Spot on A WEEK At the rear of VIRGIN GALACTIC Prepared Diary When ITS Youthful ROCKET-POWERED Hard Leakage, THE Trailer SPACEFLIGHT Group ANNOUNCED THAT IT IS HIRING TWO Skilled PILOTS, In addition to A Primary NASA ASTRONAUT, WHO Will Insinuate Produce Have a break TOURISTS TO NEW HEIGHTS Arrogant Put in at.Retired U.S. Air Need Lt. Col. Michael "Sooch" Masucci and formerly NASA space shuttle boss Frederick "CJ" Sturckow request work out of Virgin Galactic's Mojave, Calif., place to deem flight training and testing via the suborbital SpaceShipTwo and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, the business understood in a defense. Sturckow is the first astronaut to be plucked from NASA's position by Virgin Galactic. He logged add-on than 1,200 hours in space over four shuttle missions, as well as STS-88, the first U.S. found to the Universal Have a break Residence in 1998. A retired U.S. Naval Building block colonel, Sturckow as well has 26 years of military flight experience under his thrash. [Photos: Virgin Galactic's 1st SpaceShipTwo Mechanical Leakage Hard] "CJ request without difficulty be missed by the Astronaut Tributary," understood Bob Behnken, chief of the Astronaut Tributary at NASA's Johnson Have a break Norm in Houston. "He was a bay model for main, and his shape as an aviator and shuttle boss led to the opulence of the shuttle and station missions. His experience in spaceflight and ground operations request be terrible to replace within our correlation. We noise be successful to his continued tolerance to the on purpose of spaceflight as he moves on to the arrival phase of his calling." Masucci, meanwhile, is an hardened test and battle pilot who has logged add-on than 9,000 flying hours in 70 different types of airplanes and gliders. A suborbital step aboard SpaceShipTwo promises to lease passengers to the hard shoulder of space and prop up for 200,000 a junction. The flights would not come out a widespread turn of Put in at, but they would entrust passengers to experience snatched periods of weightlessness and distinguish the planet from space. New Virgin Galactic pilot C.J. Sturckow, a four-time space shuttle astronaut, gets a resolute dousing after flying the company's WhiteKnightTwo mothership for the first time on May 9, 2013.CREDIT: Virgin Galactic Intellect widespread tubbiness image"Selection the Put in at from space is such a narrative and ingrained experience," Sturckow understood in a May 8 defense. "I'm excited to be a size of the Virgin Galactic let your hair down that is revolutionizing scope to space, making this time out a bring about for all." Virgin Galactic, founded by the British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, acceptable its latest, and 26th, test flight of SpaceShipTwo on April 29 at California's Mojave Air and Have a break Dockyard. The way was brought inside the air by the carter WhiteKnightTwo. At the rear of it was released, SpaceShipTwo went on to reach a crown even of 56,000 feet (17,000 meters) or else it flew prop up to Put in at. In a first, the space plane as well in flames its rocket engines all the way through the flight, which propelled the way to a supersonic speed of Mach 1.2. (Mach 1, the speed of rational, is about 762 mph, or 1,226 km/h, at sea mass.) Virgin Galactic officials chomp understood that SpaceShipTwo may perhaps transfer passengers as presently as this court or 2014. Mega than 500 citizens chomp signed up for the flights, which request be run out of Spaceport America in New Mexico after the testing phase is arranged.Major
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