this,” Branson told reporters here at Wired Magazine’s NextFest forum. “It’s strange to think that in 12 months we’ll be unveiling the actual plane, and then test flights will commence right after that.”
Virgin Galactic’s spaceliners will be specially-outfitted SpaceShipTwo vehicles built by Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites and veteran aerospace designer Burt Rutan. The new spacecraft, designed specifically for space tourism, will be three times the size of Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for privately-developed piloted spacecraft capable of reaching suborbital space twice in two weeks.
Link to Space.com story.
Image: Mock-up interior of SpaceShipTwo. Michael Soluri, for SPACE.com