Richard Branson presented Virgin Galactic's new spaceship called "Unity" in California's Mohave desert. It is the successor of the SpaceShipTwo Enterprise, in which one pilot was killed when it broke apart in 2014.
The Unity will be carried to an altitude of about 16000 metres by a mother ship. Then it will fire its thrusters and carry passengers to the border of space, about 100 km above the surface of the Earth. After experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness the spacecraft will return to Earth and glide to a landing on a runway.
Virgin Galactic's new spacecraft will have two pilots and carry 6 passengers. The cost of a single flight is expected to be around $250,000. Up to now, hundreds of future space tourists have signed up for the first flight. Among the first people to travel on the new craft will be British physicist Stephen Hawking.
Virgin Galactic is in competition with other companies in the commercial space flight business. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, recently fired an unmanned spaceship into space and successfully landed a rocket on Earth.
For a long time, Richard Branson has been dreaming of sending passengers into space. Virgin Galactic has stated that it must test the new vehicle extensively before tourists can be sent to space safely.
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