Virgin Galactic shows off passenger spaceship cabin interior
Los Angeles: Passengers flying Virgin Galactic on suborbital trips into space will be able to see themselves floating weightless against the backdrop of the Earth below while 16 cameras document the adventures, the company said on Tuesday.
Highly detailed amenities to enhance the customer flight experience were shown in an online event revealing the cabin of the company’s rocket plane, a type called SpaceShipTwo, which is undergoing testing in preparation for commercial service.
There are a dozen windows for viewing, seats that will be customized for each flight’s six passengers and capable of adjusting for G forces, and, naturally, mood lighting.
Yet designer Jeremy Brown said the passengers’ most lasting impression may come from a large mirror at the rear of the cabin. We think that there’s a real memory burn that customers are going to have when they see that analog reflection of themselves in the back of the cabin, seeing themselves floating freely in space … that very personal interaction that they’ll have with the experience, he said.
Virgin Galactic was founded by British billionaire Richard Branson after the prize-winning flights of the experimental SpaceShipOne in 2004. Branson plans to be the first passenger when commercial flights begin.
Like its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo is a rocket plane that is slung beneath a special jet airplane and released at high altitude. After a moment of free fall, the two pilots ignite the rocket and the craft pitches up and accelerates vertically at supersonic speed.
The rocket shuts down but momentum carries the craft into the lower reaches of space where it flips upside down so that the windows on the roof of the cabin give a view of the Earth far below.
The passengers, clad in space suits designed by the Under Armour company, will be able to leave their seats and float about the cabin, using handholds tested by chief astronaut trainer Beth Moses during Virgin Galactic’s second flight into space last year.
SpaceShipTwo was developed at Virgin Galactic facilities in Mojave, California, and will operate commercially from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico, where passengers will undergo several days of training before their flights.
George Whitesides, the former longtime company CEO who is now its chief space officer, said upcoming test flights will include four crew members playing the role of passengers. Whitesides, who will now focus on future technology, recently handed the CEO role to Michael Colglazier, a former president and managing director of Disney Parks International. (AP)
Racist? French cafe pulls ‘African,’ ‘Chinese’ ice creams
Paris: The African” ice cream dessert was topped by a chocolate-covered meringue ball decorated with thick red lips. The Chinese lemon sorbet had a yellow meringue head, with thinly drawn eyes.
A cafe on France’s Cote d’Azur is now pulling both desserts from its menu, responding to accusations of racism.
A July 20 tweet calling for a boycott of Le Poussin Bleu (The Blue Chick) in Saint-Rapha l for its racist ice creams had by Tuesday got tens of thousands of likes and RTs.
In a response on Facebook titled the African and the Chinese struck down by social networks, the caf owners said they were expunging the ice creams from their menu after this storm of violence and insults.
The ice creams were already on the menu when the current owners in 1986 took over the caf opened in 1947.
We are not ‘racist.’ We respect everyone! they wrote in their Facebook post.
Naively, we kept these ice creams as they were, without any bad thoughts. They surely date from the colonial era but past history has made the France of today.”
These ice creams have given pleasure to many generations of families of different origins, the owners added. If they have bothered a few people recently we are sorry. (AP)