Virgin Galactic's first commercial spaceship to test-fly this year

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, is planning to test-fly its first spaceship beyond the Earth's atmosphere this year, with commercial suborbital passenger service to follow in 2013 or 2014, company officials have announced. Nearly 500 customers have signed up for rides on SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot spaceship being built and tested by Scaled Composites, an aerospace company founded by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and now owned by Northrop Grumman. The suborbital flights, which cost 200,000 dollars per person, are designed to reach an altitude of about 68 miles, giving fliers a few minutes to experience zero gravity and glimpse Earth set against the blackness of space. "In the suborbital area, there are a lot of things to be done. This is an area that has been essentially absent for about four decades," the Telegraph quoted Neil Armstrong, who was a test pilot for the 1960s-era X-15 research plane before becoming a U.S. astronaut and commander of the  first  mission

to land on the moon, as saying. "There's a lot of opportunities," Armstrong told about 400 people attending the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Palo Alto, California. "I certainly hope that some of the new approaches will prove to be profitable and useful," he said. Virgin Galactic is the most visible of a handful of companies developing spaceships for tourism, research, educational and business purposes. SpaceShipTwo, the first of Virgin's planned five-ship fleet, has completed 31 atmospheric test flights – 15 attached to its carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo, and 16 glide tests, William Pomerantz, Virgin Galactic's vice president of special projects, said in a speech to the conference. Preparations for the ship's first rocket-powered flights are under way at Scaled Composites' Mojave, Calif., plant and expected to take place this year. "We hope to have the rocket motor in the spaceship later this year and start powered flight testing," Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay told the conference. "We would like to be the first to do this, but we're not in a race with anyone. This is not a Cold War-era space race," he added. Pomerantz told reporters later "We flow pretty quickly from first powered flight tofirst flight to space and then it's not terribly long from there until we have our first commercial flight to space." He said passenger service could begin in 2013 or 2014, depending on the results of the test flights and other factors, such as pilot training. Source: Ananta-Tec

Read More........→October 27, 2012

Do yetis exist after all?

Fresh footprints of a yeti have recently been found in the region of Gornaya Shoria in Siberia. This picturesque mountainous area is sometimes dubbed a “Siberian Switzerland”. A group of Italian scientists plans to visit Gornaya Shoria to look for more evidence that yetis really exist. This is not the first time that footprints which are believed to belong to these mysterious creatures have been discovered in this region. Some local residents claim that they have seen yetis with their own eyes. As a rule, yetis’ footprints are
found in the vicinity of the Azasskaya Cave and the Karatag Mountain. Yetis’ footprints are bigger than those of humans – they can reach 45 cms in length. That’s why yetis are also called “Bigfoot”. Gornaya Shoria has already become to be associated with claims of evidence that yetis exist. Every year, the tourist season in the local mountains opens with a celebration of ‘Yeti Day’, when tourists can find yeti souvenirs all over Shoria. Local hunters call Bigfoot “the spirit of the taiga”. In October 2011, a delegation of US, Canadian, Swedish, Estonian and Russian scientists explored the Azasskaya Cave. They didn’t find a yeti, but discovered a large footprint and small samples of hair inside it. The hairs were up to 8 cms long, curly, gray along the whole length except at the root which was black. The hair samples were taken to St. Petersburg and thoroughly examined at a local zoological institute. It turned out that they were identical to which was thought to be yetis’ hairs found earlier in California in the US, as well as outside St. Petersburg and in the Ural Mountains in Russia. One of the members of the expedition, a member of St. Petersburg and New York academies, Valentin Sapunov says: “These hairs are very similar to the other hairs which were found in 4 different parts of the world and are believed to be yeti hairs. The results from the tests conducted by the scientists indicate that these hair samples are very likely to belong to creatures of one and the same species. A scientific mistake would be highly unlikely.” However, only genetic testing can prove or disprove that yetis are related to the Homo Sapiens. An attempt made by Russian scientists to examine the DNA of yetis’ hair samples found near St. Petersburg and in the Urals was unsuccessful due to lack of appropriate equipment. But when US scientists announced that the results of their testing apparently proved that the DNA of the yeti’s hair from California was in no way different to that of the Homo Sapiens, very few people actually believed them. At present, Russian scientists are trying to extract DNA from the hair samples believed to be those of a yeti, which were found in the Azasskaya Cave. In the meantime, a well-known genetic Professor Bryan Sykes from Oxford University is concluding his own tests. Using equipment of the latest generation, Professor Sykes is trying to prove that yetis really exist. As a sample, he uses what is believed to be yeti remains, which are held at the Museum of Zoology in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Professor Sykes has posted a request on the museum website, which asks everyone, who may possess what they believe to be yeti remains, to send them to Professor Sykes for testing. He promises to announce the results of the testing in December. Source: Voice of Russia, Source: Image

Read More........→October 21, 2012