SpaceShipTwo is what the passengers will actually ride in, and White Knight Two is the launch vehicle that carries it to a high altitude before releasing the rocket. (It takes less energy to launch from 50,000 feet than from the ground). The design is a little bit different than the initial SpaceShipOne and White Knight One. Both are all carbon-composite vehicles, and are designed with an open architecture so that in the future other companies can use it as a foundation to create space vehicles for unmanned missions. White Knight Two is a double-hulled launch plane with four engines from Pratt & Whitney.
Intial flight price: $200,000. To which Branson says:
Within five years of launching, we hope that price will come down dramatically. We accept that $200,00, even though the dollar is not worth much anymore, is still too expensive for the majority of people.
Techcrunch provides a brief history lesson, “a trans-Atlantic flight in 1939 between New York and England cost the equivalent of $47,000 in today’s dollars. That was one-way and coach.”
So the future of space travel is heading in a direction anyways.
(via buzzfeed, techcrunch )
